Making a choice out of necessity

Leta was sitting at the kitchen table, reviewing her situation. It was a cloudy September morning, and a chill dampness choked the air. The children were off to school, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

She had been sipping coffee, but the remains of her entire supply now sat stagnant in the cup, the cream separating and congealing. Today was her grocery day, but she had just given her daughter Vivian the last half dollar from her pocketbook for school supplies. While she hadn’t been surprised that the children’s needs emptied her purse, its emptiness created a dilemma.

Both children needed new clothes and shoes, having outgrown nearly everything they had been wearing. The rent was due. She owed the grocer and the milk deliveryman. Soon other bills would come due – electricity and telephone. While she had learned when living with her first husband that there would always be bills, what most defined of her current situation was that she had no source of income.

The moonshine still sat dormant and rusting in the basement. She had already sold or given away all of the alcohol they had made during happier days. While she could continue to make and sell the illegal liquor, she simply could not bear it. Even going into the basement caused a panic attack that sent her either crying into her bedroom or made her irritable for hours. Although her children knew her moods, they were also hurting. The loss was also theirs, and it was inappropriate for her to burden them more with her own angry grief. As a child, she often had to avoid her father’s raging moods, a habit she continued with her first husband. The children lived through their own father’s tantrums, and for all she knew, still had to when they visited him. They did not deserve hers right now, even as her heart moved from a painful ache to a hollow cavern of emptiness.  

Al had died less than three months earlier. How had the money gone so quickly? They never considered themselves spendthrifts or materialistic. He had a reasonable salary. They had a savings and war bonds.

But the funeral was expensive, and without her husband Leta had no income of her own. Fleetingly, she thought about asking her children’s father to provide some financial support, but she feared this would lead to him suing for custody. While she and the judge convinced him to drop his prior suit, she believed that this time he would win, and she couldn’t part with her daughter and son at this time. Taking care of them was the only stability in her suddenly tumultuous and uncertain life.

Selling the automobile would bring in some immediate cash. She didn’t drive; she didn’t need it. Besides, it belonged to her husband, and every time she saw it parked in front of the house, her heart started to ache all over again.

Still, she needed income, and she needed to find a way to take care of her children and herself.

To be continued.