We ate cold, bland lunches, earned no money of consequence and waited impatiently for our grown-up to come home every night. Sometimes one of us would jump into his arms in gratitude. Kelly's kitchen held the only evidence that an adult spent the day at the house. Five empty beer bottles sat lined up on the counter at the end of the week, one drunk each afternoon as her son howled with colic. We lose passion, too, of the physical and mental varieties.
Sex becomes a burden.
Guilt about not wanting sex becomes a burden. But so little remains of us at the end of a day with kids that we cling to what's left as if it's our last frozen pouch of breast milk. Giving ourselves to affection and losing ourselves in lust would be a tonic. It would make us feel like women again. But a cataract of fear blurs sense.