There Was No Love – part 20

As  I sat on the deck, enjoying the warmth, the sea air, I decided to close off my past by  contemplating Patrick and our marriage.

I  decided to do a retrospective, beginning after lunch and going until dinner.  To go over every year, every moment, and then discard it all.

Give  Patrick that respect so that it didn’t seem his death was a shrug.

I know it sounds ridiculous, considering everything, but I felt I owed him that much.

After  all, if he had been a neighbour for thirty three years, I should reflect on him now that he was dead.

I  would just look over my life and see if there were any ‘hidden  jewels’  if there was anything that was worth savouring.

To  be married for thirty three years to a man never loved requires a  kind of catatonia, a kind of deliberate oblivion where you do not  allow anything to bother you.  Where you do not feel.

That  is the only way to survive.