He beats me a majority of the days.I had even thought of taking my life, but I couldn’t because of my children. See that’s life. It will give you ...any hard times, but you should be able to stand against it and fight it back. At the end, it will make you happy.” I was weeping slowly. She hugged me closer to her shoulder. My tear fell on her naked thigh. I wiped it with my finger. That touch sparked something inside me. She got up to leave.She turned back and was about to go. I got up, grabbed. By the time the burned burgers and bland potato salad were served, all calculations of not making it home until well after nightfall were disappointingly confirmed.No, Daryl had been on a waiting list for some wilderness adventure in the Rockies when a last-minute slot had opened. The night he dropped in on me after I'd been with Mike, he broke the news. He would be leaving for Denver the next day, then off the grid for at least two weeks.August brought the rain. Every drop in the spectrum from. I’m already nervous and the surprise of his knock makes me a little more flustered. I’d been thinking of this moment all day. The moment when he rings my bell or, as it turns out, he knocks on my door. I primp myself in the mirror. The night will be cool so I’ve put on a nice pair of black jeans and a turtleneck with a long gold chain that hangs across my breasts. I didn’t want to go overboard. I didn’t want to do too much. I chide the furrow in my brow. It seems deeper in this light. I try to. “Yes, we do,” I agreed.“I bet you Ben and Mike don’t cry,” Claire said. “Or Jack.”“No personal attacks, please,” Bethany admonished gently.“Sorry,” Claire said. “But I bet of all the guys in the room, only Steve, Jorge, and probably Henry are not only willing to admit they cry, but to cry in front of other people.”“It’s a social problem,” Bethany said. “Men are conditioned from the time they’re young that being ‘macho’ is somehow a good thing. Well, I’m here to tell you that holding all that.