TO MARRY

TO MARRY

I got stuck in traffic for several hours. It took me all day to drive home. Home sweet home! … washing up, making beds, floor cleaning, dusting, cooking… We eventually wed after an eighteen year engagement and I have been living in wedded bliss for almost half a year, then… my role changed slowly, from lover to wife, from wife to housewife, from housewife to housekeeper, from housekeeper to cleaning woman and finally from cleaning woman to servant.

He was convincing and persuasive: “Sweetie… you’re getting older… how can you get along without me? … Sweetie… I love you… we fell in love far-back and I can’t do without you… Sweetie… I only care about you, about your future… I’ll make you a lady, you’ll really be a lady (probably he meant a bag lady!), I’ll help you every way, you have to resign and to devote yourself to me, to your husband, you’ll be the tower of strength of your family, the base, the help, the backing, the support of your family… Sweetie… we are a family. Aren’t we?”

My mother, a grown woman, … a married woman, told me: “Give him up right away… kick him out! … You are silly, what are you waiting for? Baby, he’s searching for an housekeeper low cost… Baby you are about 40 years old… do you really think he’s searching for a lover? If a man woos a woman with flowers and expensive presents he’s really in love, but if a man woos a woman only chitchatting about love… he’s clearly searching for a servant. Get married at 40 is a terrible ordeal… let me tell you! I married at 25 and became a servant into a weak… Baby, keep away from men about 40…”.

Well… we married… I resigned as secretary… and started overworking at home… He never helped me… He liked only his armchair, his slippers and his newspaper. I remember just three days after wedding, he was on the phone I entered the room and kissed him gently… but he was too busy talking to notice me come in. Do you understand what kind of man my husband is? And my mother told me: “His refusal to cooperate is completely understandable, considering the circumstances. Both sides must try to understand one another, to recognise each others' rights, feelings and beliefs… before wedding… otherwise they have to keep apart! Baby, the wedding has hits rules…”.

My husband is somehow repetitive: “Why don’t you do this? … Why don’t you do that? Tomorrow is Sunday… would you like to show my mother how skilled you became in cooking? I’m sure you’d like…isn’t it? Sweetie, I know you’ll make a good impression… I told my mother you are the sweetest wife in the world… Aren’t you?”.

And when the holyday time approaches he needs to rest, clearly he made an incredible effort reading newspapers and looking to the football matches. And he’s so good-hearted he can’t get along without his mother and his sister and his brother-in-law, they are a family… they are my family… and we must take vacations together… he told me: “You’ll have a good time! My relatives know very well how kind you are!”

We went to a sea site… and we hired a little house just near the sea, two big rooms and one little, probably the servant’s room. According to my point of view, the first big room was or my husband and me, the second for my brother-in-law an his wife and the little one for my mother-in-law… but she needed the big one because she is suffering from claustrophobia… therefore she got the big one with his son and I… obviously, the little one… the servant’s room… this way everything was going on according to the wedding rules.

He, his mother, his sister and her husband where in the habit of going out, all the four of them, just after breakfast… I had to stay at home to prepare for lunch… My husband told me: “We’re going to see such a boring things… you know well how they like cultural things… but it’s not your matter, I know you like better to stay at home cooking something special for us… don’t you?”… Well… they got back… everything was ready… his mother told me: “My beloved… I’m terribly tired… what you cooked is very very delicious but I’d like better just a pottage… if you are too busy I can cook it myself … but I’m so tired (and she sighed)”… My brother-in-law went on speaking on his mobile about prices, estate business, and a lot of other interesting arguments. It was just in then that a new thought fleshed in my brain… something compulsive, something that became for me an absolute need… About a year ago I had started a new job as a secretary, a part time job, at that time I wasn’t aware of the consequences that would come from my new job. My husband clearly dissented, according to him I was a lady and needn’t work at all… but I signed all the same.

I got only a little money… but I saved it… and that flash was about how to spend my savings… you know, lawyers are expensive but sometimes is well worth it for the freedom they give you. This time I’d liked better to get along with a lawyer than with my husband!

Eventually holyday-time ended and we got back home and I didn’t change anything in my behaviour… next Sunday the usual lunch with his relatives, I prepared, or I’d say better I pretended to prepare everything for lunch… when they took place around the table I showed up with a big neckerchief around my head: “I’m sorry… but today I’m very tired… Mommy, my beloved… I’m terribly tired… I wasn’t able to cook anything… perhaps you can help me… I’d like better just a pottage… if you are too busy I can cook it myself … but I’m so tired (and I sighed)”.

They looked very perplexed, something was going wrong… Then I went on: “Mummy… I know you are very skilled in cooking… aren’t you? … I think you all are willing to help me… isn’t it? … Thanks… you are very kind persons… I’ll never forget…”. They where uncertain whether or not take heed of me… finally my sister-in-law headed for the kitchen and started cooking… My husband was upset: “Are you fine, Sweetie? There’s something I can’t understand”. “Nothing to worry… I’m just a little tired….

I took place and my sister-in-law made everything. The silence was perfect, no football games, no mobiles, neither chitchatting… they where only waiting for me to tell something… but I went on only sighing from time to time.

Then the bell rang, I told my husband: “Sweetie… can you open for me?”. He did. It was the postman that gave him a registered mail… he opened it and looked distressed and devastated… I told him immediately: “Sweetie… I’m sorry, I’m so absent-minded that I forgot to tell you I’ve seen my lawyer to get a divorce… nothing to worry about…”.