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praying to God asking for that and much more.
    Tia forgave him and stayed.
    For a while, Lorenzo was all right. He kept his job as an electrical engineer and went to work every day. He couldn’t say that he was happy, but he’d been renewed enough to feel contentment. But Lorenzo had failed to ask for what he really needed, which was healing and deliverance from the abuse he’d suffered as a young boy.
    By the time their daughter, Serenity, was eleven years old, his recurring pain had intensified, and he could no longer deny that marrying Tia had done nothing to alleviate it. If anything, it seemed to have gotten worse. His weight had doubled since he’d gotten married, and he couldn’t stand lying next to his own wife in bed night after night.
    He put the photograph back on the end table. The past two years of his marriage had been blemished with too many resentments, and infrequent and dull episodes of intimacy between the two of them. Their marriage had become nothing more than a façade, and not a very good one at that. On top of all that, there had been issues with his attendance throughout the year and he’d been let go from his job. His only source of income was the weekly unemployment check he’d been receiving for the past six months.
    He rubbed the creases in his forehead and turned on the DVD player. A sixteen-ounce bag of raisins drenched in a creamy blanket of milk chocolate lay on the coffee table next to an open bag of previously popped microwave popcorn. Lorenzo grabbed a handful of each and stuffed them all into his mouth as he began watching his favorite movie, Antwone Fisher .
    Two hours later, the movie ended, and Lorenzo was catapulted back into reality. He stopped the DVD and switched back to the television. A well-endowed female with exaggerated cheekbones spoke loudly with an East Coast accent. Lorenzo tried to focus on what she was saying, but the dream he’d had the night before roared even louder in his memory.
    It was always the same. In his dream there was a big open field behind a triangular building. Lorenzo always thought it was a mall. There was only one entrance, and that was through the front door. If anyone tried to enter from the back of the building they would end up in total darkness. Lorenzo would look up to see a big sign that read: W ARNING. D O N OT E NTER T HROUGH THE R EAR ! Then the dream would end. It always ended there, and he would wake up feeling clammy and short of breath.
    â€œWhy are you always in such an irritated mood?” Tia would ask him.
    â€œIrritated?” he’d shout. “That’s an understatement! You,” he’d point his finger in her face, “have no idea how I feel!”
    â€œYou’re right,” she’d say. “I don’t know how you feel!” Then her voice would suddenly soften. “Tell me what it is. How can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?”
    Lorenzo didn’t know why, but he hated it when Tia softened her voice. It was as if she was trying to play psychiatrist with him or something. Well, he wasn’t having it. Not at all. She was a nurse not a psychiatrist, and she needed to remember that!
    â€œI’m not the enemy,” she’d said. “I’m your wife.”
    She’d almost got him with that comment. He’d opened his mouth to speak. He was going to try to tell her his secret when the next thing she’d said messed it all up.
    â€œA real man would know the difference.”
    A real man? So now she was implying that he was not a real man?
    After she’d said that, Lorenzo knew he would not be able to tell her what was wrong. He cringed at the thought of how she might react if she knew he had been molested as a child by his uncle. Would she hold the same look in her eyes as his father had held in his? Would she blame him with unspoken words as his mother had done? Lorenzo had decided he couldn’t take that risk.