True Love...

fiction

"...I have no idea what she saw in him."

"Right? Like how did she look at him and think, yeah, that's it!"

"What are you two ladies talking about?"

Molly and Lauren both jumped a little at the sound of their grandmother's voice. Lauren tried to close the photo album they had been looking at before she could see the photo they were discussing.

"We were just looking at old family photos, not really talking about anything important."

"Nonsense, you think I didn't hear you? My hearing aids are a wonder of modern science. I can hear you whisper from the next room."

The sisters exchanged a quick guilty glance. They should have realized she would hear them and of course she would call them out on it. Sometimes they forgot that even though she was 92 years old she was anything but feeble.

"Okay, we were talking about Aunt Sarah and Uncle Rob. I've never understood how she ended up married to him, and then stayed with him for so many years."

Their grandmother nodded. "He was a real piece of work wasn't he?"

The sisters looked a bit shocked. "You thought so too?"

"Of course I did. We all did. He might have been my sister's husband, but you'd have to be blind to think he was anything other than what he was. He was unpleasant to almost everyone. Including Sarah."

Lauren shook her head, "When we were little, every time we were around them Aunt Sarah was always so nice. Like she was trying to make up for Uncle Rob. And he was so rude to her. I can remember him calling her lazy more than once, even though she was the one who did everything around the house and took care of the kids and him and volunteered at their church and...."

"She was a good soul and more patient than I ever would have been for sure."

"Did you ever ask her why she married him?"

"You girls have to remember the world was smaller back then."

"I don't think the world has ever been that small."

"Oh but it was. We grew up in a town of about 150 people, our school drew from the tri-county area so if you count all of the families, maybe another 300-400 people total if I'm being generous. And that was our world. It wasn't common for kids to go off to college. You generally took over your parent's farm, or business, whatever they did, you did, and you did it with the kids of the same people that they grew up with. Generation after generation. Our biggest worry was making sure the boy you thought was sweet wasn't some sort of cousin."

Molly laughed, "It couldn't have been that bad!"

"It was. I mean, we saw other people at the State Fair every year. And sometimes you met a missionary who came to the church to try and raise money. Every once in a while someone new would move to town, a distant cousin who wanted to try out country life. And if they lasted more than two winters you might actually get to know their names instead of calling them 'those folks living out at the Jenkin's farm' though there would be oldtimers that would never call them anything else.

We didn't have the internet. We couldn't just log on to a whole world of new people. Though I hear some of those people online aren't really people at all. Which we didn't have that problem, at least. Everyone you met was a real person. They might not be a great person, but at least they were real."

"But Grandpa served in the military so he saw a lot more of the world."

"He did, but as soon as he could he came home. Which I'm glad he did. We already had plans for a wedding and it would have been late in the game for me to start looking around town for who was left."

"Is that what happened to Aunt Sarah? She had to settle for what was left? I think I'd have just stayed single."

"You think you would have, but that wasn't really done when we were young. There were expectations and we hadn't yet figured out that we didn't have to follow them. Sarah was the oldest of us kids, she would be 101 if she were still alive today. You cannot imagine the way the world has changed in those years. You only know what you've seen. If you're lucky you'll get to have a conversation with your grandchildren and great grandchildren about how things were so different when you were kids."

"But the world did change while she was still alive and she still stayed with him. She could have left."

"She could have. But she didn't want to. She always said we just didn't know him the way she did. And I have to say that must be true. I know he never hit her. I know the kids never went hungry. I know he never drank away a paycheck or gambled the mortgage payment. That made him a better man than a quite few. And Sarah loved him. And that made him the best man for her."

"I still just don't see it."

"And she didn't see it when your father started dating your mother."

"What?" Molly almost shouted.

"She didn't. She thought your mother was too fancy for him. That she'd get bored playing housewife to him and leave."

"Playing housewife? I don't think Mom ever played housewife."

"Well that was part of why Sarah thought they'd be a bad match. See I stayed home and took care of your father and your uncle. Sarah stayed home and took care of her kids. She just assumed your mother should do the same. But the world had gotten bigger when Sarah wasn't looking. Your mother didn't have to just stay at home. She could, and did, have a career and a family. She could and did, expect your father to pull his weight around the house too. It wasn't the romance that Sarah had pictured for her nephew, but I'd say it worked out okay, didn't it?"

The sisters smiled at each other remembering how much love had filled their home when they were children. It was busy, both of their parents had careers when they were growing up. It was expected that they too would work and, if they wanted to, raise families. Molly had two kids of her own now, and Lauren had never married. Both forged their own paths in different towns than the one they grew up in. The world had gotten much bigger. Their grandmother was right.

Of course she usually was.

"Now let's open that photo album again and you can ask me questions about everyone else as well. I might even remember the truth for some of the answers, and if not I'll make up a good lie."

The sisters laughed and settled down with their grandmother between them. Content to be part of a very small world, at least for awhile.