The Luggage

My red Samsonite suitcase was the first luggage with wheels. One could drag it instead of carrying it, so arms and backs wouldn't hurt for days after a trip. When I bought it, I had no idea that this suitcase would be a major player in changing my life.

I had just returned home after six months in the States, where I had worked hard to spread the seeds of a bright future, should I have chosen to return.

But I had left a husband behind, someone who was determined to keep me close and never again let me go. Not for another month, or another day. The invisible tag that bound me to him pulled, demanding that I return. After all I had grown up in a good family, and good people keep their oaths.

"You mean so much to me," he said. So much that you found yourself a girlfriend right under my nose. So much that you played as if you weren't married. Did you think I wouldn't find out?

"I have a present. I bought it for you because I love you." He handed me a beautiful, hand-chiseled gold chain. Ah, a leash. How appropriate. The thing must have cost a fortune we didn't have. He did things like that. My dad had warned me. I should have listened.

Then he stole my passport. Now I really didn't want to continue a relationship with someone who didn't trust me. Because if he didn't trust me, that meant that he was capable of manipulations of which I did not want to be the target.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. What to do? I had been offered a good job here, too. But I knew I would have been miserable.

One day, he woke up and got out of bed. I stared at his nice-looking back, at the line the pants of his pajama traced on his bare skin. He was handsome. And I had loved him. If he just hadn't played around. And taken away my passport, like a father punishing his child by taking away his toy.

When he left, I said to him, "see you later," then looked at my Samsonite. It was begging to be filled.

First things first. I couldn't leave without my passport. Where could he have hid it?

After scavenging all over, I remembered that he liked to place things under the bed, in a wooden box. And sure enough, there it was. What a relief.

My Samsonite opened wide, like the smile of a kid that has found a jar of candies. I filled it with things I couldn't part with, books. The bus stop was right in front of my house. I took comfort in its handle as I dragged my Samsonite on the bus heading for the train station. The train took me directly to the airport. The plane took me to the only place where I felt at home, the United States of America.