Love Letters From the Grave(26)

There was definitely something a little off with her, though.

And Charlie knew it, because there was something a little off with him, too.

Somehow, implausibly and confusingly when he still adored his wife and their life together, Charlie had fallen head-over-heels in love with someone else.

And this time, the feeling of love was like nothing he had ever known before.





Chapter 8




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Molly Moving On



* * *





“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire

and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks

and get off at - Elysian Fields!”



A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams



Every morning, after breakfast and seeing her father and Tommy off to work, Molly’s mind would work overtime about her situation. She hoped upon hope that Tommy's love-making would eventually become just that - love making.

She greatly feared, however, that it would not, and that the best she could do was to grin and bear it. If so, she was determined to do her wifely duty - to simply lie in bed and sexually "service" her husband. If this was to be the situation, she could only hope that their sexual episodes would decrease, considerably, in frequency.

Oh, how she wished she could talk to her mother about it. She didn’t even want to bother Maureen with her woes. Her marriage with Tommy was nothing like her sister’s relationship with Angus, so how could she possibly understand?

And so her dreary, unhappy life went on, made bearable by the presence of her father, caring for the animals they raised for eggs and meat, tending the family garden, and visiting with Carol (who never married and became a firm friend) several times a week.

Her father was re-elected as County Sheriff, and was spending more and more time in his job. Tommy was also working a lot of overtime. She was grateful that he seemed to fall upon a lot of the night shifts, which she enjoyed because of being able to sleep alone in her bed.

After she had been married about four years, her father's brother died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving her aunt, Dolores, destitute. Since there was plenty of room in their home, her father immediately invited her to move in with them. Not only did she readily accept the invitation, but since she was an excellent cook and housekeeper, it was natural that she took over most of Molly's duties. This left Molly with a lot of time on her hands, which she filled mainly by spending more time with Carol, and, at the urging of her father, by doing volunteer work in the community.

During this time, Tommy was spending less and less time at home, often staying out all night even when work did not demand it. Their sexual encounters continued to be rough affairs. She eventually came to characterize them in her mind as the copulation of goats: Molly was the nanny goat, and Tommy a billy goat who roughly mounted her, humped and bleated for a short while, and then just as roughly, dismounted her. Fortunately, their copulations became less and less frequent, until it became rare that they even slept together, let alone have intercourse. This was fine with her, though she began to have suspicions that Tommy might be seeing someone else.

John, the young sheriff in whom she’d been more interested, confirmed this for her when he brought Tommy home one morning in the patrol van, out of his mind on whiskey.

‘How is he drunk?’ she said, barely able to conceal her repulsion at the sorry state of her husband. ‘I thought he’d been at work all night.’

‘Not any work you’d care to know about,’ muttered John in an undertone, but loud enough for Molly to hear him.

‘What do you mean?’

John shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t be the one to tell you what your husband gets up to, Molly, but if it carries on I might have to arrest him, and then it’ll be too late.’

‘He’s … he’s seeing someone, isn’t he? My husband’s having an affair. Don’t worry, John, I was already aware of that.’ Then she considered what John had just said. ‘But … you wouldn’t arrest him for having an affair, because that’s not sheriff’s business, unless …’

‘Unless,’ repeated John flatly, hardly able to meet her gaze. He turned his hat in his hands over and over, then finally let his words tumble out. ‘I’m sorry, Molly, but Tommy has been exhibiting sexually deviant tendencies. We’ve all been aware of it, but most of us ignored it to spare you the humiliation. And your father, of course.’

It was the worst thing she could ever have imagined of her husband, but as she thought about his apparent disgust at the touch of her flesh, and the barbaric, brutal, Saturnalian assaults on her body, it all made sense. ‘He’s a … a queer?’

John looked around him as if willing someone else to appear to answer her questions, then nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. Yes, he’s queer. And he’s going to have to be very careful or he’ll lose his job.’

‘And his wife,’ said Molly bitterly.

‘I think,’ said John, scratching his nose, ‘that maybe he lost his wife a long time ago.’

She watched John as he poured Tommy out onto the steps and drove away as fast as he could decently allow himself to go. Why had she permitted herself to be intimidated by this horrible man – and furthermore, why had John? Their lives could all have been very different.