I worked two jobs to help fulfill my husband’s dream of becoming a doctor — at his graduation, he handed me divorce papers, but just as I was walking away, one of his classmates said, “Before you leave, there’s something you should know.”

You could tell with those ones.

With others—” He paused.

“The door stays open.

They just have to decide to walk back through it.”

I folded the sheet and put it in my bag.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Come back when you have your assessment results,” he said.

“We’ll go from there.”

I walked out of the building into the afternoon.

The campus was full of students moving between classes, backpacks and coffee cups, the ordinary busy noise of a place where people were becoming things.

I stood on the steps for a moment.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Ruth: *Final documents ready for your signature.

Anytime this week.*

I replied: *Tomorrow morning.*

Then I put the phone in my pocket and walked down the steps into the afternoon.

Three years.

Thirty-four either way.

I had wasted enough time standing still.

—

Some debts can never fully be repaid — not the ones measured in money, and not the ones measured in years.