Join me during the month of April as I blog through the alphabet. My theme will be What’s In A Name. I will attempt to write up a short fictional character sketch beginning with a different letter of the alphabet each day. Remember that a place can also be a character.
Diane
This was one of the most difficult things she would ever have to do. She wasn’t protecting her husband, not really. It wasn’t that and now that it had gone on for months and months, she had to tell people. She wasn’t sure how she would do it but it had to be done. It had been so hard to manage on her own, with absolutely no help from anyone. It had to stop.
From the start of her marriage, from the very first argument, she had decided how she would handle these things. She had watched her siblings as they unloaded on their parents whenever they had problems with their spouses, even the tiniest of arguments. Then when things got better between them, their parents would still harbor that resentment against the spouses. She didn’t want that and so she had decided long ago that she would not discuss her marital problems, however minor or major, with anyone in her family. That’s what had set the scene for the past months but it was time to come clean.
When her husband of the past decade left her unexpectedly one early Sunday afternoon, it had been a shock. There had been no warnings. He just packed a duffel bag and was out the door. She thought he would be back. Soon. And so she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t want anyone, not her family or his or any of their friends, to know that he had left her for someone else. Diane even kept the truth from her kids, saying only that Daddy was taking a break to think about whether he wanted to live there anymore. She didn’t tell them there was someone else, a much younger woman.
The months went by and she kept making excuses for why he was missing all the holiday get togethers and for why they weren’t going on their normal vacations for the holiday or even for Spring break. As summer approached, some people might have suspected that there was a problem but no one had guessed the truth. Several of her friends asked if he might be critically ill. Did he have some disease? Cancer? Was that the cause of the dark circles under her eyes and the constant fatigue as she kept up with as many of the normal activities her children were involved in. You know, Scouts, soccer, gymnastics, art, all of those extra curriculars. It was all taking a toll on her and it was showing, much more than she had realized.
Finally, she decided that if she was asked out right, she would not deny it. And she figured it was time to make that phone call to her mom. She wasn’t sure how she would say it or if she would have the guts to tell her mother. Would she be blamed? Would everyone think it was her fault that her husband had gone off and looked for some kind of excitement elsewhere? Had it been her fault? Had she been too busy? Had she missed the signs?
Oh well, too late now. She had heard from the children who saw their father on weekends, that the girlfriend had moved in and that they were planning a Hawaiian vacation. So he wasn’t coming back. Not now. Not eight months into this hell. She needed help. She needed her friends and her family to understand that she needed their support.
It had to be done. Diane reached for the phone and dialed her mother’s phone number.
Wasted Days And Wasted Nights 