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Two days at home, we were lying in bed not really talking or touching when James reached for me. He caressed my breast. I feigned a headache. Again he approached me later in the week wanting to make love and I told him I was too tired. He remained patient. I still had not told him that our marriage was over. I had not changed my mind but this altered behavior of his was making me a crazy woman.
There was no doubt in my mind that I no longer loved him but the guilt of my affair was overwhelming me. I felt even more trapped in the marriage. James and I were not meant to be together. I knew that now. I had known that for a long time. We had different values and morals. Our lives were brought together by fate but we should never have married.
I had not really dated anyone seriously in the years that I was raising Keegan. My sisters had fixed me up with different men. Issy’s husband had friends at work that he brought home to introduce to me. They took me out once or twice but no one seemed to last long. It was difficult being a single mother and dating. Some men took one look at Kat and ran like hell. Some men aren’t emotionally equipped to take the task of raising another man’s child. There are some who think that they are but aren’t. I had dated them all.
Then, James walked into the office where I worked. James had never been married. He had never had children of his own. He didn’t care that I was a single mother. He was charming and handsome. He spent money like it grew on trees. James was smooth. He had won me over easily. I was his possession. I could see that now.
Gradually he started criticizing the way that I raised Keegan, which was to treat her as a person with an opinion. He didn’t understand why I raised Kat the way that I did because he had not been with her since a baby as I had. He had always accused me of indulging her. I had tried to explain to him that he could not possibly understand never having children of his own. There was a time when I thought having a child with him would make things better because then he would understand. Now, I was grateful that we had not been able to conceive.
One night while we were lying in bed I curiously asked him the question. His answer would not change how I felt about him but I was interested in knowing how he would respond.
“James, what attracted you to me?”
He was reading a magazine and when I said those words he shrugged his shoulders noncommittally then he looked at me as if I were nutty.
“James, I’m serious. Why did you fall in love with me?” I asked him again.
“Why does any man fall in love with a woman? How should I know? Can I read my magazine now?” He asked averting his eyes towards the magazine in his hands and away from me.
I was disappointed but not surprised. “James what is the color of my eyes?” I asked seriously.
“Brown,” he answered flippantly without taking his eyes from the words on the page in front of him.
Kerry would have found a way to tell me the color of my eyes without sounding so bored, I thought to myself sadly.
“What is my favorite color?”
“Blue,” he said scowling at me. “Where is this going?”
I was bothering him I knew but couldn’t stop now. “Humor me will you?” I asked. “What is my favorite movie?”
“How the hell should I know,” he snapped dropping the magazine in his lap. He was growing angrier with me with every question and I didn’t know why? “What is your problem?” He asked.
Ignoring his question, I informed him, “Gone with the Wind is my favorite movie. It is the only movie I own and I have that collection of figurines that my parents bought for me when I turned twenty-five. We’ve discussed this before. I would think that it was an easy guess for my husband. What is my favorite book?” I asked.
“That’s easy…anything written by Steven King.” He was so smug with this response.
“Wrong. I do like to read Steven King novels but my favorite book is Of Mice and Men. Remember on our first date we discussed how that particular story is always a requirement of freshmen English in college? You hated it.”
“You never went to college,” James declared trying to focus on his magazine once again.
I was making him uncomfortable with these questions showing him how little he really knew me.
“I read it in high school,” I explained unnecessarily. “Do you really love me?” I asked him seriously wanting him to say no but expecting he would say yes.
“Will you stop this insecure bullshit already? I’m going to bed,” he snapped tossing his magazine in the nightstand drawer and turning his bac
k on me.
The perfunctory good night kiss was forgotten not that I wanted it anyway. I stared at his back for a moment and then turned onto my side to try to go to sleep myself but the thoughts were tumbling about in my head. Tossing and turning I listened to my husband snore thinking that he was more of a stranger than I had realized. He was selfish and arrogant. He wasn’t interested in anything that I was. Finally I slept around two or three in the morning.
When I woke the next morning I thought I should tell him it was over but he was busy getting ready for work. Hovering about him the words, “I want a divorce” were on the tip of my tongue. I kept getting underfoot.
“What the hell is your problem?” He finally snapped at me shoving me roughly aside. I stumbled but caught myself on the edge of the dresser.
“Nothing,” I replied despondently.
Then, I left the room. Somehow, I had to find the courage to tell him that I wanted to divorce him.
