Mary #20

If anyone does Saturday Centus you might somewhat remember this story started as a centus.  In  June of 2010, I wrote a few chapters on Mary and then stopped.  I had so much to write about her, writing weekly for centus wasn't enough.  I then wrote and wrote until I had over 30,000 words so far.  In writing it though as I got further and further my original premise somehow got blown out of the water, ha, ha. I stopped writing her story in March of 2011.   I still haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work this out but I thought I would put out what I have so far.   Please remember this is a really rough draft and when I wrote it, I had no chapters.  Before I decided to put this on the blog I had to go back and figure out where I could make them.  I would suggest this is a terrible way of doing it lol.  The first chapter started on March 23rd, 2012.

 

20

"Your dad and I never talked much about personal things only farming except I remember one time.  We were taking the corn to market and out of the blue he said, Eli, I know your hurting about your wife and baby. The only advice I can give you is to never stop talking about them out loud. It's painful but trust me, never mentioning it again is worse and that was all he said.  I wanted to ask him if that's what he did but I could tell he didn't want to talk about it.”

A tear came to Mary's eye and she said "I found an old diary that Ma made since I've been here.  I was a twin and my sister was stillborn.  Until I read it in the diary, I never knew about it.  According to Ma, Pa told her she wasn't to mention it to anyone.” 

"Mary, I'm so sorry.  I can certainly understand your dad's reaction.  For a while, I was so devastated I didn’t talk about Rachel and Andrew.  Then when I came here, your mom would ask me question after question about them.  She said it would help to talk about them to get it out and she was right.” 

"I can't understand if Ma did that for you, why she didn’t do that for Pa.” 

"She probably tried but your dad was from a different generation where they didn't talk about things like that.  He probably didn't want you to feel like you were missing out on something.  It doesn't make sense but it's something you’re probably never going to figure out.  I do know your dad loved you and was very proud of your job in New York.  He used to tell me all the time how much he enjoyed going to New York and staying in the hotel and seeing you do your job.” 

Mary smiled at first and then said.  "That's great but it's my fault they are dead.  If they wouldn't have been on that road after Christmas they wouldn't have gotten hit by that truck and they would still be here today" and the tears came.

Eli got up and knelt beside Mary and put his arm around her shoulder and said, "Mary, you can't blame yourself for that.  Things happen.  If it wasn't for that truck it could have been something else.  I believe the good Lord just thought it was their time.” 

Mary felt a little uncomfortable with his arm around her shoulder and said, "I'm going to get some more food, do you want some?”

They both took their plates in the kitchen.  She went in the fridge and got the wine bottle out and poured some wine for herself.  She got Eli some more water while he filled his plate up.  She put a little food on hers and they went back in the living room. 

As they sat down she said, "You got enough equipment because you could borrow Pa's if you need to?”  

"No, I'm all set.  Over the last couple of years, your dad helped me buy stuff" and they sat quietly and ate.  Eli could tell Mary was done with the conversation about her sister. 

"You want to see what's on TV" and she got up and turned the TV on.  

"Look Casablanca, have you ever seen it before?  I love it.” 

"Who hasn't seen it" and he laughed.  "I watch it every time it's on.  Looks like there's about a half hour left of it.  I'll watch the end with you and then I have to get going.  It's supposed to be nice tomorrow and I want to finish harvesting” and they both turned their attention to the TV while they finished up eating. 

When the movie was done he said, "Well, I'm going to get going.” 

They both got up and he took their dishes and put them in the sink and he said "Would you like to me to help with dishes before I leave?"

“No, you go.  I can handle it.”  She walked him to the back door and said "Thanks for the talk Eli; I’m going to think about what you said about my Pa tonight.” 

"I know it must be hard on you but you never know what you'll do in a given situation.  You just do the best you can and sometimes it's right and sometimes not.  Maybe next time I come, you might be willing to share about your other problem and we can sort through that.”

"Maybe" Mary said hesitantly and opened the back door.

 Eli went out, looked back and said "Bye.” 

Mary waved and shut the door.  She closed up the boxes with the leftover Chinese food and put it in the refrigerator.   Then she pulled out the bottle of wine and poured herself a glass and put it on the table.  She filled the sink with hot water and sat down at the table and drank her glass of wine. 

When she was done, she put the glass in the sink and washed the dishes looking out the kitchen window.  She still had the porch light on and could see that it had finally stopped raining.  When she was done, she went back into the living room and turned off the TV. 

She went upstairs, changed clothes and got into bed.  She wondered if she should tell Eli about her and Elizabeth.  No, she thought, I'm not ready for that.  Then she thought about what he had said about her Pa.  Eli's right, I guess.  Who knows how someone acts when they lose a child.  What good does it do anyway to be upset with Pa?  I wonder if Jimmy and Johnny knew about Sherry.  I might call Johnny tomorrow and tell him about the diaries.  
 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.