I am visited by an Angel

This is a kind of follow-up to last night and also another piece of useful infill in building up your picture of this particular train crash. Around three years ago, something similar happened and Jessica had a one night stand with a financial consultant called Andrew who came from York. When I was away one evening, she invited him down on the spur of the moment and they slept together in the spare room. I found out – I am quite a competent detective and I’m afraid that it is one of my less endearing features, I think - and I sent a nasty e-mail to him which frightened him off. Afterwards, Jessica developed an awful - and unreasonable - fear that she had contracted AIDS from him to the extent that she went to be tested. I picked up the pieces. Why am I telling you this? Because, afterwards, I started chatting online. However, unlike Jessica, I have always drawn back from the notion of meeting someone. It has been part of the fantasy if you like but not my reality. Along the way, I have made some good friends or what appeared to be good friends insofar as the relationship with them developed. On Thursday night, very fed up, I sent an e-mail to one of them. I won't tell you her name but she is an American woman living in Switzerland at the moment.

That's the background but the link to this particular narrative is that she turned up for me last night. She had been online most of the day looking for me, waiting for me to show and she was warm, consoling and friendly. She couldn't believe how anyone could do this or how Jessica could think so little of her kids, let alone of me. She talked and shared for over an hour and I am filling up with tears of thanks when I think back to the conversation. She helped me see more of my feelings and gave me the support of another human being - something I realised I have been desperately lacking. I went to bed alone but feeling that I have a friend somewhere in the world who empathised, sympathised and gave me a cuddle from one thousand miles from here. This is to say thanks through the tears that are rolling down my face. It’s the first time.