The Klone and I: A High-Tech Love Story - By Danielle Steel Page 0,5

ever, I needed my old standbys. I wore them with mismatched pairs of Roger's socks now. But Roger was in therapy by then, and more convinced than ever that he was doing the right thing by leaving me. He wasn't even in trouble at work this time, and had stopped talking about writing a novel.

We told the kids on New Year's Day. Sam was six then, and Charlotte was eleven. They cried so unbelievably that I thought I would die watching them. Someone I knew had described that as the worst day of her life, and I readily believed it. After we told them, I threw up and went to bed. Roger called his therapist, and went out to dinner with a friend. I was beginning to hate him. He seemed so healthy. And I felt dead inside. He had killed me, and everything I had once believed in. But the worst part was, instead of hating him, I hated me.

He moved out two weeks later. I will try to spare you the boring details, and hit only the high points. According to him all the silver, china, good furniture, the stereo, the computer, and sports equipment was his, because he had written the checks that paid for them, although my trust fund had supplied his checkbook. I owned all the linens, the furniture we'd both hated from Day One, and everything in the kitchen, broken or not. He had already contacted a lawyer, but I didn't find out until after he moved out that he was suing me for alimony and child support, equal to whatever he thought he'd spend on them whenever he had the kids, right down to the toothpaste they'd use and rented videos. And he had a girlfriend. The day I found that out was the day I knew we were truly finished.

I met her for the first time when I took the kids down to him in the car on Valentine's Day, and she was with him. She was perfect. Beautiful, blond, sexy, her skirt was so short I could see her underwear. She looked about fourteen, and I hoped had an IQ of seven. Roger was wearing a ski parka, jeans, which he had previously refused to wear, and a grin that was so obscene it made me want to hit him. She was gorgeous. And I felt nauseous.

There was no kidding myself after that. I knew damn well why he had left. It wasn't just a matter of proving something to himself, as he had said to me more than once by then, or no longer wanting to depend on me (Was he kidding? Who was going to support him, if not me?), all of which would have seemed almost admirable, if I hadn't looked right into that girl's face and seen the truth. She was beautiful, and I (whatever looks I still had, and I must have still had some) was a mess. The uncombed hair, the haircuts I never got, the makeup I never wore, the high heels I no longer cared about, the comfortable clothes that were so much easier for carpooling the kids (outfits composed of my oldest faded sweatshirts, Roger's discarded tennis shorts, and espadrilles with holes in them), the unshaven legs (thank God I still shaved my underarms, or he'd have left years before), the things we no longer did … suddenly, I saw it all, and knew it all. But along with the all-too-clear messages about me, I also knew something else about him. It isn't sexy taking care of a man to the extent that I took care of him. A man who lets you do everything for him because he's too lazy to care for himself, or take care of you, doesn't turn you on after a while. I may have loved Roger, but he probably hadn't revved my motor in years. How could he? I was covering up for him, trying to make him look and feel good in spite of everything he didn't do and wasn't. But what about me? I was beginning to think Umpa may not have done me such a big favor after all. Poor thing, it wasn't his fault, God knows. But I had become some kind of cash cow to Roger, an extension of his own mother, who had taken care of everything for him before I came along. And what I could no longer remember was what he did for me. Take out the garbage,