The Widow's Choice

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Will you let me drive the Ford?” Tim asked.

  “Sure. We’ll get out into an open field where you can’t run into as many people. Let’s see what’s playing downtown, and then later we’ll give you that driving lesson.”

  ****

  The trip to Atlanta felt strained to Alona, although Oscar was excited. He did most of the talking, and when his side of the conversation seemed to flag, she quickly asked him something about the business, which he was always glad to talk about.

  Alona had an empty feeling and tried to ignore it. By the time they reached Atlanta, she was wound up as tightly as she had ever been. She was exhausted just from trying to think about what she was doing.

  Oscar signed their names in the hotel’s registration book and then said, “Look at this, Alona.” He had written in big, bold handwriting: Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Moran.

  “You’ll have to get used to that,” he said. “I imagine that’ll be a bit difficult.”

  “Not too hard.” Alona smiled back at him.

  After the bellboy left their baggage in the room, Oscar asked, “Are you tired?”

  “I guess I am. It’s been a busy day, even though it’s only midafternoon.”

  “Why don’t you have a nice relaxing bath and then take a nap. I’m a little tired myself.”

  Alona knew this was his not so subtle way of getting her into the large bed that dominated the suite. “All right, Oscar,” she said.

  “I’ll go downstairs for a while, then I’ll come up and shower. Can I bring you something to eat?”

  “No, I couldn’t eat a thing.”

  “All right. I’ll be back in about half an hour.”

  After he left the room, Alona opened her suitcase and took out the nightgown she had bought for her wedding night. She closed the heavy drapes on the window and then went into the bathroom and ran a hot bath. After she soaked in the tub for a while, trying to relax, she washed up and got out, slipping into the gown. She turned the lights off except for the one by the bed and then lay down and waited.

  Ten minutes later she heard the door open, but she closed her eyes to give Oscar privacy. He came in, gathered up a few items, and then went into the bathroom. She could hear the water running for a short time. After a moment, Oscar returned to the bedroom. She felt rather than heard his footsteps on the floor, and then the light went out and the bed sagged. He reached for her at once and pulled her over toward him. She turned to meet him, not at all sure what to expect.

  ****

  Jason came out of the theater a few days later with the boys, saying, “I think we’ve seen every movie in the county this week. What’s next?”

  “Hamburgers!” they all three cried and Jason laughed. “You boys ought to have hamburgers coming out of your ears.”

  “Well, I’m hungry!” Zac said. “You can’t starve us to death, Jason.”

  “That’s right,” Carl agreed with a grin. “You promised Mom you’d take good care of us.”

  “You guys are a bunch of bandits. Okay. Hamburgers it is.”

  They went at once to the café, where the boys consumed hamburgers and French fries, washing them down with root beer, which all of them loved. After they were finished eating, Jason took them home, and even though it was ten o’clock, Zac said, “I want to play pool.”

  “It’s too late,” Jason groaned. “I’m tired!”

  “Oh, come on! We can sleep late in the morning.”

  Jason laughed. “Oh boy, are you getting by with murder! You’d better enjoy it. Your parents will be home tomorrow, and then it’s back to the real world.”

  “Come on. I can beat you, Jason,” Zac said. He never had beaten Jason at pool, but he wouldn’t give up thinking he could.

  Pool was a noisy game with the Jennings boys. There was a great deal of shouting and teasing and carrying on. They were right in the middle of a game when the door opened and Mrs. Darrow stood there, wearing her robe with her hair up in curlers. They all turned to look at her, and she said frostily, “Do you know what time it is?”

  Jason pulled out his watch and said, “I believe it is eleven thirty-two, Mrs. Darrow.” He did not like the woman and was always very polite, as if to offset his distaste. “If you need to know the time, I’ll always be available. Good night, Mrs. Darrow.”

  The woman glared at him angrily. “Things will be different when Mr. Oscar gets home.” She turned and slammed the door on her way out. “Don’t wait up for us!” Jason called cheerfully. Then he winked at the boys. “Go on and make that shot, Zac.”

