Flight

By Cory Anotado
Collegian Editor
September 26, 2007

“Seven was too many.”

She threw dishes at his head and he dodged them. He tried to plead my case, but he was met only with profanity. Then there was struggle, and I rushed and tried to split the two up. In between the swearing and the anger, all I heard her say was, “Seven was too many.”

The problems started maybe two, three years ago. She was more reclusive, he worked harder. Dinner became less and less of a time spent together and more and more of just a meal that each of us would eat separately. They were cold. I might have been the only thing that warmed the air, showing off something I whipped up on the computer. They smiled, looked interested, and then went back to being miserable. Lying awake at night, all I heard was, “Seven was too many.”

As I said goodbye to her at the airport, I wanted to muster up the courage to ask her what it meant, her mantra of anger. I fought back tears as I popped open the trunk and unloaded her bags. He decided he’d rather go to work, so it was just me and her. I wiped back a tear or two, loaded her bags into the security booths and hugged her tight. We said our goodbyes and I watched her go to her flight.

A few months later, I received an e-mail from her. “He was a bad man. He lied and cheated and ran from the truth. And I tried to look away; I tried to ignore all of them. Some even went to our church, some worked for him. I thought I could handle it. Our life was good, and we all knew it. But, the one thing I knew: Seven was too many.”

anotadoc1@lasalle.edu