Five Sentence Fiction - Marriage

Initially when looking at this week's prompt photo for Five Sentence Fiction, combined with the prompt word, nothing sprang to mind. Then I thought about how they were going up in a ski-lift and how marriage is like that - lifting you hopes, and taking risks, and this little tale came pouring out. They always say, write about what you know.

 

She hoped it would make a difference, that being his wife would somehow make her valuable, if not in his eyes, then at least in the eyes of his friends; maybe then they would take her seriously, and know she wasn’t just messing about or some kind of short-term girlfriend, that she was someone worth giving their time and friendship to.

She also knew that any children they had would be put at the top of his list, and be something he would move heaven and earth for, and thus as their mother she hoped that meant that she would warrant such a high standing too.

But as she stood doing the washing up, alone in the house again, while he was off out with their sons, doing their boy thing, she realised she had been mistaken; despite all she did for him, all she gave, she was invisible, and only really there as the housekeeper and child minder.

She wasn’t his friend - now they had moved back to his home town, he’d returned to the fold and she was surplus to requirements; and she wasn’t his lover - interest had faded once the children had arrived, both busy with others things and he was always too tired; and thanks to no one around her being interested in getting to know her – the foreigner in their midst – she realised she had no support base here either.

She dried her hands on a tea towel and wondered what she had done, how she had gotten herself into this in the first place; it was going to take more than hopes and dreams to get her out.