If I had the courage....

So I'm banging on the computer, knowing my kids want to go home, but I don't. They have to wait on me unless they want to take the bus.

The one I'm really 'fixing' is Dahlia.
And I shouldn't be doing it.

But I'm doing it.

I'm sitting in my husband, Don's, office. He tries to talk to me in his sweet voice.
I don't even look at him any more. He's hideous to my eyes.
What did I see in him?
Money?
Position?
Okay, he wasn't that grotesque when we married; he being thirty six and me being eighteen and I think that was his prime...

But he's sixty now.

He is overweight, hideous warts on his face, his hair thin and grey. He is repulsive to me. I hate to look at him.

Don is taking our youngest child, Joey, to the park. He's trying to bond.
Isn't that nice?

Our eldest son is over there. I doubt Don has spoken to Jeff as a father would for the past twenty years.

Fred, who is pacing, tired from his long High School Day, never even got two years of attention.

Twenty years ago Don couldn't keep his pants on.
He had lovers all over the City.
I was home with two small boys, pregnant with their sister, Mandy.

Twenty years ago, a life time; I was a twenty two year old middle aged woman.

A woman who could not leave.

Dahlia had been married to Bryan. He was just like Don, but there was one small difference.

Dahlia had married him when she was twenty two and he was twenty three. And the first time Bryan didn't come home at night, Dahlia sent their two sons to his mother and went on with her life without him.

I knew Bryan well, he had been Don's Best Friend. Dahlia had long left him when I came into the story.

I couldn't believe Dahlia had been in school with Don, for she looked ten years younger.

She looked....

I glance at her sitting on the chair waiting for me to stop banging on the computer.

Dahlai has no transportation. I'm to drive her home. Isn't that nice?
That is why she is waiting for me to go to the car,. Waiting for me to drive to Mandy's school and collect her.

I know her last class was over thirty minutes ago. I should have left forty minutes ago. But I didn't.

I didn't and could blame Dahlia....

I know Bryan's version of the story.
Know that they divorced before I met Don.
I know that Dahlia did have a lover at some point between then and now. But Dahlia is a size one, and I can bearly squeeze into a nine.

Dahlia is usually happy and relaxed, and I am usually angry and tired.

She works in the same building as Don and since her accident isn't driving, so that's why I'm the chauffeur.

I like her, don't get me wrong. I do like her. But I also hate her.
Hate her for looking younger and happier than I do.
Hate her for having the courage to have walked out of a bad marriage.

I hate her because she is everything I am not, and never will be.

I am banging on the computer, to make Dahlia feel uncomfortable. To make her wait for me.

Eventually I stop, turn...

Dahlia isn't there.

"Where'd she go?"" I ask my kids.

"She left about twenty minutes ago, taking a cab."

I look away, feeling stupider and more evil than ever.