NON-FICTION

Addiction Left My Husband Without a Home

How did it come to this?

Claire Franky
4 min readSep 19, 2024

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Keys on a table.
Photo by Filip Szalbot on Unsplash

I shook my head and sighed as I took in the information on the screen, feeling exasperated by his latest behavior. Being surprised wasn’t something that happened anymore. I’d seen enough to know that anything could and would happen.

But then my eyes landed on a word I didn’t expect. And my stomach knotted.

“Homeless.”

Five years earlier.

“Where am I putting this?”

I looked over my shoulder to see my husband holding a large, cardboard box.

“Is it our donations?” I asked. “They need to go to Lucy.”

He nodded and strode across the church to unpack the box of coats, gloves, and hats.

“So, how was the honeymoon?” My friend and coworker, Deb asked.

“Great,” I replied as I pulled a large, red sweater from a box and began folding it. “We’re sick of airports, though.”

“How many flights did you take?” Deb asked as she pretended to whip me with a belt.

“Settle down, we’re in a church. Save the whipping for later,” I joked.

Deb snorted.

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Claire Franky
Claire Franky

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