May 07, 2021

"Why did I choose to marry a man who has so little time for me?"

An excerpt from “Trouble and Strife,” by Johanne Levesque



Tuesday, October 21st, 1930

After my morning ritual of getting the children ready for school, I watch them leave from the living room window.  Every day I notice more and more children poorly shod and thinly clad, wan faced and ill-nourished, right here in Rosedale.

            What a pity.

            I take the handle off the iron and rest it on the kitchen stove to heat.  While it heats, I prepare a pot of stew and then return to my ironing.  I spray water lightly on Eugene’s shirt.  I take my time ironing each shirt because Eugene likes them just so.  If they do not look the way he wants them, I have to do them over again.

            The house is so empty now that the children have returned to school.  Ever since Alvin is no longer home with me, I feel lost like I’ve just been fired from a job.  I had a sense of purpose before, now all I do is wait for them to come back home.  I fill my days with laundry, sewing and tidying.  Somehow this is not the life I imagined when I married Eugene.

            By the time we married, he was already independently wealthy and I thought my life would be filled with trips around the world and exciting galas.  I thought he would be such a great companion.

            I started to date Eugene when I was sixteen.  He was employed by my father at the time, pumping gas at my parent’s general store.  Even then he was thrifty and worked long hours and I spent more time with other boys than I did with him.  If I knew then what I know now, who knows where I would be.  If I knew that I would spend the rest of my life alone with children, waiting for a grumpy husband that never stops working, I might have paid better attention to the boys who playfully flirted with me.  I don’t remember the last time Eugene smiled at me.  I feel so lonely here in this house.  I wish I had a life companion who couldn’t wait to spend time with me, who enjoyed my company.  Not a money producing machine.  His money means nothing to me, and it makes me careless.  Why did I choose to marry a man who has so little time for me?


If you liked this excerpt from Trouble and Strife, you can buy the book at any of the following links:

Austin Macauley Publishers™ (my publisher)
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble
Indigo
Walmart

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