  “She was really mad,” Tim said.

  “I’ll bet she tells Mr. Moran,” Carl said.

  “We’re supposed to call him something else. What can we call him?” Tim asked.

  “You’ve got plenty of choices—Father, Dad, Pops, Oscar,” Jason suggested. “But none of them sound really right, do they?”

  “I don’t really want to call him Dad,” Tim said. “That was what we called our real dad.”

  “If you all put your heads together maybe you can agree on some name that you all like.”

  “I can’t think of anything, Jason,” Tim insisted. “Don’t you have any more ideas?”

  Jason thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Like I said, nothing sounds right. I think you ought to talk to him, Tim, and tell him the truth. That the word Dad is reserved for your real dad, and Father sounds too formal. Maybe you could call him Mr. Oscar, like Mrs. Darrow does. I think he might like that.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Zac said. “I’m glad I thought of it.” Carl laughed. “You didn’t think of nothin’! Jason thought of it.”

  “It’s still a good idea,” Zac said. “You do the talking, Tim. Tell him we all like that idea. Mr. Oscar. That sounds real friendly like.”

  “Okay,” Tim said weakly. “I’ll do it, but I sure hope he likes it.”

  “Try your best to get along with my brother. He’s a good man in many ways. You’ll find out he’s kind of strict about discipline, but that never hurt anybody. Now, you guys go to bed.”

  “Are you going to take us fishing in the morning like you promised?”

  “I don’t remember promising that.”

  “Well, you almost did.”

  “Well then, we’ll almost go fishing,” Jason teased. “Now, get to bed.”

  ****

  As they approached the big house that would be Alona’s home, Oscar was talking excitedly about his plans for the boys. Alona was forcing herself to pay attention, but she had been so quiet, he had asked more than once if she was all right.

  Actually she was not all right. Truman had been a gentle lover, but Oscar was rough and demanding. That first night when he rolled back from her, she felt used, and that had not changed. She had not been expecting as much sweet talk and gentleness from him as she had gotten from Truman, but Oscar evidently had never heard that a woman needed to be spoken to and assured and touched in a gentle way. But she could not talk to him about it, and neither did he say anything.

  Alona had tried to put this part of their life out of her mind, but she knew that would be impossible. It’s for my boys, she had said to herself many times during the honeymoon. This had given her some comfort.

  Oscar pulled up in front of the garage, and the boys came swarming out of the house. Jason stood back, Alona saw, watching them as they greeted and hugged their mother and shook hands with their new stepfather.

  “How did things go, Jason?” Oscar asked.

  “They went fine for me. I just let ’em do what they wanted to and kept ’em from killing each other or me. They’re all hale and healthy.”

  When he greeted Alona, he seemed more reserved than he had been before. “Good to have you back, Alona. The boys have missed you.”

  “And I missed them.”

  That was all the conversation they exchanged, but Mrs. Darrow had quite a few remarks to make after the group went inside the house. She got Oscar off to one side and told him about everythin
g that had been going on, including the late-night hours and the noise in the pool room. “It’s disgraceful, Mr. Oscar!”

  “Well, it was just for a short time. Jason did the best he could, I’m sure. But we’ll be on an even keel now that I’m back.”

  ****

  The matter of the noise in the pool room came up the next day, when the boys were playing and shouting as they usually did over a game of pool. Oscar walked into the room and raised his voice to get their attention. “Boys!” When they were quiet, he said, “Mrs. Darrow is very disturbed about the way you act in this pool room. If you can’t behave like gentlemen, I’m going to have to have the pool table taken out.”

  “Please don’t do that!” Tim said. “We’ll be quiet.”

  “Will you?”

  Zac, who loved pool most of all, said, “We’ll be real quiet, sir.”

  “Yes we will, Mr. Moran,” Carl agreed.

  Oscar frowned slightly. “Okay, then. Make sure of that. We don’t want Mrs. Darrow to be upset. And I also wanted to talk to you fellows about what you should call me. Mr. Moran is a bit too formal, don’t you think?”

