Anna's Story - Part 4

Part 4 -

 

Why was everyone hurrying her so, Anna questioned?  What was the big hurry in making a decision about her mother’s house and all of the things in it? 

The week she was off work after the funeral, she went to the house often.  It felt so strange to use a key to enter, when her mother had always left the front door unlocked for her.  She sat in the usual chair in the living room where they’d had so many conversations, some of them rather heated.  The smell of the house was also the smell of her mother – a light flowery scent from a perfume that her mother had used for years.  The dining room looked ready to host a small dinner for the two of them, or maybe once in a while a trio with Jeremy also.

And why hadn’t Jeremy told her that he wasn’t sure about their relationship?  Why did he just continue on or had he?  Was she just so preoccupied with her job and the routines of her life that she hadn’t noticed him distancing himself?  Increasingly, he had spent time at a gym after work and also on the weekends.  She wasn’t a member; her exercise consisted of long walks instead at a nearby park.  He had stopped talking about marriage for a long while.  He seemed bored sometimes and had his head buried in a newspaper or was watching TV, especially sports.  Sunday mornings were always so strange.  He left for the gym and she felt like something more than his presence was missing.  After all of those years of attending Mass on Sundays, the void it left was still there but she wouldn’t go.  She felt like everyone there knew she “lived” with someone.  All she needed was a red letter for her coat.

Back in days gone by like maybe the Victorian era, a woman 28 was already on the shelf.  An embarrassment to her family in many cases.  Unwanted.  And Anna felt like that but she and Jeremy had never had a serious discussion of their feelings for each other in years, but they exchanged a robotic, “Love ‘ya,” at night before bed or in the morning before work sometimes.  She imagined one of those amazing surprises where they would go to a 5-star restaurant and he’d drop down on one knee in front of everyone, holding out a magnificent diamond engagement ring.  Things like that happened to the women at work, one by one.

 He must have met the woman at the gym.  Maybe that’s why he was so enthusiastic about going, and he started wearing cologne.  To the gym, she thought?  And he’d purchased some new clothes too, including some workout items. 

 How foolish Anna felt.  Did he tell his friends about how bored he was with her?  Probably.  Was she that boring?