\u201cHoney, don\u2019t you need to get up now? You\u2019re going to be late. Hon?\u201d I\u2019d shake his shoulder gently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat? Huh? No, I\u2019m going in later today, it\u2019s okay,\u201d pulling the covers tight under his chin as if to ward me off.<\/p>\n
I pulled my hand away, a wave of anger shooting through me. If this was<\/em> true, which I doubted, why the hell didn\u2019t he get up and help me get Molly ready for school rather than leave everything to me? I suspected he either wanted to be – or already had been – fired. My suspicions would be corroborated by angry messages from his boss left on the answering machine, wondering where he was.<\/p>\n After I\u2019d left the house for work, I obsessed over the image of him still in bed and dialed the house, telling myself maybe he just needed another wake-up. The phone rang and rang until the answering machine picked up. \u201cHi! Just wondering if you\u2019ve left for work yet!\u201d I tried to leave a breezy message, hoping I sounded warm. Surely he was up and about ready to leave the house or had already left. One day, consumed with the image of him still asleep, I made up an excuse to leave work, frantically driving home.<\/p>\n Gripping the steering wheel, I imagined him on this same highway, now speeding to work. As I pulled around the corner to our house, I hoped for an empty driveway. His car had not moved. My heart sank. Willing him to be in the kitchen, freshly showered and on his way out, I opened the house door. In the kitchen sink, my lone coffee mug was where I\u2019d left it. I visualized him just at the top of the stairs pulling his tie on. But the house was quiet. I abandoned my magical thinking and climbed the stairs to our bedroom. He lay stretched out straight, snoring. I exploded.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the hell? What\u2019s wrong with you? Why are you still in bed? It\u2019s going to be almost noon by the time you get to work or aren\u2019t you going to bother today?\u201d<\/p>\n I shook his shoulder, my voice cracking as I yelled. His eyes peeled open slowly, like an ancient tortoise coming out of a stupor.<\/p>\n \u201cNeil \u2013 tell me what\u2019s going on! Why are you doing this? What the fuck? Please, you can\u2019t get fired again. What\u2019s wrong? You need to tell me if something\u2019s going on!\u201d I pleaded stepping a few feet away from the bed, hugging my arms across my chest in an effort to control my shaking.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at you. You\u2019re like a madwoman! You\u2019re like a bloody witch! What\u2019s wrong with you?<\/em>\u201d He yelled.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to know what\u2019s going on, Neil? Please, tell me what\u2019s wrong? I\u2019m scared. This sleeping is crazy. I don\u2019t even think you remember Molly and I exist most of the time. How are we supposed to keep living here if you keep losing your job? \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll get another fucking job. I always do, you know I do! Why do you have to be such a bloody nag? Stop trying to control me! I\u2019m getting up now, are you happy?\u201d<\/p>\n He flounced the sheets and pushed his pillow, glaring at me as he shifted up on an elbow. My fingernails dug into my damp palms rather than punch or throw something at him. Gulping back an ugly sob, I ran out of the room, down the stairs, slamming the house door. The tires screeched as I pulled out of the driveway but I slowed on the back roads, allowing myself to scream and weep all the way back to the store. I pulled into the parking lot and peered at my bloated face in the rearview mirror, brushed my hair, took a few deep breaths and went into the bookstore, cutting through the emptier stacks to my office, stepping around a woman crouched in front of Romance.<\/p>\n For a few weeks after each blowup, we\u2019d enter a \u2018honeymoon\u2019 phase and Neil would be the kind, funny, delightful mate I had committed to in war-torn Sarajevo. There were mornings when he sprang out of bed before me, bringing a cup of coffee delivered with a kiss. Later he\u2019d serve up one of his special dinners of \u2018Sausage and Mash\u2019 or \u2018Shepard\u2019s Pie\u2019, the table decorated with flowers and lit by candles. In bed, he held me close, promising his undying love, swearing how much he needed us in his life. Tucked into his arms, encircled by his familiar warmth, I pretended to believe all was well. And for a while, it would be.<\/p>\n Years<\/em>. Not days, weeks or months – years<\/em> went by marked by bad episodes followed by sweetness. But each season, my crazy hopes for normality were marred by bitter disappointments and insanity. I tried to keep my focus on Molly as she grew from toddler to a beautiful, animated, little girl. I resented all the time and energy spent worrying about Neil\u2019s erratic behavior. Why couldn\u2019t we enjoy our daughter\u2019s precious years together? She was growing up so quickly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Neil had no trouble getting jobs but could not seem to keep one for more than six months at a time. In the few years we\u2019d been in Connecticut he worked at almost every car dealership within a ten-mile radius. I always knew when the end of a run was imminent. He would call … Continue reading Chapter 17<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPzTS-1Cy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6240,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234\/revisions\/6240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/triciatierneyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/img_3133.jpg?resize=660%2C495\")
<\/p>\n