Amanda OUEDRAOGO OUEDRAOGO itibaren Mago, كينيا itibaren Mago, كينيا

** spoiler alert ** Claire and Ryan have been estranged for nine years. She has FINALLY served him w/ divorce papers. She gets to read about his exploits in the tabloids, but really he didn’t move on from her until he believed she had moved on first. That is his excuse and he is sticking to it. Claire and Ryan had married young, suffered a tragedy, and when Claire was unable to get past it and Ryan couldn’t deal anymore she went away. When he man’s up he sees another man leaving her place in the early hours and immediately thinks the worst of her. That was all he needed to get off for himself. Now they are back together to work out arrangements in the divorce settlement. He wants to give her SO much more, probably to soothe his guilty conscience, than she wants. So that is their hang-up. They spend time together and find they can’t keep their hands off one another. When Ryan finds out that Claire made a decision w/out giving him all the information he feels betrayed and walks away. My problems w/ this one are that he doesn’t seem to truly want to be there through the hard times, he finds a way to run and he wants to lay blame at her feet. He believed that Claire would take up w/ OM as though he has no faith in her. The whole conditional love aspect for Claire was brought forth well, but Ryan came across as still a bit of a child. He had been looking for a way out long before he saw OM. He had a couple of long term r/s during their estrangement which implied that Claire wasn’t all that special either. Then, of course, he thinks to lay even more blame on Claire because of her decision in the past and not involving him. But truly why would she when she honestly believed that he only wanted her because of the child. He thinks because he didn’t marry any of his OW that it is a point in his favor – didn’t think bigamy was legal though! Ryan just didn’t want to work through that difficult time in his marriage w/ Claire and he wanted the easy way out. Claire wants to claim that Ryan is so responsible, but when push came to shove Ryan bolted. Sure Ryan admits that he didn’t know how to be a hubby before, but did he know how to be a human being?? He claimed he would have been there for her, but his history shows that he wouldn’t have truly been there. She was treated to a repeat performance of this near the end while Ryan worked out what he needed to do and business came before Claire as well. Ryan was too much of a coward to come after Claire and he couldn’t let go of her completely either. Also if their marriage such a secret and papers followed him for years wouldn’t they have discovered their r/s before? What about filing for divorce? There would have been documentation of that too. Still wonder if he is so responsible how about those other r/s he had w/ OW?

I LOVED this when I read it in '84- but re-read it about 5 yrs ago and I guess Mr. King was just a bit too wordy for me- plus, the man in black didn't scare me like he did when I was 14- when I was 33, he just seemed pathetic. I had nightmares about him when I was a teenager though.