An Extravagant Hunger by Anne Zimmerman

Author:Anne Zimmerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781582438696
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Published: 2018-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

8

Unspeakable Thoughts

IN EARLY JANUARY 1936, Tim sent Mary Frances a letter with a bold proposition. He was planning an extended trip to Europe with his mother and wanted her to be Mrs. Parrish’s traveling companion. Mary Frances was wise to the plan’s undercurrents. She had “been in love with [Tim] for three years or so . . . I was keeping quiet about it; I liked him and I liked his first wife who had recently married again, and I was profoundly attached to Al.” But Al raised no objections when Tim broached the idea of taking Mary Frances to Europe for most of the spring. In fact, to her “astonishment and chagrin my husband eagerly, or so it seemed, urged me to go.”

It was the third time that Al had agreed, apparently easily and happily, to a long separation. Yet Mary Frances still professed strong feelings of love and responsibility for her husband, saying that even as she packed her bags for the trip she was “making plans for the next years with him, the rest of my life with him.”

She continued to imagine that she and Al would have or adopt children, garden and raise animals, and have interests and friends that extended far beyond the walls of academia. Yes, she was bothered by her stifling role as a faculty bride. But she believed that she was elegant and intelligent enough never to be trapped in the drudgery of wifedom and motherhood that she feared.

Perhaps this was why she agreed to the trip: It seemed plausible, at least for a moment, that she could travel to Europe with her lover and then return home and quietly resume life with her husband. But the odds of her weak marriage to Al surviving infidelity, and then beginning to flourish, were very slim—something that Mary Frances was slow to accept. Although it seems far-fetched, her sheltered upbringing and the standards of the time made Mary Frances believe that her marriage was healthy and could survive its battered state.

But while traveling east en route to her departure for Europe, her thoughts veered again, and she came to a chilling realization: Her future had been decided. If she stayed married to Al, she would indeed become a staid faculty wife, trapped in a loveless marriage, slowly losing her creativity and her soul. After a few more years of the regimented routine, she’d be “wearing brown satin afternoon dresses and wearily eating marshmallow salads at committee lunches with the best of them.” The thought turned her stomach—and made her ever eager to continue her romance with Tim.

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