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Sep. 1st, 2017 09:56 pmIt starts as a day like any other. That is, perhaps, the strangest thing about it, how utterly noteworthy it seems, though then again, that seems to be how such things work. Jenny never saw herself as the sort to become a housewife, and she still doesn't intend to stay one, but while she's in the process of figuring out what she wants to do with her hard-earned degree, it isn't such a bad thing after all. There's always something to be done around here, anyway. She spends Saturday morning — late morning, that is, when there's no reason for her to wake up too early — straightening up the house a little, the dog jumping around her ankles; she calls it a day and moves to the kitchen in the afternoon to make lunch, not unlike what she does most weekends. Cameron bringing in the mail, usually delivered around this time, fits the same description.
It's comfortable, but not boring, familiar, but not yet grown tired. Once, she wouldn't have thought that such a balance could exist. No one ever spoke of one back home. Everything came down to choices, picking one path or another; before him, before they were here, Jenny never considered that all of these things could coexist, that she could have her degree from university and live in a house with her husband and have time to decide what she wants to do, not shoehorned into one of only a handful of boring jobs simply for the fact of being an educated woman. Maybe she'll never travel like she wanted to, but she also knows that if he could make that happen, he would. Anyway, she doesn't need that, not really. She's still living much like she always wanted to, content, not feeling like she's lacking anything. He makes good money, they have a nice house, he indulges her whims and knows how much she likes pretty things, and they will, with any luck, be starting a family soon. She isn't sure what more she could want, at least that's within reach.
Standing at the counter, she glances over her shoulder when Cameron says that he thinks they must have gotten someone else's mail by mistake, not thinking much of it as she moves back over to the table so she can start sorting through it. Usually, it's all just junk mail, anyway, catalogues or credit card offers to be thrown out — there isn't much need to send letters in a city this small, when it's so easy to communicate by phone anyway — but she might as well see what it is.
She flips past a few envelopes, a couple of bills, something clearly asking for money, a menu from a restaurant that's opened nearby, and then her heart drops into her stomach.
Mr and Mrs David Goldman, the address reads, and there are any number of them. She knows without having to remember vividly what the specific pieces of mail looked like that she's seen them before, found them crammed into a glove compartment while she was merely looking for a cigarette, about to celebrate her engagement to a man she didn't know was already married.
It isn't as if she never thinks about him. He crosses her mind more often than she cares to admit, usually just fleeting thoughts, mostly ones pertaining to how lucky she's gotten. Cameron is honest; he doesn't have a secret wife somewhere; he doesn't need to steal to make a living; he can actually get her off when they have sex and make it last more than two minutes. Maybe it's because of how fortunate she is that she doesn't often go back to that night and the ones that followed anymore, the disaster that her life turned into in the span of an instant. She'd been left with nothing. That may not have held true, as she knows now, but it was then, and seeing these, she's there again, the weight of it hitting her all over again, as if she's seeing them for the first time.
She's on her feet and the mail has fallen to the floor before she's realized it, her face pale, breaths shaky. "This wasn't a mistake," she says, quiet and stunned. "This — I was supposed to see these."
It's comfortable, but not boring, familiar, but not yet grown tired. Once, she wouldn't have thought that such a balance could exist. No one ever spoke of one back home. Everything came down to choices, picking one path or another; before him, before they were here, Jenny never considered that all of these things could coexist, that she could have her degree from university and live in a house with her husband and have time to decide what she wants to do, not shoehorned into one of only a handful of boring jobs simply for the fact of being an educated woman. Maybe she'll never travel like she wanted to, but she also knows that if he could make that happen, he would. Anyway, she doesn't need that, not really. She's still living much like she always wanted to, content, not feeling like she's lacking anything. He makes good money, they have a nice house, he indulges her whims and knows how much she likes pretty things, and they will, with any luck, be starting a family soon. She isn't sure what more she could want, at least that's within reach.
Standing at the counter, she glances over her shoulder when Cameron says that he thinks they must have gotten someone else's mail by mistake, not thinking much of it as she moves back over to the table so she can start sorting through it. Usually, it's all just junk mail, anyway, catalogues or credit card offers to be thrown out — there isn't much need to send letters in a city this small, when it's so easy to communicate by phone anyway — but she might as well see what it is.
She flips past a few envelopes, a couple of bills, something clearly asking for money, a menu from a restaurant that's opened nearby, and then her heart drops into her stomach.
Mr and Mrs David Goldman, the address reads, and there are any number of them. She knows without having to remember vividly what the specific pieces of mail looked like that she's seen them before, found them crammed into a glove compartment while she was merely looking for a cigarette, about to celebrate her engagement to a man she didn't know was already married.
It isn't as if she never thinks about him. He crosses her mind more often than she cares to admit, usually just fleeting thoughts, mostly ones pertaining to how lucky she's gotten. Cameron is honest; he doesn't have a secret wife somewhere; he doesn't need to steal to make a living; he can actually get her off when they have sex and make it last more than two minutes. Maybe it's because of how fortunate she is that she doesn't often go back to that night and the ones that followed anymore, the disaster that her life turned into in the span of an instant. She'd been left with nothing. That may not have held true, as she knows now, but it was then, and seeing these, she's there again, the weight of it hitting her all over again, as if she's seeing them for the first time.
She's on her feet and the mail has fallen to the floor before she's realized it, her face pale, breaths shaky. "This wasn't a mistake," she says, quiet and stunned. "This — I was supposed to see these."
