A Decent World by Ellen Hawley

Author:Ellen Hawley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Other People Manage;Anne Tyler;Elizabeth Strout;Sigrid Nunez;Lorrie Moore;Alice Munro;lesbian;polyamory;revolutionary;LBGT;non-monogamous;Communist
Publisher: Swift Press
Published: 2023-05-24T21:00:28+00:00

Two weeks later, a money order came in the mail – no note, no return address – for more than her salary had been. She had a part-time job by then, not as a waitress but in a bookstore. It was a cut in pay but they’d get by. If the feds didn’t show up, she’d pick up more hours eventually. Or she’d get hired at one of the more progressive private schools. Already, she’d put out some feelers. She was able to look at the money order without longing.

After she got the kids to bed, she handed it to Sol.

“It came in the mail.”

“David, David.”

“So he can tell himself he hasn’t done any harm.”

Sol’s hands turned the paper over as if he was checking for a tripwire.

“We can’t let ourselves be beholden to him.” He set it on the coffee table, sighed, leaned back. “Although it would solve a lot of problems.”

“And create a lot of others.”

He reached for her, and she kissed the top of his head where the hair was thin. It seemed like a long time since they’d reached for each other like this. The tensions. The sense of defeat. The small economies. Not to mention the kids. It was hard to say what it had been. They hadn’t been fighting but they’d edged away from each other, and she leaned into him with relief.

In the morning, she sent the money order back, and three days later it reappeared with a note: “Not mine.”

“Not mine either,” she wrote, and sent it back again.

On Saturday morning she and Sol dozed while the kids played in the living room. She rose to the surface to hear them shushing each other and dove down into sleep again. Just five minutes more, please.

She surfaced again – a minute later, half an hour later, a geological age later – to rustling and more shushing. Caro’s voice carried, even when she was trying to hold it back. She’d have made a great street-corner speaker.

Josie tied her robe, half her mind still burrowed under the covers, and found the kids on the floor, paper fluttering from their hands. In front of the couch, they’d made an entire town out of open books – walls, streets, a few ceilings, although they’d left most of it open to the sky. At their ages, David had owned a set of wooden blocks he could build with, every shape a child could want, all supplied for him. Pride in their inventiveness warred with a fleeting wish that she’d been able to buy them blocks.

No, it was a choice. She could have bought them blocks. The problem was that buying blocks meant not buying something else, and blocks hadn’t been at the top of the list, but she hadn’t been without choices.

“Look, Josie,” Caro said. “It’s money.” She picked paper off the floor and let it flutter down again. “It’s money. Really.” She was as awestruck as if she’d been filtering stars through her hands or letting fairies take flight from her fingertips.

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