(no subject)
The whistle finally blows signalling the end of the shift. Seems like it takes for ever for the 9:30 shift to get over. At least it is summer and the night has just started to turn dark making it easy to get home. Tonight will be a good night Louis thinks as he walks the short distance home. His wife and a bunch of friends are going to the Douglas farm for another dance. Everyone from around the surrounding counties were going to be there. They had all been going to different dances there since May but this one was to celebrate the large barn being finally completed. Smiling he thinks, how great things have been going lately for him and Katherine. There had been a bit of a rough patch earlier in the year but they had made it though and were stronger than ever. Even the rumors that had gone around the town about her and Ed had finally come to a rest after his return. "I wish that she had just understood that my brother and I were just trying to help out the family", he thinks crossing the last bit towards home. " I know that she was lonely with the 3 kids and all but getting to be such close friends with Ed a known womanizer sheesh, it just didn't look proper." The trip to Arkansas to look for work had taken longer than he was hoping. They were just to go for a few weeks to haul some gravel for the new highway being built. His brother having not been married yet sure enough found him self a wife there also he thinks chuckling under his breath. Cute little Emma Dove accepted right away his brothers proposal. They stayed to have the wedding there with her family the next month before heading home to New London.
He frowns, his mouth tightening as he remembers the fight when he finally got home. It was a good one the neighbors had their entertainment that night.
" How could you just leave me here all this time?!" Katherine yelled. " I had to go and get my cousin to come and help watch the kids so I could work just to put food on the table"
" Honey it was for you and the kids, I did make some money just not what was promised to us" trying to reason with her.
" You know how I felt to be just left , abandoned for months without hardly a letter to tell me how you were " she starts crying " The kids wondering when you were going to come back. What was I to tell them"
" You could have told them what I wrote that they now have a new aunt" he says
" A new aunt, and you think that takes place of their father being gone for months, kids teasing them on the school yard that you had run off." she says
" I didn't run off, I don't know why you keep saying that. Is that what you told the neighbors when you were out on the town with Ed"
"Out on the Town!! We never went out, a few times he took me for a ride in the county in his motorcar is all. We even stopped at my sisters." red faced in anger.
"Look I told you I am home now, I'm not leaving. Opper has an other opportunity for me coming up to make some real money" trying to calm her down.
"Opper! That moonshiner oh no I need a husband that has a bonafide job. You got in to trouble the last time you tried that. Or do you forget having the Prohibition agent searching our house, even the children s bedroom for that poison"
" Are you never going to let that go" throwing up his hands. " Things are changing in the county, the police don't care as much as they first did. Heck they are saying in a couple of years it won't even be a crime anymore.
" I don't care what you say it doesn't mean it is legal now. I want a husband that I know is here for me. Every morning when I wake up" her eyes blazing yet sad.
"Don't you even remember that night at your fathers house. When you held me and told me that a life with you would mean I would never have to worry about being lonely or homeless or hungry again." arms hugging herself as the tears keep steaming down unhindered down her face. " I was in charge of my brother and sister wondering where we were going to live, when your father offered me a room at your house for exchange of helping out his wife with the chores" her anger calming as she thinks back. " Oh when I first knocked on the door and you opened it. So handsome with your black hair and your suspenders down around your waist. I think you were as surprised as me. I thought that there was only your father and his wife. " a smile starting to creep in to her eyes and corner of mouth.
Reaching over to hold her hand " I was thinking that you were one of the guys playing tricks.