Chapter 7 The Calm Before The Storm

• So I sat, alone, huddled, trying to ignore the vindictive whispers around me.
• I was aware that some of Andrea’s close buddies who were the leading lights of the ladies bridge club of the village had arrived too. It was not any kind of anguish for Jack or sympathy for me that had brought these well-heeled, rich middle-aged women here. Oh, No! They had come for Andrea. Naturally, they had come to display their support to the woman who had made it big in the city.
• Maeve Lanley was one such unpleasant person who had stopped me in the street one afternoon when I had come shopping. I had been five months pregnant at the time and none the wiser about the deep hatred some of the townspeople had for me. Maeve looked like a classic beauty from afar but when you got closer, you could see the plastic look on her face, the result of various anti-ageing surgeries.
• ***
• I ran into her unpleasantness headlong when I was at the local supermarket that day. The heads turning to look at me had not really affected me when I entered the small store. It’is because I am a new face, I had thought, beaming cheerfully at them and waving happily.
• But three women, tastefully dressed, had stepped into my path as I wheeled the cart around the corner, looking for my favourite brand of cereal. As always, I was dressed casually, in a pair of faded cut off shorts and a large T-shirt of Jack’s that had seen better days. They had effectively forced me to a halt, my shopping cart in front of me. I had blinked, smiling hesitantly. The icy looks on their faces had alerted me to an unexpected, approaching danger. But I had never anticipated what happened next. Stepping closer, blocking my path in the narrow aisle, Maeve had looked me up and down and said spitefully,
• “So Jack has gone and picked up a w*ore for himself. How desperate can a man get! Andrea was such a lady. ‘
• I stared open-mouthed at her. No one had ever spoken to me like tht before and I was in a dilemma.
• One of the others, who I later found was Vera Hampton, the wife of a local real estate agent, joined her,
• ‘I mean, trash can be recognized from a mile away. Especially White Trash, dahling.’
• And tittering nastily, they had pushed past me, almost causing me to bump into the carefully stacked tins of sardines behind me. But Maeve was not done yet.
• Coming so close she was almost in my face she had all but spat,
• “You are TRASH! You can never come close to Andrea, you filthy tramp.’
• And as she stalked off on her fancy heels, she called out loudly,
• ‘And stay away from our husbands, you under-aged w*ore . No one in this town wants you.”
• I had stood, reeling in the supermarket aisle, shocked at the venom in the women. Turning my tear-filled face to the side I had noticed a few women who had seen the whole thing being played out before them. There was a smugness in their faces that made me turn and run. The cashier, a young man chewing gum, gave me a lewd grin and for the first time, I saw myself through their eyes. With a strangled sob, I pushed the cart with my purchases to the side. Rushing out of the place in tears, I thought belatedly, no one had stepped forward to stop her or to comfort me. That day I caught on to the ugliness that lay beneath the surface of the seemingly ideal town.
• Jack had come looking for me and found me huddled beside the truck in the parking lot. He had taken me into his arms and kissed away the tears and I could feel the sadness in him as I recounted my experience, between sobs.
• Jack had comforted me, holding me in his arms as I wept all night long.
• ***
• Cuddling little Jack to my body now, I bent my head. We were still getting over the shock of his leaving us forever, he had just left us yesterday. It had been a heart attack, said the doctor, regretfully. Sudden and unexpected.
• Jack had been on his way home from the city that evening. When he had not returned, I had called Joe.
• A while later, Joe had turned up in his beat-up old car with Beth in tow,
• They broke the news gently.
• Jack had collapsed in the car during the drive home. His car had crashed into the trees lining the road. A family driving by had noticed the car and alerted the police.
• It had taken a while to recover his body since the car had slid into the undergrowth bordering the road..
• I had sunk to the floor on hearing the news, shattered and unable to reconcile myself to the fact that he was lost forever.
• We had kissed at the breakfast table and I had had dinner ready and waiting when the news came…
• ***
• And his ex-wife who had never bothered to return his calls, return his messages, or come to meet him; she was going to fight for the house? I knew that she was more than well off. Jack had signed over a large sum as alimony to her. Having refused to challenge her in court, he had signed over a house in the city and a condominium he had bought as well when he was doing well in the city. The irony of it had left me amazed. His wife, who had been unfaithful to him, had deserted him and claimed alimony. Jack, the gentle person that he was, had agreed to all her demands.
• He had only kept the log cabin by the lake for himself.
• And now, covetous Andrea, who lived in Hampton, which was the nearest big city, wanted the little log cabin tucked away in a small town, the only home my son had known?
• I had felt a slow-burning rage in me at the unfairness of it all.