Read Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart for Free Online

all alone in the middle of nowhere. What did you do? asked the host, breathlessly. Well, drawled Marlon, I got out of the car, climbed on top of it, lay down, and watched the stars.
    There was no time to watch the stars; she had children to get home to. But Kate realized she need not panic. She walked confidently to the edge of the parking-lot exit and held out her thumb.
    When she found herself at her own door hours later, she was relieved to see the Dodge parked in its usual place. All lights in the house were out. Picking up a stone from her pretty front garden, she wrapped her pink scarf around it and carefully broke one of the panes of glass in the door. No one stirred. She let herself into the house that already felt different; it was the house of those who would remain there, not the house of the one who would leave. She could hear her husband snoring. She lay under a blanket on the couch and within minutes, her head tilted at an awkward angle, her snores became a tired, rather despondent match for his. Toward morning she felt his heavy body on top of her. He ignored her resistance. Entered her body as if he owned it. She struggled silently and at last simply ceased. She lay beneath him thinking: There’s no return from this, no way we will ever come back together again. She tried to accept this clarity as a gift.
    He apologized for shoving her on the trail. But never mentioned the rape. He joined a men’s group. He learned men like him allowed themselves to show only two of the so-called negative emotions, anger and fear. He’d felt them both, he said. Anger that she wanted to leave him; fear that he wouldn’t be able to cope. She’d gazed at him and felt a wave of sickness gathering in her heart. That she had, for years, given herself willingly to someone who would take what she did not wish to give; how had this happened? Within six months he’d become lovers with his secretary, who did everything Kate had done in the house, plus the work she did on her job. He seemed hardly ruffled, coping.
             
    The women could tell she was feeling better; her smile was pensive, but there. As her body gave up the last of its bitter memories of her first marriage, she experienced a lightness that actually made it easier to remain seated the long hours necessary, in the boat. Now she was open, as well, to the full magic of the journey. The shocking depth of the blue sky above their heads, which they saw only in slivers; the cresting white of the waves that no longer unsettled her, but which she welcomed. Kiss the waves! the oarswomen advised. She feasted her eyes on the darting industry of the birds, the pale dusty colors of stones underfoot as they made camp each night; and she began to be present to the other women whom she had largely ignored.
    One night around the campfire the women were talking about getting older, what they thought about it.
    I can’t bear it, said Margery, bluntly. I don’t care if it’s the last bottle of hair dye in the world and a dragon is guarding it, I’m going to get it.
    I used to feel that way, said Cheryl.
    I never did, said Sue.
    You’re kidding? they both said, looking at her. She was a small woman with green, thoughtful eyes. It was Sue who knew the names of plants and what their medicinal purposes might be. Sue who had said the yellow flower Kate had chewed was called desert thistleweed.
    No, she said now, poking a stick into the fire and shifting on her rolled-up sleeping bag. I couldn’t imagine it, even as a child. That women should do anything to their hair. I thought it was fabulous, no matter what color it was. I just couldn’t fathom what was wrong with it.
    She laughed.
    What was wrong with it, said Margery, was that it started turning white!
    Gray, said Cheryl. Gray had such terrible associations, I used to think. It was the color of blandness, dullness. Lifelessness. But then I began to notice stones and water, and gray skies, not to complain about but to