CHAPTER 2:
Finally. It had been such a long day and the kids had been crazy tonight. It was like they had been caged all day. Stephanie wasn’t the type of mother who yelled at her kids, but tonight she couldn’t help it. She hated herself for being so harsh. She knew that the kids measured her reactions against that of their father and while she had custody of them, she always worried that Scott would make a move to take the kids away.
At this point in her life she couldn’t handle anything more than working and raising the kids. It was so difficult being single again. Since the day she had signed the divorce papers she had felt regret for doing so. Scott was a good father, a hard worker and a good provider. “Why the hell did you have to cheat on me,” she thought for the thousandth time since she had discovered his infidelity.
Stephanie knew that she had done the right thing divorcing Scott even though she wrestled with it everyday. She imagined what life be like right now had she forgiven him and taken him back. Sure, he slept with a skank from the gym, but when he left he took so much with him. The kids were always asking her why daddy had to leave. The bills continued to pile up and the worst was that the house was so quiet at night. When Scott was around the television would be on, or he could be heard out in the garage, working on some unfinished project, singing to the music on the local classic rock station.
Now the house was silent, the kids having had gone to bed an hour earlier and Stephanie was heartbroken. She went into her bedroom and sat down on the bed and cried. It was so hard being alone. She needed someone, someone to help with the bills, someone to help fix dinner, someone to give the kids a bath at night. It just wasn’t fair; she had been a good wife, and a good mother. She listened, just like Dr. Phil said you needed to in a successful relationship. She was always there for Scott and always provided (or so she assumed) for every one of Scott’s needs. Yet he had looked for another woman to provide the one thing Stephanie had made sure she was attentive to and that was the thing that bothered her the most. She truly felt that she had failed as her most basic “wifely duty” and for that she had lost her husband of eight years.
Stephanie cried for about ten minutes, throwing herself down onto the bed, her head buried in her pillow. She allowed herself to complete what she called her “sob cycle” before she started to feel better. It always helped to let it out. Now she felt exhausted and was ready to sleep.
There was no way she was going to crawl between the sheets before taking a shower. Working in that factory all day had covered her with the stink of oil and coolant and while her body begged for her to rest, she wasn’t going to before cleaning up and brushing her teeth.
Stephanie stood up and started undressing, throwing her dirty jeans, blouse and underclothes in a pile beside her bed. She would wear the jeans again tomorrow and sort through the rest of the dirty clothes in the morning. She didn’t have the energy right now.
She went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As she waited for the water to warm up she looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t help but think how old she looked now. At only twenty-nine years old these last few months had really worn on her. Quitting her part time job at the Dr. Warren’s dentist office and getting a full time factory job hadn’t helped, but at fourteen dollars an hour and a guaranteed forty hours a week made it a no brainer.
Her brown hair was matted and oily, and a small grease smudge started at her right ear and ran down her jaw line to the edge of her chin. She wondered if anybody would ever find her attractive again.
She climbed into the shower and let the hot water cascade over her body. It felt so good on her and allowed her to relax. Closing her eyes she simply breathed deep and forced her mind to clear of all her worries.
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