Curtis, part thirty-one

Curtis was still kneeling at her open suitcase. Once it had been well-packed and neat, but after he spent time rummaging for cash, it was now in disarray. When Leta found her new husband going through her personal belongings, she felt startled and a little violated. But he told her he needed five dollars, and he knew she had money somewhere. He only found three dollars in per pocketbook.

She could not tell whether he was embarrassed by his need or at being caught, or just surly that she would withhold money from him and question him when he wanted it. However, it made no difference to her what his reasons were; she was furious by his disrespectful behavior, and nearly confronted him right then and there. However, the man Curtis owed the money to—the milkman—was waiting in the front of the house, and she did not want to add further insult to that man by denying him the money owed.

“Fine,” she said, her lips pulled tightly together. “Please leave the room, and I will get the five dollars.

“Why don’t you just hand over all of it to me,” Curtis said. “Then I can take care of it. I don’t like you keeping money hidden from me. It’s dishonest.”

“Dishonest?” Leta gasped, finally losing her temper. “You’re the one I found going through my things! I worked for that money. I worked hard for it, and I’m not just going to give it to you.”

“You are my wife!” he shouted. “Everything you had now belongs to me. Now, turn it over.”

“I am not giving you my money!” Leta responded in kind.

“Your money is my money now, woman,” he continued. “Now give it to me before I tear this room apart to find it for myself!”

With this he picked up her open suitcase and hurled it against the wall.

“Go ahead and tear the room apart. See if I care,” she hissed. “You’re still not going to find it.”

With that, she turned around and left the room.

“Get back here,” he ordered. “Mrs. Curtis!”

She stormed down the stairs, out the front door and past the milkman who was standing near the porch where he had overheard their entire conversation, and then proceeded down the street.

If her husband was following her, then he must have stopped when he met the milkman, for she did not hear him after proceeding a quarter of a mile down the road. Her fury and her energy had abated, and she needed to sit down. A short distance away was a grove of trees where someone had been chopping wood, so she made her way there, found a large log, dropped onto it and began to sob.

To be continued.