Comedic Tragedy Conclusion

Jen continued to pop in and out of my life for the next two years. Undermining the new life I'd begun with Penny. Penny continued to sew her wild oats having opened Pandora's box. I continued to be torn apart caught in the crossfire of all of it. Because Penny and I worked opposite shifts, we saw very little of each other. I would get up in the morning take her to work, and go pick up my elderly father and his wife, who took up literally all of my free time, and then head for work myself. Having lived out of state for several years prior to all of this, I was determined to try and make up for lost time with my father and his wife.
This cycle continued until I couldn't stand Jen's false promises of reconciliation. When she moved another man in to her house I finally issued an ultimatum. Either he goes or I do. He never left. So, in October 2002, I said goodbye to Jen forever. My heart was broken. Her boyfriend lived there with her until his passing approximately a year later. Penny made promises to help me through this whole ordeal, but in fact continued to do whatever she felt like doing, always apologizing, always promising no more infidelity. Always getting caught. At one point I foolishly agreed to an "open" relationship, just to keep her from doing it all behind my back anyway. And secretly hoping she would get it all out of her system. She never did.
When her sister passed away suddenly in 2003, at 40 years old, Penny's mother was left alone in the family home they had all lived in since the 1960's.in Detroit's east side. At that point, her mother came to live with us and the family home was sold to pay off the mortgage. The three of us then moved in to a shotgun shack in a nearby suburb, where I took care of her mother until her passing in 2012. My father had passed away in 2009.My mother in 2013.Penny and I were finally alone together, but alas her wandering eye got the best of her, and she spent years pursuing a man she had known for several years prior to our meeting who had been in a relationship with the same woman for 28 years.Once he broke up with his girlfriend, Penny chased him even to the extent that at one point she had asked me to leave so that he could move in.She even confessed that she'd married me because I resembled him. I declined that offer. He eventually lost interest in 2015 finding another younger woman more to his liking.
There never was a reconciliation. I became her cook, and house keeper. I do her laundry and wash her dishes. I am essentially for all intents and purposes her employee, in exchange for room and board. All intimacy has ceased for years now. People who see us in passing at stores or restaurants think we are brother and sister or, father and daughter. She is quick to remind any woman I meet that  we're married, although that is only true in the sense that it is a legal marriage. There is nothing about this relationship or, "arrangement" as I like to call it that resembles a marriage. We live very separate lives under the same roof. I sit alone at night and write and watch T.V. hoping and praying for a change. She comes home from work,eats dinner and goes to bed.I look in on her at night to make sure she's ok, and fix her blanket. As a byproduct of all my years on midnights I continue to stay up all night, and usually go to bed when she leaves for her shift which changes every day.There isn't much work in our area for people my age.In truth I've given up looking after dozens of rejections, so I have no income and no vehicle.
This comedic tragedy is a work in progress. The pathetic outcome of the best of intentions. I continue to hope for love. For the tender touch of a caring partner. A kind word. A warm embrace. These things exist for me as ghosts in my head. Fever dreams. Imbecile illusions of happiness, which are the stuff of books and films,and songs. Not the lot of an aging romantic. I have so much love to give, and need so little in return. Like a cactus which will bloom with very little water, here and there. Like something growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. Incidental.Invisible Unnoticed. This must be Dante's tenth ring of Hell. Longing.Waiting.
The End?