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)
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Amazon.co.uk
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