Step by step the water crept higher up her legs as she crossed the temperamental stream. She curses under her breath as she remembers how the storm came roaring up on top of her. She had thrown her head up and yelled toward the heavens, “Is this you cursing me God!? ‘Cause if it is, I just want you to know that I’m staying a damn fool.”
It had been a year and two months since she walked into that wretched cottage James had “fixed up” for her. When he carried Sarah Jane over the threshold, she nearly gasped at the sight. What lay before her was an array of color. Normally, that’s what every bride wants. A beautiful home full of the latest fashion and color schemes that matched seamlessly.
While James had done a wonderful job building the cottage’s structure and framework, the inside of the house looked like he had stood in the center of each room and just tossed paint cans about. In the living room they had walked into from the front door, Jane nearly fainted as she was greeted with shades of green and purple that made no sense being together.
It was like that in every room she walked through as James proudly showed her their new home. Patterns that have no business being together sat side by side on the quaint settee they had inherited from Sarah Jane’s grandmother.
She tried, for James’s sake, to smile and be appreciative of everything he had showed her. But, in her mind she formed a plan to put this cottage together the proper way. Their home stood as one of the first on what was now known as Main Street in town. Just two blocks away was James’s office. He was the town doctor.
When his schooling was done at the one room schoolhouse here in town, James was shipped off to one of the best colleges in the east to earn a degree in medicine. It was not what James desired to. He loved working with his hands and had intended to learn from the town blacksmith.
James’s father wouldn’t hear of it. His father was the town the doctor at the time and looking toward retirement when his eldest son, James, returned from the east with a doctorate in medicine. James was not giving a chance to choose his career. His father was a rich man, if you wanted any part of his inheritance, you did as he said.
Sarah Jane, on the other hand, was the preacher’s daughter. Just as James’s father had expectations for him, her father did for her as well. The only difference was that Sarah Jane’s mother came from a prominent family in Boston, where her parents meet, married and moved from as her father followed the calling to preach in a small western town.
When Sarah Jane was fifteen, her mother insisted she go stay the summer’s with her aunt in Boston. Sarah Jane’s mother wanted her to learn women’s etiquette and those other boring things women must do to become proper wives. Sarah Jane loved her aunt and did as her mother expected at first. However, it soon became clear to both she and her aunt that she had no interest in being a proper woman in society. Once her aunt had introduced her to the art galleries and grand town library, Sarah Jane found herself craving time in the library. She would sneak off from her etiquette lessons and escape to the library, reading for hours. She hungered for knowledge, something the colleges would not let her have purely because she was a girl.
Okay, stopping here for the week. Sarah Jane wants a minute to decide what her favorite subject to read is. I hope you are enjoying the story as it gets created on the spot. As always, please reach out with your comments, thoughts, or questions. There is a sentence in today’s addition that I’m still fighting with. Can you find it? What would you suggest be done with it?
Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there!!!
