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Show THE MALEVOLENT SEVEN 2 I got out of bed and went upstairs to my office. It is the one room in the house that, is all mine. He never shared that room with me. In fact, he often seemed to resent the time I spent there and the satisfaction I found in my work there. I laid a bedroll out on the floor and went to sleep. I had kept Loneliness at bay for one night. And I quickly learned that that was how I had to face the coming months: one day, one night at a time. That was all I could handle. I dreaded being alone, especially at night. During marriage, every time my husband was away on a business trip I suffered with nightmares of robbers and rapists breaking into my house because I didn't have a man to protect me. Now life without a man in the house was more than a business trip. I put dead-bolt locks on the doors and moved into the bedroom next to my daughter's I gave our dog the run of the house at night. The nightmares stopped. I moved all the furniture around in the house and changed the purposes for which rooms were used. I couldn't afford to redecorate, but I had to put the ghosts to rest. There were still some very rough times. I missed him so much I could hardly stand it. I remembered all the good times we had together, forgetting the bad. I succumbed. I called him and made a lunch date. We talked and talked. He wanted to move back. I let him. That night he walked in with four loads of dirty clothes. Later, as we lay in bed, he told me how upset he had been. He had gotten drunk often during the last month. He had gotten into fights, a car accident, and a $2000 debt. "By the way," he said, "I have to go back to the city in the morning. I've met this friend and I promised to spend the weekend with her and her boy. I'll be back Monday after work." |