Marry or Not: Together and Apart, #1

By Ruth Hay

Can two single people in their sixties, with very different life experiences, find a way to live together that meets their current needs without flaunting their traditional beliefs?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Hay
• Release date: Aug 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201722135

Book preview

MARRY OR NOT?

SHARON AND WALTER.

Can two single people in their sixties, with very different life experiences, find a way to live together that meets their current needs without flaunting their traditional beliefs?

ONE

SHARON

Sharon opened her eyes and looked over at the clock on her bedroom wall.

7:30am. Perfect!

She loved the fact that she wakened every day at the exact same time in full knowledge that she achieved the required eight hours of sleep that guaranteed her good health.

A few stretches to warm the muscles and she was up. Her winter dressing gown was heavy and warm and sat snugly around her waist when she tied its belt.

Must change this soon for my spring and summer dressing gown. The weather is warming a bit now. Thank Goodness!

Although Sharon enjoyed the winter months in her apartment, she also welcomed the new season when going out and about was easier and meeting her group of old friends was not likely to be cancelled at the last minute because of inclement weather.

She stepped into her kitchen with a sigh of contentment.

Everything in its place, just as I left it last evening.

Coffee maker filled with filtered water, favourite large china mug on the patterned tray with the matching individual cream jug that she filled with fresh cream from the fridge as soon as she turned on the coffee. One of her best spoons was ready, together with her morning indulgence, the special biscuits from England that she kept for this time of day.

The newspaper was on the doorstep, neatly folded. She picked it up and moved to the balcony windows where her leather chair and footstool gave her comfort and a view of the outside world.

A world that was beginning to hum as the normal workaday routines moved into high speed.

She relished this hour more than ever, now she was retired. Not for her the rushing around on busy streets and hoping for a good parking spot, and five minutes for a hasty coffee before the work day hassles began.

That part of her life was over now. She had worked hard for her pension and she meant to enjoy the rest of her life in comfort and peace.

She shook open the newspaper, sipped her coffee and began to read the headlines.

Something was wrong!

Her attention slipped away from the daily news and would not let her escape into other people’s worries and concerns. She looked around her for the cause of her distraction.

Everything in its place. Everything as perfect as she could make it.

What’s the trouble, Sharon?

It seemed to be the echo of that thought of another stage in her life ending.

I am not afraid of the future, she asserted.

I am secure and confident.

She continued to talk to herself in this way. It was part of her normal, inner conversation, that substituted for the voice of another person, and she knew enough about herself to understand that something now needed to be settled in her mind.

The newspaper went down, the coffee cup came up in her hand, and she gave herself up to the moment and the problem.

It did not take long. The thing that had jarred her mind was the acknowledgement of another stage in her life ending. This was an addition to the other endings, all of which, eventually, created new beginnings.

Nothing to cause worry there, Sharon. What’s up?

A few more sips of coffee were required before the answer appeared.

An inventory was needed in order to determine what might have been missed along the way.

All right then! Inventory it is!

She settled back in her chair, put her feet up on the footstool and began.

Stage 1. Childhood. Ordinary family with two children, living in the suburbs. Dad working and mother a homemaker.

Stage 2. Youth and education. No great ambitions. Friends in school. Carefree years.

Stage 3. First job, and first steady boyfriend. Both satisfactory.

Stage 4. Maurice Jones. Marriage.

This stage lasted a long time. They were married for thirty years and had two children together, two jobs to cope with, and a house that required a mortgage that never diminished enough to allow them to relax.

This stage had not ended too well. It was the only thing in her life that Sharon Jones really regretted.

She stayed in an unsatisfactory relationship until their two children were grown, then she divorced him and made sure he paid the price of his betrayal of their marriage vows.

This was an old wound that she considered to be healed over. What had brought it to the fore on this fine morning?

She had not heard from Maurice for several months, which suited her perfectly. Their adult children were occasionally in touch with him and his second family, but Sharon kept contact to a minimum.

Oh! Right! There you are. That’s what is disturbing my usual calm state.

Two nights ago she had received a call from Maurice. He said he was ’just checking in to see that she was all right, since she lived alone’.

Huh! That’s an excuse to rub it in that she had not found a partner, when he had moved on so successfully.

With all her strength, she wanted to yell down the phone line to him that she was perfectly content on her own and he should mind his own business. But that would be interpreted as a sign she was anything but content, and it might be conveyed to Grace and Grant when they were next in touch with their father.

So, what is it I need to do to shut Maurice’s mouth on this subject?

There it was.

She had found the reason for her discomfort.

The question arose; was she alone or was she lonely?

If she truly believed herself to be alone, and content, could it be worthwhile to pretend to have a secret male friend just to show Maurice Jones he was wrong about her once again?

TWO

WALTER

As a freelance journalist who yearned for the freedom to devote himself to his own writing projects, Walter Watson constantly fought for a good life/work balance.

He had a house, inherited from his parents, containing both desirable space, and older furnishings that he had grown to like over the years.

He was blessed with an office in a former upstairs bedroom, with a door that could be closed when the mess of his paperwork files and reference books, had spread from wall shelves to desk, and finally to the floor.

He had a large master bedroom.

He had a kitchen with appliances he rarely used, preferring a selection from his acquired list of take-out foods that he savoured in rotation.

He had a basement filled with old and broken furniture that needed to be removed and re-cycled.

The path to the washing machine and dryer was the only clear route available there.

He had a garden that now showed merely faint signs of the work his father had put into it for years. He passed it by daily, looking the other way.

The garden was only one of these items that constantly accused his conscience of neglect.

Fortunately, he was able to ignore that neglect whenever he was involved in his work assignments.

Those assignments for the magazine had to take precedence over his own secret files in which he jotted down ideas and thoughts whenever he found time. The writing files were shoved aside so often these days, that he had almost forgotten his writing ambitions.

Work/life balance.

Time to do enough to earn a living, and time to do what his heart desired.

These were his only ambitions.

He looked up and out of the window in his home office, losing himself for a minute in the clouds sweeping across the sky and the green leaves appearing on the big beech tree that was once his father’s pride and joy.

I need to get someone in to trim those branches before one of them falls and damages the roof.

Damn it! Can’t I get one minute of peace to think, without something else crowding my mind?

He pushed the laptop away from him in anger and frustration. This new assignment required a report derived from interviews with employees of an insurance company who had accused their employer of blatant favouritism, underhanded business methods, and outright theft.

The problem was that no staff member would agree to be interviewed. The first man Walter tracked down, stated he had a new job and did not wish to alarm his present boss by sounding in print like a disgruntled type who could just as easily turn against his current boss.

Walter had some sympathy with that feeling but his sympathy dissipated when he discovered most of the employees he could track down were of similar opinions.

Look, we did what we had to do to alert the authorities. They have our statements on record. Now we are all trying to forget about it. It was not a happy time for us. We have moved on.

His editor, Mike Schneider, still insisted there was a human story to be told, and Walter Watson was the man to tell it.

"Look further afield Walt! Widen your search. All we need is one employee who can spill the beans …… and get me your copy pronto!"

Walter picked up the phone on his desk and consulted the list of former insurance company staff, a list he had obtained by slightly-illegal means.

He had already crossed off most of the names. Some had moved out of the area. Many were