The GI Bride by Simantel Iris Jones

Author:Simantel, Iris Jones [Simantel, Iris Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718178086
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

13: The Palmer Saga Begins, and Meeting a Royal Butler

After Palmer and I were married, I opened the mail each day and was horrified to discover that he was in a far worse financial situation than I was. I simply had a difficult time making ends meet, but he was up to his neck in debt. One of the first bills I opened was from a downtown Chicago florist for all the flowers he had sent to me during our courtship. It came with a threatening ‘past due notice’. That bill was a shock, but not nearly as shocking as some that came later.

That evening, after we’d had our meal, I presented the bills to him, pointing out the demand from the florist. ‘What’s all this about?’ I asked him.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s just temporary, a misunderstanding I’m trying to get sorted out with my bank.’

Another thing I found strange after we were married was Palmer’s compulsive behaviour. For instance, there was his bedtime routine of checking the locks on the doors and windows. First, he would lock them, then tug each handle exactly twelve times to make sure they were secure. Sometimes, if he wasn’t sure he had counted correctly, or if he lost count, he would start again. Not of major importance, I suppose, but if I had known then what I know now, that behaviour would certainly have rung warning bells for me. Occasionally, I would tease him. ‘I don’t think you counted right,’ I’d say. Not that I actually knew, I just wanted to see what he’d do. I knew it was mean to do that, but what the heck? I had little else to laugh about.

‘Goddamnit,’ he’d say, and check them all again. Once, I couldn’t stop laughing, and he became so angry that I thought he was going to punch me, so I decided it safest to ignore his weird behaviour. After all, what harm was it doing?

We had managed to find a much nicer apartment to move into after we were married. It had two bedrooms, a huge living room with a dining area, a modern bathroom, a smallish kitchen with lots of cabinets, and there were huge wardrobe-type closets throughout.

There was plenty of room in the second bedroom for Wayne, his toys and clothes; the walk-in closet was as big as a small bedroom, and he often used it as his den. We’d had little money to spare so he’d never had his own space before, a place where he could invite friends to play. The little guy had adapted to our compromised situation since his father and I were divorced, and now I was happy to be able to provide such a lovely spacious room for him. I let him help to pick out the bedspread and curtains.

The apartment, considered a basement apartment since it was partially below ground level, had large picture windows and was light and cheery. The building was almost new and was in a great neighbourhood.

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