For years I would call him and ask where he was when he didn't come home. Most of the time I didn't get any answer. I'm not sure why I called. I guess part of it was because I was so lonely that I wanted someone - anyone - there with me and part of it was because I wanted him there to take some of the responsibility that he'd left me with. No, most of the time he didn't answer, but he'd come home at three or four in the morning. In the beginning I'd start in on him as soon as he came through the door about where he was or what he was doing. I learned later on that you can't argue with a drunk. After that, my feelings toward his excursions changed. Instead of wishing he'd come home, I started wishing he'd come home in a body bag. I hoped and sometimes even prayed that the miserable son of a bitch would crash his truck in a drunken rage and kill himself. Sometimes I even fantasized about it. About how I would wait by the phone for The Call and then tell them to bury the motherfucker wherever they found him because I wanted no part of it. Nobody would miss his sorry ass anyway. Just throw some dirt over him. Who would give a shit? Good riddance.
But in my heart, I knew that wasn't me. As bad as he'd treated me over the years and as much as he'd done to me, I wanted nothing bad for him. I'm a firm believer in Karma, see. For 'good people'. I don't think Karma ever comes back on 'bad people', but I damn sure believe it comes back on the 'good ones' and I didn't want his blood on mine by wishing such thoughts. So I just started removing myself from him. I just started seeing him as a roommate. Us being just two people living in the same house, not a married couple. That wasn't a stretch. That's all we really were. It was another one of those subconscious self defense mechanisms. If he was 'just a guy', what he did or didn't do couldn't hurt me. Since I wasn't seeing him as a husband, his blatant disregard for me could be overlooked more easily.
You know what - I was wrong.
