I don't expect the parties like they used to have before the children came. Nor the many people sitting on my couches with a glass of wine and chatting so comfortably as people do at family holidays.

But this silence is unbearable. The drapes hang from the windows in tatters from the sunlight. My lovely oriental rug is streaked with sun-bleached disregard. The rain came in the chimney and blackened my hardwood floor like welts scourged upon a man's back.

I don't expect to live the grand life as once we did. But I did not expect this.