Amy left me for a while. She packed herself and the kids off to her mother's as soon as school ended for the summer. I think she has arranged to take a leave of absence from the hospital, so she must have been planning it for a while. I suspect that she has been planning this ever since Steve's wife showed her my Web page about her.
She never talked to me about leaving. For the last month, she has barely been talking to me at all. Instead, she left the following note:
|
Kevin:
I have to go away for a while. I do not know how to make you understand what you have done to me. Every time I try to talk to you about it, you brush me off and run back to your computer room. I am hoping that if I write it out in black and white, you will pay attention and understand. In my third year of university I was a virgin and intended to stay that way until I was married. I was going steady with a boy named Jack. We had been seeing each other exclusively for three months and I thought that I was in love. He said that he was in love with me, but what he meant was that he thought that he had invested enough time and money into me to deserve something in return. One night after cooking dinner for me at his apartment, he told me that he thought that I owed him proof of my love. When I told him that I didn't owe him anything, he collected what he thought was due on his living room carpet. When I was able to flee twenty minutes later, bruised and torn, I was in shock. I did not know what to think or where to turn. For the next year I was utterly devastated. I never saw him again and I never told anyone. It took me more than two years to put it behind me. Ironically, it wasn't until I went out with you, that you taught me to love men again. I am grateful to you for that. Then, last month, Daisy gave me that piece of paper with your web page printed on it. She said that anyone in the world could read it anytime they wanted. What you wrote was appalling. It was easy for anyone to read between the lines and know my whole story. Daisy understood exactly what had happened to me as soon as she read it. Even though I never told you the whole story, straight out, like this, I cannot believe that you have never realized what had happened to me so many years ago. It is so obvious from the way you described it. So when you put your page about me on the web, you violated me again. And even more brutally than Jack because I could keep the first violation secret. I never had to worry about what people might be saying me behind my back or thinking when they saw me. Now I think about being raped every time I look at you hunched over your damned computer, drooling over something that you found on the Internet. Now I wonder what Daisy is telling our friends about me. Now I want to hide my face in shame. I cannot stay here any longer. I am taking the children with me. You have not said more than a dozen words to them in the last month. You have not even noticed how hurt they are by the change in your personality. I think that they need to spend some time in a healthier environment. Please do not try to contact me or them. After I have had some time to work on my own feelings, I will get in touch with you and see if we can work together on our problems. Amy |
And that's all she wrote.
Amy always had a flair for the dramatic.
At least she left Fluffy here to keep me company. She probably would have taken her, too, if her mother weren't so allergic to cat hair.
I guess I can understand why she is upset in a way. But the real problem is that she won't let me explain how the Web works. People who read my web page don't know who I am or who she is. The only reason that Daisy knew was because I told Steve. That was my mistake. I admit that. And I won't make that mistake again. I stopped talking to Steve about my Web project as soon as I found out that Daisy had spoken to Amy about it. But it doesn't matter now because the damage is already done.
I will honour her request to leave her alone until she calls me. I just wish that she would call soon so I could explain how the Internet works and reassure her that nobody but Daisy knows who she is.
There's not much silver lining in this cloud, but at least it gives me a little more free time to learn more about the Internet. Now maybe I won't have to spend quite as much time on the net at work and I can put some effort into the DROS bid. They are watching every move I make these days, just waiting for me to make another mistake.