Now She's Gone: A Novel by Kim Corum Page A

Then he began to work. He worked all the fucking time. Work, work, work. When he came home, he could barely carry on a conversation, let alone a night filled with sex.
    But that’s what being married is all about. You get it all in the beginning and then squat.
    I know he worked all the time because he had accumulated a lot of debt from the house and from the firm. That was okay. I just missed him. When we first started seeing each other, we saw each other every day. After we were married, he had to fly here or there or go there to some construction site. I knew he was working for us, to secure our future, but I kinda looked at him as being my fuck buddy and my fuck buddy was too busy to fuck. He kept telling me things would slow down and he had to do as much as he could while his firm was ‘hot.’ I understood. I completely understood.
    He said, ‘These things come and go. When they settle down, we’ll have more time. I promise.’
    I felt bad for even bringing it up. He worked his ass off. He really did.
    Bruce had insisted I give up my ‘cocktail waitress’ job and I told him I’d decided to quit ‘school.’ But anyway, I did and got a job assisting this guy named Fabulous Freddy, an interior designer.
    I worked with Freddy for about six years. Freddy was great. We had so much fun but he went out of business and I didn’t feel like finding another job, so I didn’t. Bruce loved the idea of me being home and I loved the idea of sleeping in every day. So there you go.
    I guess I should stop beating around the bush and write this part now. We’d been married about four years when I got the call. I knew it was coming. In the back of my mind, I could always feel it. The call came from my friend Kelsey from back home.
    When she called out of the blue, I was ecstatic. I hadn’t heard from her in years. ‘Kelsey! How have you been?’
    “Oh, fine,’ she said and sighed. ‘Listen, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but I figured no one else would.’
    ‘What is it?’
    I heard her take a deep breath and she said, ‘Your father died.’
    Your father died. Dead. Gone.
    ‘Did you say…?’
    She took another breath and said, ‘Yeah. I didn’t know if anyone contacted you or not.’
    Oh, no, they hadn’t. Who would anyone contact me, his only child? It wasn’t like I was important or anything.
    I remember sobbing, ‘Oh, God, Kelsey, don’t tell me that!’
    And she started crying with me and I think we sat on the phone for two hours crying our hearts out.
    The thing was, I had always intended on finding him. And I’d just waited too long. I felt so guilty for letting him die alone. He was by himself in a hospital room with no one to call. With no one to hold his hand. I’ve never forgiven myself for that. Sure, maybe he didn’t really try to keep in contact with me or anything, but my daddy never had a chance. He didn’t have an education. He didn’t have shit but his good looks and they will only carry a person so far. His looks made it easy on him with the ladies and hard on him with the men. No one would give him a chance to do anything because they were so afraid he’d steal their wives.
    I went to the funeral alone. I insisted on it. It was held in our little church, the one where I was baptized when I was eleven.
    The little church. It had a bare wood floor, plain wooden pews and one stained glass window. It was so simple, it was beautiful. Nothing clouded its beauty. Outside the white paint was peeling off the clapboard siding. Isn’t it funny the things you notice? That you remember when you’re no longer there? I took the peeling paint and wood floors with me.
    It was so good to see Kelsey. She held my hand all the way through the sermon. It was just us and a few of his drinking buddies. They reeked of alcohol and I felt so sorry for them, I gave them all the money I had on me. For some reason, I couldn’t stand the thought of them going to sleep that night without a drink. I