With the Windows Open

It was another lonely summer night, hot and humid. She sat in her living room, sweet tea in hand wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top. Since her divorce, this was her normal nightly routine. The baby was asleep and the house was painstakingly quiet. She mostly hated when the nights came but tonight was different. Her large picture windows were open and her white sheers were whipping in the wind. It looked like a scene from a beach house whose doors were always open to welcome in the breeze that smelled of the ocean spray. There was a low rumble of thunder in the distance and streak of lightning barely visible in her country home. She prayed for rain. The slow and steady kind that played a melody like little teardrops falling on her tin roof. Those night provided the perfect environment for the deep sleep she desperately needed.
The bed being empty had not been a problem to create her sleeping problem. Even when her ex-husband was in their bed, he was never present. He was there to touch but never there to hold. He was never there to comfort or offer constructive conversation. He would not talk but yell and belittle. He would more often than not crawl his vile body onto hers, finish his deed and then roll over and snore so loudly it gave her a headache. He did not even bother to clean himself off causing there to be a crusty layer of his secretions on the sheets in the morning. This disgusted her. She felt cheap and used. She never let him see her cry as she washed the sheets the next morning. He would come home and be gone again. This repeated for what felt like an eternity.