It had been almost six months since I quit my bank job, which allowed me to have some quality time with Dara. Wounds began to heal—hers more than mine. I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact I couldn’t live without more income. I had child support and a savings account, but that was not enough. I felt stronger as a person and believed I could weather holding down a job and managing a single-parent household now.

I had no real expertise in anything except banking, so it was a natural step to look for a job in the financial sector. I scoured the Sunday newspaper, and—lo and behold—my eye caught an ad for a bank manager. I got all dressed up, went to the interview, and was hired on the spot. It seemed like a miracle to me.

The financial institution I had worked for years earlier had been bought by another firm that hired me. The building I was to manage in was the exact same building I had managed previously. It still had some of the same customers I had been privileged to help. It was also there where I had spoken the very last words to David, telling him I loved him. It was really do, do, do, do once again.

This particular financial institution had twenty-four offices. I ended up running the third-largest in deposits, amounting to fifty-three million. I had a good salary, a company American Express credit card, and I was riding high. I felt rejuvenated and ready to go back into the merry-go-round of life.

Things went well for me there. As I said, I knew banking inside and out, and I really put my nose to the grindstone. I performed so well that the vice president stood up at a meeting several years later and stated that if anyone needed to know how to run a branch office, I was the one to call because, apparently, I was the only one who knew how to run one. If anyone were to look at me, they would think I had it made. I held a prestigious job, I made an excellent salary, and I had a beautiful daughter. I seemed to have it all. I was certainly back on top of my game.

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I had only signed a six-month lease in the apartment complex where we lived. I felt that before the money dwindled away, we needed to invest in something of our own. I exclusively had the role of both mother and father, even though she saw her dad every other weekend. I wanted a stable home for my daughter, and providing one for her would ease my conscience. She depended on me, so the most coherent thing I did at that time in my life was buy us a townhouse. We moved again to a nice, established neighborhood. There was a house up the street from ours with a family who had a little girl my daughter’s age, so Dara could play with her. My daughter seemed thrilled.

The upheaval in my life and home and in my daughter’s life had taken precedence in my mind. However, the monotony of my new life caused dark feelings to resurface once again. On the flip side though, I felt euphoric due to my new station in life.

An old love interest discovered I was the manager of a bank and newly divorced. He was hot on the phone to call me, asking me to lunch. This same man rejected my advances during the party my ex-husband and I had thrown at our new home, but things were different now. He came to my office, and the girls nearly passed out at the sight of him. We were both kind of nervous as we got in his car to go. As we left, he turned to me and asked me if I was hungry. I said, “Not really.”

He said sheepishly, “Well, what do you want to do? Go to a motel room?”

Without hesitating, I said, “Yes.”

“Afternoon Delight?” He came over a couple of times to the townhouse, but, as it turned out, we really didn’t have anything in common. The big love affair I imagined we were going to embark on really wasn’t anything at all. I had gotten my way though and had finally made my conquest.

Every time Dara spent the weekend with her dad, I hit the bars. I would go to the most popular dance place in the city, meet a guy, get wasted, and then take him home and go to bed with him. The next morning, I would invariably wake up with a horrible pill and alcohol hangover. I had been doing this long enough to know how to somehow manage and get it together by the time my daughter returned home.

Unfortunately, my ex-husband and I played the “he said, she said” game, and our daughter was caught in the middle. Both of us were very immature. She stopped telling either of us anything.

My family lived near us. My sister had two children, one of whom was a girl four days older than Dara. Dara and her cousin were like twins. Even with everything that was going in her home life, Dara had as normal a life as I could provide for her, and I did try. I believe that Dara spending time at my sister’s house helped as well. I had put her in daycare for several months, but then my sister said that if I paid her, she would pick her up after school and keep her until I picked her up after work. This gave Dara a more normal footing, which didn’t make me feel so guilty.

She was in the first grade by this time, and I had given her a picture of her daddy and myself in a little frame to take to school with her so she wouldn’t think we were going to leave her. I would tell her repeatedly how much her daddy and I loved her and that she was our main concern.

She would still cry for her daddy sometimes at night. I would be holding her in my arms as she would cry, and she would say, “I want to talk to my daddy.” I would dial his number and give the receiver to her so she could talk to him. She would be soothed again for a brief time.

Her teacher called one day requesting a conference with me. She said the first thing my daughter would do upon arriving at school was open the top of her desk, take the picture out, and position it on the corner of her desk. Then she would start to cry. This went on for several weeks.

I explained the situation at home, and this gave her some insight and understanding into why Dara was behaving the way she was. Dara was resilient, and with the help of her extended family, eventually things got better. After a while, she liked going to school.

The first year was ending, and her teacher wanted to see Dara’s father and me for a year-end conference. She suggested that we think about having her repeat first grade. Dara being held back had nothing to do with her grades; it was based on her emotional state, and it was purely a suggestion for us to consider. The teacher stated that she, too, had been held back in the first grade and that it had helped her to mature and catch up with the other children.

Her dad got all red in the face and stated, “No, I don’t agree with her being held back.”

