New Wardrobe?
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Copyright Oggbashan March 2017
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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I was sitting at the kitchen table ruefully going over my finances. They had taken a large hit with our daughter's marriage to Graham three weeks ago. It had been a low key wedding because Sophie had chosen a small wedding with a large paternal contribution towards their new house.
It would take months, or more realistically several years, to rebuild our capital. At least I hadn't gone into debt. I had been saving for Sophie's wedding since she was five years old. I couldn't have saved any earlier because equipping Sophie as a new baby and a daughter had been so expensive. Unlike Alan, born eight years before Sophie, she had been unexpected. We had disposed of all the baby equipment years before she was born.
I put my pen down and reached for the cup of tea Maureen had placed beside me a few minutes ago. I looked at her. She was standing by the ironing board pressing her mother-of-the-bride dress. I still love Maureen and appreciate her even after decades of marriage. She had her tongue sticking out as she worked on a detail of the dress. She always does that when concentrating hard.
As she finished that detail she stood up and put the iron on its stand. She noticed me looking at her and smiled. That smile still affects me as much as it had done on our first date. From time to time I wonder what this woman had seen in me. She is such a happy person with a wonderful sense of humour, traits that Sophie had inherited. I will miss Sophie but I still have Maureen, the woman I love.
Maureen put the dress on a hanger and hooked it onto a cupboard door. She put the iron on a work surface, folded the ironing board, and put it away in the cupboard under the stairs. She picked up her cup of tea and sat down facing me.
"Not good?" she asked looking at my paperwork.
"Could be better but Sophie's wedding and house were worth it." I replied.
Maureen reached out a hand and patted the back of mine.
"I hope you can afford the cruise we're going on next week," she said.
I knew she was teasing me.
"It's fully inclusive, paid for months ago, and I bought the foreign currency last year. It won't affect my bank balance now unless you want some really expensive souvenirs."
"I won't. All we will need to bring back are photos and memories," Maureen replied.
She was looking at me quizzically. After all these years of marriage I recognised that look. She was going to ask me something, or say something, that I might not like.
"Jack? I really need a new wardrobe."
I looked despairingly at the figures in front of me.
"Now? When I'm more broke than I've been for years?"
"It shouldn't cost much, Jack."
I felt like exploding into swearwords. I held my tongue. I couldn't do that to Maureen.
"About fifty pounds might be enough," Maureen continued.
"Fifty pounds? That wouldn't buy a dress!" I said more loudly than I intended.
"But it would buy a flat pack wardrobe."
Maureen was grinning at me. She knew she had wound me up almost to an eruption. She stood up, came around the kitchen table and hugged from behind, her breasts pressing either side of my neck. She stroked my hair slowly before bending around and kissing me on the cheek.
"You've had plenty of practice with flat packs recently. Graham, our new son in law might help too."
"Sophie would be more useful," I retorted.
It was true. As a child Sophie had followed Alan around as I taught him basic do-it-yourself skills. Eventually she was better than Alan. In their new house Graham had been Sophie's unskilled assistant as the three of us assembled flat pack furniture. He was learning but would need much more tuition before he became as good as Sophie.
Sophie and I had spent several hours in my shed and garage deciding which tools she could take with her to her new home. She wanted the tools she was familiar with. I hadn't lost too much -- except a loved daughter. Even then I hadn't really lost her. She had moved on to a new stage in her life but their house was only a few miles away. Alan and his family were three hundred miles away and visited a couple of times a year.
That thought started another. When Alan and family visited they stayed with us. If Maureen had another wardrobe, where would it go? Maureen already had three quarters of the sliding wardrobe in our bedroom. Another wardrobe would have to go somewhere else.