Because she just couldn’t be faithful to any one man. Even one she loved.

Dear God, what was she going to do? She’d thought about taking her own life. More than once. And she’d already written her daughter a letter to be delivered upon her death:

Dear Kristi, I’m so sorry, honey. Believe me when I tell you that I love you more than life itself. But I’ve been involved with the man who is your biological father again, and I’m afraid it’s going to break Rick’s heart. And blah, blah, blah… What a bunch of melodramatic crap. Again she thought she heard something…the sound of a footstep on the floor downstairs. She started to call out, then held her tongue. Padding quietly to the top of the stairs, she held on to the railing and listened. Over the smooth rotation of the fan in her bedroom she heard another noise, something faint and clicking. Her skin crawled. She barely dared breathe. Her heart pounded in her ears. Just your imagination-the guilt that’s eating at you. Or the neighbor’s cat. That’s it, the scraggly thing that’s always rooting around in the garbage cans or searching for mice in the garage. On stealthy footsteps she hurried to the bedroom window and peered through the glass, seeing nothing out of the ordinary on this gray day in Southern California, where the air was foggy, dusty, and thick. Even the sun, a reddish disc hanging low in the sky over miles and miles of rooftops, appeared distorted by the smog. Not the breath of a breeze from the ocean today, nothing stirring to make any kind of noise. No cat slinking beneath the dry bushes, no bicyclist on the street. Not even a car passing. It’s nothing. Just a case of nerves. Calm down. She poured the remains of the shaker into her glass and took a sip on her way to the bathroom.