Poor Kev

Anna dolls herself up, and apologizes to Kevin on Wednesday. Poor Kev. He’s not been getting any. He was on his way to do so – with Erica at a hotel – when Anna called and asked him to come home. She wanted to talk, now, please Kev. Her words were conciliatory, not accusatory. She sounded devastated. So after a debate with himself and a longing look at the hotel upper windows, he left the parking lot and drove home.

What a hero. He even remembered to stop at the garage to pull coveralls over his dress clothes. He had told Anna he was on a call-out for a breakdown. Finished sooner than expected, he said. She bought it.

She asked him to sit beside her, clearly nervous. But she launched right in, saying she understood she had been difficult, distant, it had been hard for her. Physically and emotionally, referring implicitly to the damage done to her legs by the fire and the forever scars she has. It’s been hard for me too, he said. Yes, of course it has and I’m so sorry, she consoles him. Aaagghh!

Look at their body language

Anna is turning toward Kevin, opening herself to him. He keeps turned slightly away from her. Can’t take constant rejection, he tells her. Pout firmly on face. It’s so hard for me. Oh, I know it is, and you’ve been such a rock, so good to me, I couldn’t have got through this without you. And on and on as if he’d nailed himself on a cross for her. And still he sits, a rock with a pout.

Finally, after her grovelling about how wonderful he has been and how horrible she has been, he turns to her and says I want to move on. Oh, that’s a good choice of words, Kev! He amends it quickly to I want us to move on, but still. If Anna weren’t so busy grovelling, she might wonder what exactly he means even by that. Us move on together or separately?

He then confesses that he was about to find comfort elsewhere when she called. Was it true confession time or an ultimatum under the guise of honesty? Telling her cough up with your part or else. If you don’t meet my needs, someone else will.

Anna has a lot on her plate already. The physical and psychological damage and pain of being burned. Restaurant work that is very hard on even the healthiest legs. A teenage daughter who has been putting her through maternal hell. Kevin’s financial problems as well as constant household money worries.

But now, for him and for her, it’s all about poor Kev and his “needs”. Three years ago, Anna was sexually blackmailed by Pat Phelan. Now she is again, by Kevin. But this time she doesn’t even see it as that. She sees it as her fault, all her fault.