  “We talked about that, sir,” Tim told him. “We kind of would like to call you Mr. Oscar, if that would be all right.”

  He considered it, frowning slightly, as if he had wished for more. “I guess that will be all right, at least for the time being. Now, you finish your game, but you’ll have to be quiet about it. Mrs. Darrow’s nerves are on edge.”

  “Yes, Mr. Oscar, we’ll be quiet,” Zac assured him.

  As soon as Oscar left the room, Zac said, “It’s not going to be as much fun now that he’s here.”

  “Well, there’s no getting around that,” Tim said grimly. “So we either have to play quietly or we’ll have to wait until he’s gone.”

  “That wouldn’t do any good,” Carl said. “Old lady Darrow would tell on us.”

  “What fun is shootin’ pool if you can’t whoop and holler!” Zac said with exasperation.

  ****

  Later that day, Alona was unpacking her things in the master bedroom. She looked out the window and saw Jason coming in the front door. It was almost dark, and she quickly went downstairs and opened the door. “Hello, Jason.”

  “Hello, Alona.” He stepped inside and pulled off his hat. “You all settled in?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “I stored all your things like Oscar asked me to. I was real careful with them. Oscar says any of the furniture you want, he’ll have me bring it and put it where you want it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need much. Oscar has everything I could imagine. Jason,” she said, “thank you so much for taking care of the boys. They told me about how you did everything they wanted. Tim said he’d never had such a good time in all of his life.”

  Jason smiled. “I guess I haven’t either. I wish I had a steady job doing nothing but having fun with them.”

  “They’d like that.”

  Jason turned and faced her squarely, a serious expression on his face. “How are you, Alona?”

  “Fine,” she said quickly. “I’m just fine.”

  She dropped her eyes. She knew that he had seen something in her, and she turned quickly and walked away. She went back to the bedroom and closed the door, then she sat down on the bed and clasped her hands together tightly. For a long time she did not move. Then she whispered as she had done many times in the last week, “It’s for my boys!”

  ****

  Alona was thrilled to get back to choir on Saturday morning. The singers were gathering for their final rehearsal, as were the members of the five-piece string ensemble that would be accompanying them.

  “Welcome back, Mrs. Moran,” Paul said as he came into the sanctuary with a music stand in each hand. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

  “Thank you, Paul.” She quickly changed the subject. “It looks like everybody’s going to make it for this rehearsal.” There was a buzz of activity in the room as people greeted each other and made their way to their seats.

  “Do you think we’re ready for this?” he asked.

  “I certainly do. You’ve done a wonderful job with the rehearsals, and the extra people who have joined the choir have given us a nice balance.”

  He set the music stands down in front of the chairs for the violinists. “I couldn’t have done it without your help at the sectionals. Thank you for pitching in like you did.”

  “You’re certainly welcome. I loved every minute of it.”

  He checked his watch. “Ten o’clock. Time to get started.”

  As the rehearsal progressed, everything went even more smoothly than Alona could have imagined. And the string instruments added such richness to the piano and organ accompaniment. When they stopped for a break at eleven o’clock, the woman sitting next to Alona leaned over and said, “What a blessing this will be. I know the Spirit of God is going to be moving in this place tomorrow!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A Different Kind of Marriage

  Alona stared at the price tags on the knickers she was holding up. Five dollars! I can’t pay that much for a pair of boy’s knickers! That’s ridiculous! Quickly she put the knickers back on the rack, then began searching for something a bit less expensive. But then she remembered Oscar’s words when she had told him she was going shopping for the boys: “Get some nice clothes for them, Alona. These boys of ours deserve the very best.”

