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Infidelity
Fire-Walking
Wayne had proposed marriage, and she had told him she wasn’t sure she wanted to be married right now. Actually, all she wanted was a long, hot shower. She wondered how this man could ever have made her think her heart had opened as never before. It was becoming something of an ordeal just to be polite.
November 1996A Failed Divorce
Living beyond my means in a Manhattan apartment with two babies, no income, and a philandering husband, I suddenly found myself as vulnerable and dependent as any traditional suburban housewife.
May 1996Bleeding Dharma
She comes in at 4:30 and spends half an hour in the bathroom without speaking to you, and you know why she is washing. She walks upstairs to the bedroom and announces that she has found someone else, she has just spent the night with him, and she is moving out. She blames you.
May 1996The Birthday Present
The last time I’d seen Madame was right after I returned from Hazelden, a fancy drug- and alcohol-rehab center in Minnesota. It was now a year later, and my birthday, but considering the circumstances you’d think I wouldn’t have to remind her not to buy me wine.
May 1996The Empty House Of My Brokenhearted Father
It was 4 A.M. and I was walking home from the bar with another man’s wife. I’d been in love with her since she was a little girl, but my good friend had snapped her up very young. I never had a chance.
February 1996School For Love
Derek was unfaithful Thursday. He told me today. It hurts. OK, they didn’t do it — just kissed. But he asked her to go to bed and she refused (because he was married). But still, it could have happened. In a sense, it did happen. Is it just a cultural constraint that makes me so bothered by it? Am I just the defective offspring of a defective culture?
November 1994
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