Vows

Note: not sure if it is ''spectacular'', but I am very tired, as are the people in this story. Here is the link for the Challenge:

Quote: “ ‘Til death do us part’ could mean by his hand, but who cared?” – Tia Levings

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My darling Martha,

After twenty years of marriage, it is still amazing to me that you chose me, or that I chose you. I guess the threat of a pregnancy that never took place really does work for some, don’t it?

Ha, ha.

And I know that you think that you are getting too old to draw the attention of other men. Oh, darling, how could you think of such a thing? There are plenty of young men who would love to paint you or at least use you as an example in one of those “before and after” ads they used to put in magazines. Maybe they could make a comeback as a warning about what to expect when you invest in someone, and that turns out to bring no returns at all…

But, I digress.

And don’t ever think that I would dream of leaving you, especially after all of this time. We are a team, and if the ship is going down, we are going down together. It might be in an accident, or because we ate too much of the wrong thing despite what the doctors said, or even by taking a side trip with the two of us leaving and only one of us returning home, especially at a spot that we both know and love and have returned to every year despite the weather, bad service and the possibility to save more money with something closer to home.

I love ya.

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My dear George,

That whole pregnancy thing was something that I did not plan…and neither did you. But you did stay with me, didn’t you? Thought that you had to be a man and stick it out for both our sakes. I am glad and so grateful that you never had the ability to make that threat a possibility, at least not in the last ten years.

Very impressive.

And I thank you for saying that I can still draw the attention of other men…with my body. But women are very different, aren’t we, my dear? You can find a man who is pushing sixty working in his office and still having young women around him thinking that with his life experiences he is an interesting catch and perhaps even worth the trouble of crossing several ethical lines that a local college would definitely frown upon. I’ve never had to use my mind to get you to care, but if I did, I think that you would a little more grateful than you appear to be after your lectures and the undergrads hover like bees at a garbage can… Oh, a woman has her ways…

Oh, my…

And yes, we are in it together… ‘Til death do us part,’ as they say. And that is no longer an idle threat now, is it? We are at the same spot, with one of us threatening to return without the other one. And I wonder which one of us that will be. I know that you have plans, and I have plans, and there is only one gun in the whole house that you bought out of some ill-conceived idea that you have to protect the home from intruders which have never existed. But we kept the gun. We kept it loaded, too. And we kept it close by…

And like ships passing in their spite, we still sail on together. One goes down with the other.

So much love for you.

XX

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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