  She picked up the knickers again and checked the size to be sure they would fit Carl, then placed them on top of the other garments she had chosen. Although the nearly two months of her marriage had changed her in many ways, still the old habits of frugal economy died hard. Oscar Moran had the reputation of being tight with money where his business was concerned, but he was more than liberal toward his new family. He had, in fact, grown impatient with Alona on one occasion. She had mentioned that she couldn’t afford to buy the best brand of shoes for Tim because they were too expensive. Oscar had frowned and shook his head. “You’ve got to change your mindset about things like this. We need to be careful with money, of course, but not that careful. When I was a boy, I had to wear hand-me-down shoes that were too small for me. They just about ruined my feet. We don’t have to skimp on buying things for our boys. I wish you would understand that.”

  “Could I help you with anything, Mrs. Moran?”

  Alona turned to see the saleswoman standing there, a bright smile on her face. Alona remembered a time when she had come in trying to find a bargain in socks for the boys. The same woman had not been smiling that day. As a matter of fact, she had given her a cold reception and turned her back on Alona. Evidently being married to the wealthiest man in town made quite a difference.

  “I think I’ve got everything I need.”

  “Shall I ring it up then?”

  “Yes. That would be fine.”

  She waited until the purchases were totaled up, and it came to thirty-one dollars. As she removed a wallet from her purse and pulled out a fifty, she thought how that would have been half of her monthly income at one time. She took the change, nodded to the woman, and then turned to go. She had just reached the door when she nearly bumped into her pastor, Byron Sandifer.

  “Why, hello, Alona. Doing a little Saturday morning shopping?”

  “Yes. Buying some summer clothes for the boys. Are you doing some shopping too?” she asked, although she couldn’t imagine he was.

  “Actually, I’ve been wandering all over town trying to think of a good gift I can give to Hazel.”

  “Is it her birthday?”

  “No, it’s our sixteenth anniversary.”

  “Have you come up with any ideas yet?”

  He shook his head and grinned ruefully. “The only thing I can think of is a new vacuum cleaner. The old one hasn’t been working well for a while.” He lifted his eyebrows as though a thought had struck him. “Say, I bet you could help me. You know Hazel real well. Do you think I should go ahead and get
her a vacuum cleaner?”

  “Oh, Brother Byron, that is the worst idea I’ve ever heard!”

  “What’s wrong with it? She would use it all the time.”

  “It’s a great idea to get her a new vacuum cleaner, but not for your anniversary—and not for a birthday either! You need to make this a very special day. She’s a wonderful wife, and I know she makes such a good home for you and your boys.”

  “You’re right about that. None better than the woman I married.”

  Alona thought quickly. She had grown very close indeed to Hazel Sandifer and knew more about her, in some ways, than her husband did. Hazel loved her husband dearly but had often complained, “He’s so practical, Alona! He loves me, but he forgets to say so. And he doesn’t do those little things that a woman would appreciate.

  An idea leaped into Alona’s mind, and she said firmly, “I know exactly what you should give her. But it might be a bit expensive.”

  “I don’t care about that. I’ll take out a loan at the bank if I have to. What is it?”

  “You should take her on a trip—maybe to Atlanta. Go to a first-class hotel and get a really nice room. Surprise her with some flowers or maybe just a single flower. Take her out to a nice restaurant, and tell her that she’s prettier than she was when you married her. And write her a poem, telling her how much you love her.”

  “I couldn’t write a poem if my life depended on it!”

  “Sure you could. Just use the words moon, June, and spoon, and say you love her. Borrow a couple lines from Shakespeare. Write it on some beautiful paper using your neatest handwriting, and she’ll love it.”

  He digested all that she had said and finally proclaimed, “Those are all great ideas, Alona! I’ll do it.”

  “Make her feel loved, like you did when you first married her.”

  The pastor smiled broadly. “Anything else?”

  “I think that’s enough suggestions from me, but I’ll guarantee you one thing. She’ll like this a whole lot better than she would a new vacuum cleaner!”

  “I’ll do it! I’ll make it a surprise.” Despite his height and broad shoulders, he seemed like a small boy. “I’ll get her some little something and make her think that’s the present. Maybe some perfume or something. And then I’ll sweep her out of here before she can figure out what’s happening.”