The day I brought Nova home - so tiny in her carrier - I was smitten. When we met at the shelter she came straight to me and settled herself against my chest and didn’t want to let go. I knew I had been chosen and something special had happened - that we had a rare connection that had the power to brighten one’s world, even in the darkest of times. Sadly, for both of us, there were dark times ahead. Very dark times.

I did my best to protect her, to keep her away from the worst of it, but as time passed, all I could do was try my hardest to escape. And so I wrote. I wrote The Lost Valor of Love driven by the desperate hope I might get a lucrative book deal that would give me the agency to escape my domestic situation where I was kept in a very small space to exist within extreme boundaries of isolation and coercive control.

There was a lot of interest in the book I put up on Wattpad who took me in as one of their talented writers and fielded interest for my book. When Alibaba made a bid for the audio rights, my hopes reached their peak that the gates of my imprisonment would be unlocked. But with the kind of cruel fate one usually finds in fiction, the deal fell through after months of waiting when the leadership changed and the new CEO ditched every deal the previous one had on the table. That was a very hard day. But Nova, as always, was there to comfort me, to lick my nose and keep me grateful. Instead of giving up, I kept writing and wrote and published the sequel to The Lost Valor of Love in under eight months. It was while I was in the midst of writing the final book of the series, The Rise of the Goddess that my imprisonment came to a rapid end, but not in the way I had hoped for.

On Midsommer Day, June 21, 2019, while I was in the shower, my husband left me (I later found out it was for another woman), and just like that I was alone. While there were many benefits to this unexpected development, I was also keely aware how precarious my living situation had become since my husband owned everything in his name, even my mobile phone number. All the utilities were in his name, and of course the house. I found myself confronted by my worst nightmare. He took my car on a legal technicality, and left me stranded with a sick cat that needed veterinary care, then he demanded an exorbitant amount of rent to live in a house that cost almost nothing for its mortgage, money I offered to pay and was refused.

Meanwhile, the first wave of COVID-19 was in full effect. The world sunk into the silence of a global lockdown. As my personal situation went from bad to worse, I asked my best friend if I could move into her house in the UK to weather the asset settlement (we were already divorced on paper, in Sweden they deal with the assets after the divorce if they are contested).

Normally when couples divorce in Sweden, because of the no-fault system, they usually agree to split their assets fairly 50/50 to avoid the insane costs of court, but my ex was in no mood to do things the way every one else did things. Instead, he submitted a bill to the court for the cost of having had me as his wife, even going so far as to detail the cost of food, electricity and water, and demanded I repay him thousands of Swedish kr in compensation. More and more bizarre demands were dumped into the court and as we rallied to deal with each battle, and even prove he was fabricating evidence with doctored documents in his favor, my legal bills grew and grew.

My best friend was happy for me to come to her, but the next hurdle was how to get out of the country with my three cats before we would be put onto the street in the middle of a global lockdown. I wasted an entire afternoon trying to book a flight to the UK. Never before had I seen such a thing, no flights at all from anywhere in Scandinavia flew to the UK. Neither did any boats transit to the UK.

The irony of my being trapped once more and unable to escape hounded me but I didn’t give up. Every day I monitored the news about COVID, and in the meantime searched for a place to rent until I could get out. It was a terrible time, there was nothing for me to rent. At least nothing I could afford. I was offered a place to stay in the women’s shelter, which might sound terrible, but in Sweden is practically luxurious. They had a new building with small studio apartments, and a floor where pets could be taken, but with a caveat, only one pet could come with me. The other two would have to be taken into foster care or be rehomed by me.

With nothing moving on the lockdown front, it seemed my chance to go to the UK with my three cats was turning into a pipe dream, so I did the unthinkable - I had to decide who I would keep and who I would give up. It was horrible. I cried very hard as I wrote to the veterinarian who knew of my plight and offered to try to help me find a foster home for my other two cats, Ninya and Neh’h. I knew it had to be Nova who I would take with me into the shelter because she was the closest to me, plus the other two were more active and wild and would not cope with the stress of being confined to a studio for an indeterminable period of time. Regardless, they were still my little ones who had been in my life since 2012 and 2013 and I was sick that a man who had the wealth and means to allow us to stay in the house until I could reasonably leave without lockdown restrictions could prevent this outcome. But no. Despite my desperate emails to my lawyer to intercede for them, there was no leeway coming from my ex’s side.

And then, a chink of light. The UK lifted the lockdown for flights. I contacted SAS to book the cats to fly in the cargo and was told, no, there could be no animal transport during COVID. I tried British Airways somehow believing maybe it was going to be OK with them. I was wrong. It was a full blown ban all over the world. I wanted to scream at hitting yet another brick wall.

Instead, I searched Google for other ways to get my cats out of Sweden. After hitting a dozen dead ends, I found an animal transport van from the UK - the only animal transport company that was functioning to the UK in COVID. I called them, fuelled with hope.

They said they would not be coming through Sweden until late July. Almost a month after the deadline for me to be on the street.

I did what any desperate cat mom would do. I booked them on the transport anyway, deciding I would figure out the rest later. Then I booked my flight out and called my friend to let her know we were on our way so long as the flights weren’t banned from landing in the UK again.

Then I called my lawyer and told him I might have a problem because I wasn’t going to be able to get out of the house on the arbitrary deadline laid on me and could I please stay those three weeks because I was definitely on my way out. He said to expect the worst, so I did.

The answer came back. I would be charged rent, 15,000kr for the three weeks that would be taken from me out of the court decision. It was a ridiculous sum and absolutely a case of profiteering but what could I do? I didn’t have the money but I stayed anyway and packed, terrified at any moment the electricity would be cut or the Internet would be disconnected, or the lock would be changed while I hurried out to buy food and my cats would be locked in the house and I would have no way to get to them. It was a tense three weeks, made worse by the fact that the animal transport was held back trying to get into Sweden from Finland because of COVID.

The days dwindled and my flight loomed. Still no animal transport. I had to get on my flight. I found a cattery and asked if they could help me. They were fantastic and looked after the cats for the four days after I left the country and handled their transition to the transport van.

And then, just like that, we were in England and together again, safe at last. It was an incredible feeling not to live in total fear, not to have the gnawing awareness that someone has total control over your life. And even though it was the hardest way out, I knew I had made the right decision to fight to the bitter end to keep my cats with me.

We stayed with my best friend until Sept 30, 2022 as I waited out the court case fight and decision on the divorce settlement, and made plans for my next steps. I lost little Neh’h in the spring of 2022, so that left Ninya and Nova to travel once more to their new home with me in Poland at the end of September.

Ninya’s story is covered in a previous post in this blog, which you can read here. But with Nova, things were much less complex. She’s a tiny little girl, and easily fit into the dimension and weight restrictions set by LOT Airlines for her to travel with me in the cabin. She was a great traveller and many other travellers commented on how calm she was in the airport as she looked around and watched the world go by, as if she knew everything was going to be alright.

On the flight, she had her own seat and the airline staff made a fuss of her. And once we arrived to the house, she left the carrier and explored with curious little meows discovering all the nice things waiting for her, and has been living in spoiled contentment ever since.

And so, here we are, settled at last in our lovely new home with a man who loves us all like crazy and after years of uncertainty, abuse, and trauma it is something like a miracle to me. At last everything I fought so hard for back in 2020 has come to fruition. I was told I would never be loved by anyone, and that I would end up in a ditch.

Unfortunately for my aggressor, neither of these predictions came true.