So instead she kept on driving, deciding that she didn’t want to get involved in anything that didn’t concern her. Besides, she had enough of her own problems going on without taking on anyone else’s.
She looked at the LED clock on the dashboard as she drove, putting the motel in the distance. 3:00 am, she sighed. It was going to be another long day.
One final day before it would all be over.
Chapter Six
Delores
The black of night broke into early morning sunshine.
Delores cranked a window open. It was going to be another warm day; the air was already too stuffy. She was heading towards St Louis now, and traffic was building up.
Deciding to stay out of the capital, she stuck to her original route and continued to follow the highway. Surely most people would be turning off and heading for the city. She had no idea what day of the week it was anymore. Were people going to work, or was it the weekend now? The days blurred into the next, one just the same as the other.
So much had happened, and so much had changed. Delores continued to let her mind wander as she cranked open another window. She could turn the air-conditioning on, but she preferred the fresh air in her face to the fake dry air that pumped out from the vents. She hated fake; fake had lost her everything. She shook her head, because no, that wasn’t entirely true.
Herlieshad lost her everything.
Her deceit.
Her betrayal.
She’d hated her perfect life. It was boring and not what she’d dreamed of doing when she was a child growing up. She’d imagined creating something that changed the world. Painting or writing, making something that would stay behind long after she was gone. But then life changes, things happen, and you adjust. You’re supposed to embrace change, or at least learn to accept things. That’s what she had done. Or so she had thought.
Her dreams had been left behind. All of it favouring Michael’s career. Favouring their children. In favour of keeping everyone else happy and living in a home she tirelessly cleaned because of Michaels obsession with cleanliness. He was more important than her, of course. His work was more important since he brought in all the money. He’d made sure of that.
That’s how it seemed anyway.
That’s what he said anyway.
That’s what she had accepted anyway.
Until… until, she didn’t want to accept it anymore. Until she’d wanted more. She was greedy, and evil. She was never satisfied with what she had.
That’s what he’d said. St least, that’s what Michael had told her…
Delores squinted hard as thoughts tried to push their way to the forefront, the muggy full feeling in her head was making her feel sick. Thoughts and memories bombarded her, assaulting her mind, screaming for a voice. But Michael’s voice was the strongest of all, it always was, and he was pushing the other voices away, until only his remained.
‘I gave you everything, you bitch!’
The looks her friends had given her when she’d said she was unhappy and wanted more from life. More? What else could you possibly want?
She was married to a successful, handsome husband, with more money to spare than she would ever need. She didn’t need to work, in fact her husband insisted that she didn’t. A lady of leisure they called her. Jealous, her friends insisted they were.
But she did want more.
God, how she desired it.
Was she a bad mother for that? Was she a bad wife? Delores had felt so. Her friends had glanced at one another, silently judging her. And Michael, poor Michael had said so… hadn’t he? Yes, yes, that’s what he’d said. And so she’d slipped back into herself. Into the constant monotony of her boring, perfect life. And everyone had been happy again; the children, Michael, her friends…
Everyone but her.
But then something had changed.
What? She wondered. What had changed?
A thought, both fleeting and illustrious, snagged in her mind like a feather catching on a snarled branch, but then the sea breeze drifted in through her window. She took deep cleansing breaths of it, her mind losing its grasp on the past.