Dara’s teacher and I tried to make him a part of every decision regarding her. I believed the teacher had her best interests at heart. Dara’s teacher saw her every day and had even taken her out to dinner one evening. Dara loved her first-grade teacher. Since I had full custody, I went against my ex-husband and had Dara repeat first grade. After what my daughter had been through that year,if this would help her, then so be it. The big surprise for Dara was that she had been assigned to the exact same teacher the following year. One night, as I was tucking her in bed, she asked, “Mommy, I like the first grade. Can I stay in the first grade again next year?”

I started to laugh and said, “Honey, you only get to go through the first grade twice.”

We hugged and said prayers—the exact prayers I was raised with—and I felt she was happy again finally, thank God.

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Time went on, and I was getting restless because of the routine of my life. My mom, sister, and I were invited to a wedding in Huntington, West Virginia. I needed a change of pace, so I asked my ex-husband if he would switch weekends with me. I thought that maybe a change in my normal routine could help me gain a new perspective.

I was going to see childhood friends at this wedding, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years, and this prospect excited me. I always treated the friends I grew up with as if they were something more than they really were because of childhood memories, but I hadn’t kept in touch with them. I always thought that I would renew old friendships when my life settled down, but that never happened; my life never seemed to settle down!

I got all dressed up for the big event and proceeded to get sloppy drunk at the reception. We were staying at the hotel where the reception was, so I was within walking distance of our room. I got to the room, peeled my clothes off, and passed out. I got up in the middle of the night, as was my custom, to raid the fridge. The only problem with that was that there was no fridge in the room.

I stumbled out the door of our hotel room onto the balcony, not knowing where I was. I couldn’t see, and everything was dark and blurry except for a few city lights sprinkled here and there. I need to get back to my room, I thought.

I fumbled and stumbled around and discovered a doorknob I thought was my room. I entered. I focused somewhat and saw strange people lying all over the floor and on the beds. I got scared, turned around, and tripped back out the door. I found myself standing on the balcony again and started to cry. I felt I was in a labyrinth and couldn’t find my way out. I looked out into the thick night air and begged someone to help me, but who was going to help me? It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake!

Anyway, somehow—and I don’t even know how—I got back to my room where my mom and sister were. I crashed and fell asleep on the bed. I woke up the next morning not knowing where I had been the night before. I don’t even remember how I got back. It was hours later when it all started to flood back into my mind, and when it did, I got a really sick feeling inside. I didn’t dare tell anyone. What would they think about me? I took all my antidepressants, got in the car, and slept all the way home.

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I wanted a Norman Rockwell life, though I don’t recall any drunks in his paintings. I still was waiting for it and it seemed to be taking much longer than I thought it should. I just couldn’t seem to make all the pieces fit. The ingredients were there, at times, but they never all seemed to come together at the same time.

One evening, my old dance partner called, wanting to come over to my townhouse and talk to me. Even though I knew I had nothing in common with him, I was lonely and pondered on “us.”

A knock came at the door. I was all dressed up and there he stood, with a Bible in tow. I invited him in and asked him if he wanted something to drink.

He said, “Coffee, please.” Coffee? Well, this was a switch! Why does he have that Bible in his hands? He won’t put it down! We made some small talk, and then he started preaching Jesus to me. He was not going to budge from that Bible. I couldn’t move him from his stance. Nothing moved him.

He definitely was not interested in coming on to me. He kept telling me about Jesus. He kept telling me how his life was turned around now. Good, but let’s get together.

Why were people trying to push Jesus in my face? Well, I thought, that’s nice for you, but I have to get on with my life. I’ll do Jesus much later, thank you. I was not ready to give up everything I loved and go around in a glazed daze with a plastic smile on my face, telling everyone how happy I am in Jesus. No, thank you. Besides, I knew God. I grew up in Sunday school and church. I knew everything—probably more than all of them put together. I wanted them to get out of my face with that.

I had a few more brief encounters with him. I was determined and very hardheaded in my belief that I was going to break through his wall of defense. I was hot on the trail to have a man—any man. I just wanted to get married again, thinking that would be the answer to my unhappiness. The answer was not the Jesus he kept trying to sell me. I wanted to be settled within myself, and I wanted to have a stepdad for Dara. Then, I would finally be happy, wouldn’t I? We eventually stopped calling one another, and things just fizzled out. He knew my take on the whole Jesus thing, I knew his, and that was that.

It was time to move on and hit the bars! I met a guy one Friday evening who appeared to be out of the norm. He was wearing a suit and tie—that was a change. He drove a great car, and I assumed he had money too. Wrong! Not all that glitters is gold.

After a few brief months of dating, he asked me to marry him. I will never forget sitting at my desk at work, talking to my ex-husband’s mother. She would call me about Dara, and we would engage in light conversation. One particular day, we did more than just lightly visit. She really made the decision for me about marrying the guy from the bar, even though she didn’t know it. She told me my former husband was getting ready to be married again. I said, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, “Does he love her?”

She said that she thought he did. It cut like a knife inside of my heart. I had always had a glimmer of hope we would get together again. His impending marriage killed that notion altogether. I shot back, “Well, tell him that I am getting married too.”