The Seasons Hereafter Read Online Free

Like when you told me we better get married quick. My mother wanted tests made but you convinced me that was an insult. No, it had to be done your way, because you knew damn’ well there wasn’t any baby, didn’t you? And when I found that out, you went on with your little sweeping jobs so I wouldn’t have time to think. Everybody told me you’d ruin me and I told ’em to go fly a kite, but now by God I believe ’em!”
    â€œThey threw you out, I didn’t.” She yawned. “You could have gone back any time you wanted, as long as you left me behind. Why didn’t you?”
    â€œBecause you were my wife. Because I still thought I was a goddam lucky bastard to get somebody with so much class.” He laughed and shook his head. “Goddam foolish bastard, some folks said. But I believe a man has a duty to his wife.”
    â€œConsisting of what? Parking her in shacks while he digs clams or cuts pulpwood? We never had any real home till I got this place for us.”
    Suddenly the fury went out of him and he became small and crumpled. “It’s like I told you before,” he pleaded. “I know I haven’t been much, I guess I wasn’t much to begin with even if you thought so, and it knocked the guts out of me when the old man turned me out. But I’ve got this chance to take care of you the way I should’ve been doing all along, and make up to you for all the hard times.”
    â€œLook,” she said patiently. “You go. I’m not stopping you. You start your new life, but I’m staying here.”
    â€œHow’ll you live?”
    â€œI’ve got my rents and I can get a job.”
    He hooted. “Think you can hold it any longer than you held the others? You were always too damn good, remember? Low company in the sardine factory, stupid company in the stores, and a bunch of lechers in all the restaurants. Shorthand and typing bored hell out of you in high school, and I thought that showed how much spirit you had. I still like your spirit Van,” he said desperately. “Don’t get me wrong! But it doesn’t seem to do much for us, does it?”
    â€œI suit me,” she said. “Go to bed, Barry. Or go somewhere. Just stop trying to change my mind.”
    â€œYou can knit twine like hell,” he argued, “and there’s not many women want to do that nowadays. Out there you’d have all the trap-heads and baitbags you could handle, and make yourself a damn good penny.”
    â€œOut there, out there,” she mocked him.
    He leaned over her suddenly and tried to kiss her, and she drove him off with her hands against his chest. He held her wrists, but she turned her face away when he tried to rub his against it. “It’s been like this for too long,” he muttered. “And it’s been plain hell for me but I never thought you were saving it for somebody else. If you don’t go with me now, that’s what I’ll think. You asked Mooney to get me that job, didn’t you? What’d you promise him?”
    â€œI promised him nothing! I wouldn’t have his paws on me, or anybody else’s! Now get out and leave me alone.”
    He released her and stood up. For a moment he looked down at her, and then went around the foot of the bed and out of the room closing the door very quietly. She was surprised to find herself shaking. It had been a long time since anything so violent had arisen between them. She felt like shouting after him, I will get a job! I’ll show you! But as she reached for her book she was able to comfort and calm herself by thinking, But I won’t need to go to work and mix with those people, because he’ll never go away from here without me. That was just the cheap liquor talking. Barry’d be afraid to do anything without me. He doesn’t hate me; he just hates his dependence on me.
    Pleased by her logic, she could almost believe that