The Stubborn Season by Lauren B. Davis

Author:Lauren B. Davis [Davis, Lauren B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443444729
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2002-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

17

As soon as the car door shut and Irene drove away to the funeral, Margaret knew she’d made a mistake. A sinister amber of silence filled the house.

“I can’t stand it! What’ll I do now?” she cried, as she raked her fingers through her hair, tearing at it. In the centre of her chest a fire burned and she knew it was her heart consuming itself. She hadn’t known losing Douglas would feel so horrible, because for so long she had believed she didn’t love him. But now, with his absence taking up so vast a space in her future, an avalanche of grief buried her.

She feared she would die, too. She wanted to die. She went downstairs to the living room and sank onto her knees, driven down by the weight of grief. The carpet scratched against the skin of her thin shins. As her robe opened in disarray her own scent rose toward her nostrils and filled her with shame. Even the robe itself was sour and stained. She should wash herself, scrub everywhere and get the filth out.

“Douglas,” she said, and the sound of his name brought tears to her eyes again. It would be a relief to die, and if she did, it would be of heart failure. Her failed heart.

She punched herself in the chest. Stop. Stop. Stop beating!

What would become of her? Widow woman. The widow MacNeil. I am too young. Too young to be a widow. Black-weed widow woman.

If the street had conspired to laugh at her before, now it would be a mob of pointing fingers and whispers. She would never again be able to set foot outside her door.

Even now, with the excuse of her husband’s funeral carving a clear path for her straight out the door, she was paralyzed between wanting to do the right thing and her untameable anger, her bitter discontent. If she could fully give herself to either one, then she would, she believed, find relief. Let her quench her thirst for love and loving, let her be a woman kind as apples, calm as butter. Or else let her release all grip on hope and fling herself toward the Other One. The Other Margaret. Let her become wind bred and lightning born. Fierce as rabies, unforgiving as a sharpened and thirsty sword.

Misery stabbed at her when she remembered how cruel she had been to Douglas, how she had turned away from him in bed, telling him he disgusted her. How she had failed at being a wife. Hadn’t she tried, though, hadn’t she tried? And wasn’t he an impossible husband, after all? A drunkard. A philanderer. A fool.

She had had such dreams, once. Even when she knew he would not be the great passion of her life, she had held the hope that they might be gentle with each other, might be kind, might bring out the best in each other. She had dreamed they might grow old and fat and prosperous together. She had dreamed they might laugh.

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