“This time I am leaving you for good,” she said slamming the door behind her.

He lay there on the bed, speechless for the most part, totally spent but fully aware that this may be the last straw. He seemed paralyzed from the waist down, unable to move, his strength and energy sapped. The sound of her footsteps quickly faded into the far end of the hallway diminishing into an almost inaudible sneaker squeak on hardwood floors. Stretching out his arms in the general direction of the door, he attempted to will her to come back to his side. She slipped quietly away into the night.

The charm he wielded, his irresistible mojo no longer worked as it did so many times before. She had left him but always came back. Back for more abuse, more of the same, subtle brand of enslavement with which he had her yoked and shackled. Hers is a story of a woman in bondage. She was a woman who loved too much.

Shall we go over a litany of unresolved grievances? Nah. What for? It would just weigh you down and wear you out. Suffice it to say that she had filed these same concerns and requests over and over through the years but without much success. It was her fault of course that she was still in the same predicament as when she first realized his gross shortcomings. Her “Eureka!” moment came but she ignored it. She had an epiphany but shelved it. She made no moves to sever the relationship for whatever reason. She hung in there. She stuck with her man. But now she has finally reached the end of her rope.

For the record, here’s a partial list of grievances. His rampant womanizing. He had sown more wild oats than Johnny Appleseed had planted apple trees. His inability to hold on to some sort of gainful employment rivals that of Osama Bin Ladin hiding in the caves. Lastly, his total lack of a sense of domestic responsibility that can be traced back to his permissive parents.

Would you believe that this man lives just as had lived when he was still single, under the protection of his senile parents, under the kindness and generosity of his doting spinster sisters? They just about took care of everything for this worm of a man, from his laundry, to his pedicure, to the cooking of sumptuous meals that he enjoyed even while inebriated. His favorite pastime was hanging out with his jobless cronies in the corner store drinking gin and engaging in passionate but treasonous conversations about corruption in government politics and the concept of sedition.

But the day finally came when the dutiful wife had a uterine infection and had to go to the clinic for some tests. She was at the doctor’s office all day. They gave her a PAP smear test and it was then that they found traces of something that shouldn’t have been there. The first indication was that she was positive for malignant uterine cancer cells. Blood was drawn, with her doctor requesting for the blood samples to be evaluated right away. Turned out she tested positive for HIV.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was the sword of Damocles falling down. This was the Corregidor surrender. This was the Battle of Little Big Horn. This was Mohandas Ghandi burning in his funeral pyre. This was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

She had always been faithful to her wayward husband. Obviously, the same was not true when it came to her womanizing husband. Somewhere in the equation he must have picked up something from somebody infected and had transmitted the deadly virus to her. It was a pretty grave and final indictment. For all her loyalty, hard work, love and faithfulness she was rewarded with her own death sentence.

There were times when she thrilled at the thought of having left him many times before but hated herself for each and every one of those times she had gone back to him. Like a helpless piece of iron ore she couldn’t resist the strong and strange magnetic pull this man exerted on her person. Yes, she had left him many times before – so many times that her story might as well have been summarized by the song, “By The Time I Get to Phoenix,” only she would be the one doing the leaving and saying those things with the pronouns in the lyrics reversed.

Now, life here on this earth as she had known it had come to pass. It was time to go. Curtains. The show’s over. Packing none of her things she left. She had always hated long goodbyes, extended farewells and dramatic exits. Saving her tears, she just left hurriedly and disappeared into the night.