Day: January 5, 2018

Posted in Fiction

Recover – #SoCS – 01/06/2017 and #JusJoJan 2018

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She sits and wonders if she can ever financially recover from the devastation he has caused due to this fraud of a second marriage. That’s what it had been. A fraud. A marriage for financial gain under false pretenses. She was so stupid. She had fallen for all the old, “I’ve changed,” clichés. She’s not even thinking about the emotional damage he’s inflicted. That’s a given. The financial impact is huge and will be worse.

He was a gambler but he had quit before they reunited. He had also quit drinking. She knew both had been hard for him. She had watched him struggle. Now she knew why he had done it. He was looking for a bigger payoff. Except he couldn’t wait. He’d thought that her illness was so severe when he had learned about it before they remarried that she surely would not survive very long. It only goes to show you that he didn’t know her very well. After all the years he had known her, he knew so little about her.

He didn’t know that she was already in the process, before they got together again, of grabbing that illness and wrestling it to the ground, getting it under control. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was still under control and she would keep it under control. He knew it. He grew tired of waiting for her to slip up, for her to let it get the best of her, for her to die.

He decided to give that illness a little nudge. He was still nudging it, even from afar. Still hoping for that ultimate financial payoff. But, this time, she would win.

 

This post is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness challenges.

Posted in Fiction

Room with a View – #writephoto

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The vines were growing up around her window. They were beautiful in their own, wild way. They were threatening to obstruct her view. She would send word to the gardener to trim them back, but only just a little. Not only were they pretty, but they gave her a modicum of protection.

The house was set back from the country lane, but her window looked out onto the lane. She had a good view. She could see her neighbors driving their cars, walking their dogs, walking with their children. They couldn’t see her because of the appearance of frosted glass. She liked it that way.

Her reclusiveness had started a long time ago and had worsened as she aged. Her house was wired so she could communicate with the outside world and do her work. She could order most of what she needed. She only had to get out occasionally. She enjoyed three friends she allowed to visit and she didn’t allow any family.

She became a recluse after she retired from her career. Back then, she still came and went, but only some. Then she stepped out of her comfort zone and allowed her husband back into her life. The worse things got between them, the more she cloistered herself. When he finally left her, her solitude was complete. Her embarrassment total. Her room with a view became her home forever.

Thanks to Sue Vincent for the #writephoto challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Memories – #JusJoJan

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She remembers the first time they met. What’s it been? Oh yes, 43 years ago. A lifetime of memories. They were very young. The first thing she noticed about him is that he was very kind. They started dating. No boy that she’d ever dated had been this kind to her. After several months passed, they moved in together. Living together was popular in those days. They decided to eventually marry.

They married and those were the halcyon days. Theirs was such a calm household. She’d never lived in a tranquil household. She’d grown up in a household filled with hysteria, yelling, upheaval. When she looks back, she thinks that’s the reason she married him the first time. Her search for love and peace. Her parents weren’t brave. They didn’t discourage her. His mother was brave. She took both of them aside individually and advised them against marriage. She knew they loved each other, but they came from such different backgrounds. His mother knew it would never work out in the long run. They didn’t listen to her and she was right. She died a year later.

It’s been a long time and memories of that early time, those early years, have faded now especially since there are so many bad memories. But, she remembers the early years as good, fun, romantic. Something she only recently learned wiped away some of it. He told her he had an affair for the last ten years of their first 18 year marriage. She’d had no idea. She had been crushed and nothing had been the same since. He had persecuted her so badly during their first divorce for the things she had done.

Their second marriage to each other was a mistake. She had to walk away now from the good memories and the bad ones. The good ones broke her heart. The bad ones would make her old and bitter. She didn’t quite know how to walk away from the boy she grew up with and the very different man he had turned out to be. It had all gone so terribly wrong.

She hung her head and cried all night as the telephone remained silent.

 

This post is a part of Linda Hill’s #JusJoJan writing challenge for 2018.