Life with Leech Hoose was not progressing as expected. Leta
thought she had been more selective in choosing him as a mate. He was, after
all, her fourth husband. When they met, she was in a terrible living situation
with her third husband, who was never present, and left her with no food or
ability to pay their household bills. She and her children were starting to
look ragged. Leech, she believed, was a godsend. He was considerate and compassionate.
He was kind and gentle. He seemed genuinely to like her. When they married, she
believed that things would get better for her, and for her children. While he
was awkward with them, he seemed to be accepting.
After five months of marriage, she was no longer feeling that
he liked her at all. Certainly, he wanted to spend time with her, eat with her,
share a bed with her, and, most enthusiastically, go drinking with her. While
he was sometimes impulsive about taking her along on his daily excursions to
their local speakeasy, he wanted her to look nice when they went out. “I like
to show off my beautiful wife to the lushes and losers,” she overheard him tell
to the bartender one evening when she returned from the lavatory. However, he
obviously detested that part of her that was a mother. She had children, and as
far as he was concerned, they were nothing more than a “pack of rats running
amok in the house.” If he had not been her husband, she could have responded to
that vicious and negative remark with motherly strength and prowess, but she
had to live with him. Her children had to live with him. All she could do was
devise and execute a lifestyle that kept her children separated from her
husband.
This made for a lot of stress and tension that she held inside
her. Every day had more challenges than she could manage. She was basically
living two lives at the same place at the same time—one with her husband and
another with her children. In the morning, she would rise and prepare Leech’s
breakfast. He would eat and then go to work. Then she would rouse the children
and feed them their breakfast. During the day, she and the children would have
full access to the house and yard. But at four o’clock, they began their
evening preparation. She would start supper, and the children would remove all
traces of their presence from the living room, kitchen, yard and bathroom. While
Vivian watched whatever was cooking, Leta perform a final inspection throughout
the house to make sure that neither child had forgotten any item—a toy, a book,
or even Vivian’s sewing. Anything left would be confiscated. By five o’clock
both children were in their individual bedrooms, and the kitchen table was set
for two.
If all went well, her husband would arrive home from work,
skim the newspaper, eat his supper, spend fifteen minutes in the bathroom, and
then leave for two or three more hours. Once he was gone, she would feed the
children, and they would clean up the kitchen. After this, the children would
return to their rooms until morning under the strictest orders to be quiet.
Even though it was summer and still light enough for the children to play
outside, Leta could not risk Leech arriving home from his evening’s repast
earlier than expected and find the children anywhere. Sometimes she would sit
with the children, but most of the time, she sat alone in the living room,
drinking beer and waiting for her husband’s return.
This was not the home life she had envisioned when she first
started thinking about marriage to Leech Hoose. This was not the happy family
she believed would come to pass when she began to feel that a relationship with
him would be possible. This was not how she planned to live her life.
Fortunately, she had the beer to clam her nerves.
To be continued.
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