I''m home. I came home as an act of defiance. Mara was not going to relegate me to sleeping in the truck tonight. Whatever she may think, she does not have that authority. I told her when I came in that she could sleep on the couch for all I care, but I was not sleeping in the truck.

Well, I haven't been able to sleep.

I tried to sleep with Mara clinging to one side of the bed and me clinging to the other. She slept fine. I couldn't. I laid down at first and after a few minutes realized that it was inconceivable to me that I could sleep in the same bed with her after what she's done and what she's doing. So I tried to sleep on the couch. But it's too small. So after watching television for a while, I went to bed to try it again. But my mind just won't shut up.

When I got back up, it was with peculiar thoughts in my head.

I don't know what that thing is that I was in bed with. It looks like Mara. It sounds like Mara. But it's somebody else. I was so disturbed by these thoughts that I began to think about waking to find Mama dead or Mara standing over me with a butcher knife. Who is this person? How did we get here? In just the span of a few weeks she just threw a switch and now she can't bear to be near me?

I'm very concerned about how things are going to work out in the next few weeks. I'm not even sure I'm dealing with the same personality anymore. Did Evil Mara come to the forefront? And if so, am I going to find myself standing on the side of the road in a few weeks watching them take the house away from me while Evil Mara is laughing it up in Las Vegas with her new plaything?

This is all seems like a bad dream.

I'm going to go out to the truck and get some sleep. I need to get at least a little, and I think that's the only place I'm likely to find any. At least if I'm in the truck Mama can't come through and ask me why I'm sleeping on the couch (she doesn't know yet). At least if I'm in the truck I won't feel so exposed by turning my back on that shape-shifter that's lying in there in my bed.

Oh, wait. Mara calls it her bed.

I need to get these bizarre thoughts out of my head and face the day with at least a modicum of balance. Mara and I are supposed to talk over some details, but for all I know an alien will spring from her head and kill us all. At this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

I'm hoping Mara will seem more human in the light of day.