On Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Susie Orman Schnall
is where I always got my best thinking done. I would come up with the perfect lead for an article I was writing, the perfect wording for a complicated email I needed to send my boss, the perfect idea for my and Darren’s next travel adventure.
I decide to do a trail run at the preserve where Cameron and I hike every Saturday morning. My neighborhood is perfect for running, but I don’t feel like having to stop and chat if my neighbors are outside. Even having to smile and wave would be too difficult for me right now. I’d heard your typical cautionary tales about the preserve and have never gone there alone, despite the fact that none of the stories had ever been proven. But I just don’t care right now. I’m playing the odds. What are the chances I’ll get raped the day after I find out my husband cheated on me? Plus, that preserve is my favorite place. Being in nature soothes me. I need soothing.
I’m happy to see the parking lot is crowded. There will be other people to hear me scream when the rapist attacks. That is, unless he gags me with a towel. These are the things that go through my mind. Constantly. Always the worst-case scenario. It happens when anyone I love gets on an airplane, when my kids go to a drop-off birthday party at one of those wretched indoor play spaces that I’m convinced hire child molesters, when the technician looks at me funny during a mammogram. And now it will happen whenever Darren goes on a business trip.
I hold my keys in my fist and keep one key sticking out between my fingers to use as a weapon should the need arise. I start running, my blonde ponytail bobbing purposefully, and the world seems to fall away. I’m left with my thoughts. My brain is not the shy, silent type. No, it’s constantly churning, leading me to overanalyze, overspeculate, and overthink. At first, my thoughts are all swirling, and then I start to categorize them.
My first thoughts are purely about the physical contact he had with another woman; that disgusts me. I picture him kissing someone else, and my stomach clenches. In that picture, Tina, or as I’ve come to call her, The Chicago Husband Bandit, is in her late 20s and tall with long, brassy blonde hair, rust-colored lipstick, and eyebrows that she plucked too much and now draws in with a brown pencil. She’s wearing a tight, black tank top with a plunging neckline that reveals her voluptuous breasts, a tight, black skirt, and heels that are sensible enough so she can work in them all night, but sexy enough to ensure good tips. I wonder if I really want to know what she looks like. I have a short fantasy about looking up the hotel name on Darren’s corporate AmEx statement, flying to Chicago, and sitting in the bar to watch The Bandit in action. I’m not crazy enough to picture myself with a gun in that fantasy. I don’t really blame her. I only blame Darren. He let this happen.
I start the first uphill part of the trail, and my heart starts beating hard. I haven’t run in a while, and I’m not really in good-enough shape to do three miles. The anger fuels me, and I power ahead. I can’t believe I’ve been so certain over the years that Darren would never cheat. That he would stick to his promise. Men cheat. It’s what they do. I think of the politicians I’ve seen on TV over and over again: the man shamefully announcing his transgression into a microphone, the wife in her Chanel jacket even more shamefully standing off to the side wondering what her mother must be thinking, how her kids will get teased at school the next day, and how unbelievably fucking inadequate and humiliated she feels. I just never thought it would be Darren. I imagine most women think it will never happen to them. I can’t imagine any woman thinking it could happen, or why would you marry the bastard in the first place?
But it’s just so not Darren. So I wonder if I should blame myself. If things had been better between us lately, if we had been having more sex,
I decide to do a trail run at the preserve where Cameron and I hike every Saturday morning. My neighborhood is perfect for running, but I don’t feel like having to stop and chat if my neighbors are outside. Even having to smile and wave would be too difficult for me right now. I’d heard your typical cautionary tales about the preserve and have never gone there alone, despite the fact that none of the stories had ever been proven. But I just don’t care right now. I’m playing the odds. What are the chances I’ll get raped the day after I find out my husband cheated on me? Plus, that preserve is my favorite place. Being in nature soothes me. I need soothing.
I’m happy to see the parking lot is crowded. There will be other people to hear me scream when the rapist attacks. That is, unless he gags me with a towel. These are the things that go through my mind. Constantly. Always the worst-case scenario. It happens when anyone I love gets on an airplane, when my kids go to a drop-off birthday party at one of those wretched indoor play spaces that I’m convinced hire child molesters, when the technician looks at me funny during a mammogram. And now it will happen whenever Darren goes on a business trip.
I hold my keys in my fist and keep one key sticking out between my fingers to use as a weapon should the need arise. I start running, my blonde ponytail bobbing purposefully, and the world seems to fall away. I’m left with my thoughts. My brain is not the shy, silent type. No, it’s constantly churning, leading me to overanalyze, overspeculate, and overthink. At first, my thoughts are all swirling, and then I start to categorize them.
My first thoughts are purely about the physical contact he had with another woman; that disgusts me. I picture him kissing someone else, and my stomach clenches. In that picture, Tina, or as I’ve come to call her, The Chicago Husband Bandit, is in her late 20s and tall with long, brassy blonde hair, rust-colored lipstick, and eyebrows that she plucked too much and now draws in with a brown pencil. She’s wearing a tight, black tank top with a plunging neckline that reveals her voluptuous breasts, a tight, black skirt, and heels that are sensible enough so she can work in them all night, but sexy enough to ensure good tips. I wonder if I really want to know what she looks like. I have a short fantasy about looking up the hotel name on Darren’s corporate AmEx statement, flying to Chicago, and sitting in the bar to watch The Bandit in action. I’m not crazy enough to picture myself with a gun in that fantasy. I don’t really blame her. I only blame Darren. He let this happen.
I start the first uphill part of the trail, and my heart starts beating hard. I haven’t run in a while, and I’m not really in good-enough shape to do three miles. The anger fuels me, and I power ahead. I can’t believe I’ve been so certain over the years that Darren would never cheat. That he would stick to his promise. Men cheat. It’s what they do. I think of the politicians I’ve seen on TV over and over again: the man shamefully announcing his transgression into a microphone, the wife in her Chanel jacket even more shamefully standing off to the side wondering what her mother must be thinking, how her kids will get teased at school the next day, and how unbelievably fucking inadequate and humiliated she feels. I just never thought it would be Darren. I imagine most women think it will never happen to them. I can’t imagine any woman thinking it could happen, or why would you marry the bastard in the first place?
But it’s just so not Darren. So I wonder if I should blame myself. If things had been better between us lately, if we had been having more sex,
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