Thankfully she got them in order enough that once she left, they could take care of themselves. I still hadn’t heard from her since she decided to r...n out on me. I still worry about her. She has no marketable skills. I left her enough money to go to university, so she has a good chance of making it on her own. It is difficult to not worry about those you care about.Since I try to stay out of the conversation at lunch, I have a bunch of time to think. I want Alva to stay with us. I think she. "My dear, I didn't mean to frighten you. After all, as you say,these are different times, and it's where you end up that's important,not where you start. In any case, tonight is our last night here. We'llbe starting back in the morning. I think that you're ready to meet myson."That night, after a long shower, I lay in bed, awake. I couldn't see away out of marrying Leonard. I tried to rationalize it. I wasn'tunique. Girls used to dream of marrying well to a prince, to power, orto wealth. Women. She wondered if she'd ever be able to use a bathroom again without seeing a snake wiggling in the bathtub.It probably would have been better if there had been something to do but sit there and think about the snake, but Wednesdays were her slow day as the Record-Herald's advertising manager, at least until it was time to work on the papers. Usually, she sat around the front office and shot the bull with her friend, Carrie Evachevski, the social editor, and had an extra cup of coffee, but Carrie. As I stood at the top of the forklift ramp looking down on that huge black man I realized that I was going to have to find out what it would be like to have him. The thought scared me; this new obsession of mine could ruin my life. If my husband even imagined what I was thinking, he'd divorce me in an instant; it would disgust him and make me an outcaste in our social group. But even with those threats hanging over me I walked into the Forman's office and told him that I needed Otis to help me.