Kicked out

Okay, things have changed...

Saturday afternoon I realized she wasn't in the house. I checked with the neighbors and no one had seen her. I decided the best thing to do was wait--because if I went looking for her and she came back, we'd miss each other. It wasn't long before a policeman showed up at the door, with May behind him. He said she had walked to the 7-Eleven and told them that she was being followed and had left a two-year-old at home alone.

Saturday night she told me that she didn't know who I was, or where I came from, but there was no food in the house so she thought it was time for me to move on. I told her I would need some time. I thought maybe this would all blow over.

Sunday morning she was standing at the foot of my bed when I woke up, and she was angry. "I don't know who you are, or what you're doing here, but I can't go on like this," she said. "This has been my house forever and I don't know why you think you can just keep staying here. So you're going to have to leave."

At that point, I had a brilliant idea. I took her downstairs and showed her a picture--her favorite--of me and her laughing in the backyard of our farm house in Missouri. I said, "This was taken at the farm." She snapped, "I know what that is." I took that as a good sign. I told her that I was the guy in the picture. I pulled out the photo album and showed her pictures of me back through our 30 years of marriage. It was my Perry Mason moment. She said, "I see all these pictures ... and they don't do a thing for me. I want you to leave."

Yesterday I had a meeting in Chicago and she didn't ask when I'd be back, as she usually does. I took my time, and got back about 5 o'clock. She was kind of friendly. We made it through the evening without any demands that I leave. I thought maybe we were done with that one.

But just now she came to me at my desk, and in a friendly sort of way, she said, "Do you know when you'll be leaving?" I said I didn't know. She calmly said, "It doesn't have to be today. But I've got babies coming, and I need the room." I asked her when the babies would be arriving. She said, "I don't know, but the weather's changing, and this time of year, they just bundle all up and the house gets really full."

As I've been writing this, she has come back twice to ask when I'll be leaving. I told her I'm not sure but as soon as I find out, she'll be the first one to know.