Sunday afternoon walk (Conversation with God)

  Sunday, February 27, 2011. 1:15 p.m. My middle son is in the tub, my little son is in the crib, asleep. I have to get out of the house. The weather is unseasonably warm, near 70 degrees, but that's not why I must escape.
 I have to get out.
 I have to run. I don't like to run. I walk to the right. I turn about face, because neighbor's are home. I go the other way, past my house. My feet begin to run. My voice screams. Angry, anguished. Tears. Hot. Chest heaves. Heavy heart. Angry words, eyes lifted up at the parting clouds, asking.

 Ver batim (at the top of my lungs): "How dare You take my wife away... She's my wife! She's mine! How dare you do that! Don't you know what that's going to do to my kids? Don't you care about their lives?"
 There's more, but it makes less of a coherent passage from my lips as my legs give out. My head hurts.
 I reach a burned out house, a brick exterior still stands, mocked by the gutted out trailer house it failed to protect. It's a metaphor for my marriage. Everyone sees the brick exterior today, but this week, a sheriff's deputy is scheduled to hand me divorce papers that I'm not supposed to know exist.
 My brick exterior will soon reveal a charred trailer house interior to the world. My body and my mind are in shock. I return from the house to my intact house. It looks peaceful, solid, serene. How deceiving looks can be. I re-enter my house, tears dried, just in time for my 10-year-old son to get out of the bathtub.
 He never missed me.
 He never heard me.
I myself took a shower just before my walk, trying to let the sound of running water stifle my grotesque sobs. My 18-month-old son sometimes thinks I'm laughing as my gasps and cries come out in great gales, wracking my sides and splitting my head and reddening my eyes.
 When my shower stopped the tears kept streaming. Towel in mouth to stop the screaming. God, where are You? I feel You watching but unwilling to stop my bleeding.
 Why must this go on?