Steven arrived home the following morning. As he walked through the door, he was surprised to see that Tamara was relatively calm, which made it difficult for him to understand the urgency of her request for him to come home. What he didn't know was that as soon as Tamara knew he was on his way, most of the panic she was feeling left her. Tamara herself couldn't understand the abrupt change in her feelings. All she knew was that when Steven was near, her fears were kept at bay.
Steven returned to work but not before Tamara asked him if he would be in the office all day, where he would be eating lunch and what time he'd be home. Steven patiently answered all her questions. He knew she had been through a difficult time during his absence and also knew it would be a while before she would feel safe enough to loosen her grip on him.
Tamara made good her promise to try and find someone who could help her...someone who might be able to put a name to how she was feeling but no one seemed to be able to do that. The various doctors she went to prescribed medication and she kept experimenting, hoping to find the magic pill that would rid her of her fear.
Before too long, Tamara found herself calling Steven at work. She knew she should not be doing this but she needed to hear his voice and be reassured that he was there should she need him. If at times she detected a coolness in his voice, she chose to ignore it. She was desperately dependent on him.
Things went from bad to worse! Tamara would call Steven at his office, begging him to come home. Steven would hear the terror in her voice and would rush home to take her in his arms and hold her until her trembling abated. But as the calls became more frequent he gradually resented having to drop what he was doing to go and soothe his wife. He would tell her that he would lose his job if this continued, but Tamara seemed to be oblivious to his anger. She was frightened and had no one else to turn to.
The day that Steven was interrupted during a business meeting to answer one of Tamara's calls was the breaking point! He was furious and all the pent-up feelings he had been harboring for months came to the surface. "This has to stop!" he said. "I can't take much more! My job is pressure enough without having you call me every hour on the hour! You're suffocating me! You have to shape up, Tamara, or our marriage will be in real trouble!" The door slammed behind him. Steven could not believe that her gentle Steven had spoken to her that way. She was crushed! Her marriage was falling apart and she didn't know what to do to hold it together...
xx
...
HOME