-Mary
“Maybe you’re sitting there, asking why? Why me?” The deep voice of a preacher on the little plastic radio on the counter crackles with static.
Why? That’s a good question.
My fingers toy with the Scrabble pieces scattered on the table before me.
Memories of the argument still linger. Abe had come back from the bank determined to purchase the store. I had been equally determined that we shouldn’t.
That’s what set off the argument.
We had loved each other once. Did we still?
I sigh. It has only been a short while…but so much has changed in my life.
It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting on my bed in the basement of my parent’s house. Wondering about the future…wondering if I could ever be loved.
My mother would be yelling down the stairs at me to do this or that and my father would be lost in the haze of his sermons.
Sermons he didn’t understand and couldn’t explain to me.
How I wished that I had someone to talk to in those days.
I had so many questions but no one to sit with.
Now who am I? I’m a married woman sitting alone at a table in a little kitchen.
I have a husband to hear anything I care to say…even if he doesn’t always listen.
He is the head of the house. He makes the decisions and they are final. What is there for me to do but live with the consequences?
“The road may be unfamiliar. The road may be frightening. But, let me ask you this friend, are you ready to step out in faith?” The voice of the preacher is drowned in a haze of interference.
“Why?” My fingers have moved the Scrabble blocks to form the word before me.
The clock is clicking down the moments until things change once again.
We had just moved into this old house…now everything we own is sitting in the store that my husband has purchased.
A store. I had never thought of myself as a storekeeper’s wife. But, it appears that’s what I’m going to be.
A wife needs to follow her man.
I suppose I should have known that this would happen. Abe told me about his dreams often enough when we were courting. Was I blinded by love…or did I just want to get married and escape the house of my parents?
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.
The sound of an approaching truck prompts me to my feet.
I’ve left so much behind already…I need to leave this house as well…
“Wherever you are at in life, be assured that God is only a prayer away…in fact, God…” The voice on the radio goes quiet as I unplug it. It fits well into my purse. A fact that I am thankful for.
Abe doesn’t like it if I listen to the preachers on the radio.
Still, it is the faith that they preach that is keeping me going through all this.
I move away from the kitchen table full of Scrabble pieces and unformed words.
A door creaks open as I move from the house.
The truck is sitting before the house. Abe is in the driver’s seat, waiting. It seems like he is impatient.
I quicken my pace.
It is time to go.
The store awaits.
Kelvin Bueckert 