“Do you want to talk about it?” Sookie asked. “We’re just three old women, but we’re good at listening.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Ava said.
The waiter brought their food and set it in front of them. “If you need anything else, just signal me,” he said with a smile.
“Thanks,” Dotty said. “This all looks great.”
Ava smeared cream cheese on her bagel and bit into it. She would only be on the ship a week with these spicy old gals. What would it hurt to confide in them? She didn’t have a grandmother or even a mother to talk to,and her older sister would tell her to suck it up and live with whatever Vince did or didn’t do so she wouldn’t lose all those lovely dollars she had at her disposal.
“I met Vince at a wedding a little over five years ago. We had a whirlwind romance, and he flew me down to the Bahamas to the very place where we’d met and proposed to me. He comes from a long line of oil money and works in a huge firm as the in-house lawyer for his father, who owns the business now. Iwasan elementary school teacher.”
“Kind of a Cinderella story, right?” Sookie asked.
“I thought so at the time, but then Vince’s mother decided that I shouldn’t teach school anymore,” Ava said.
“Why?” Dotty’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I was a teacher for ten years. There’s no more honorable position in the whole world as far as I’m concerned.”
“Cargill women have educations, but they do not work,” Ava mimicked her mother-in-law’s British tone and then went back to her own southern accent, “I wanted to fit into the family, and I tried so hard. After watching my mother die with cancer when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a part of Vince’s family. I agreed to do a little charity work with her, learn to throw a good dinner party, and all those things that Cargill women do, but nothing I did pleased his mother.”
“Maybe you tried too hard,” Sookie said.
“Probably, but Vince is an only child, and I just chalked it up to her wanting the best for her son.” Avapicked up the wrong cup and took a sip of Dotty’s coffee. “Oh. My. Goodness! That tastes so good, but I’m so sorry that I drank out of your cup.”
“No problem, darlin’,” Dotty said with a grin. “You got to have a few things to make life worth living. Real cream and sugar are a couple of those that I indulge in.”
“Hmmph,” Sookie almost snorted. “A couple?”
“Hey, I love food, and my fat cells love me,” Dotty told her and turned back to Ava. “Now where was your evil mother-in-law brought up?”
“Wales, where she rubbed shoulders with royalty from the time she was born. My father-in-law met her on a business trip. When Vince and I were first married, things weren’t so bad, but it’s slowly gotten worse through the years. He spends more time with his job and his folks than he does with me. They have job-related dinners that his mother tells him I wouldn’t be ‘interested in’…” She air quoted the last few words. “So he goes without me. I wouldn’t say we’ve grown apart, but more that we’ve been split apart. Other than marrying me in a wedding that she told me was shabby and a disgrace to her son because we had it out on my grandparents’ old farm, I’m sure he’s never done anything against her will.”
“Does he still love you?” Sookie asked.
“At this point, I don’t know,” Ava admitted. “I still love him, or at least I love the man I married. I’m not so sure about the man I’m living with at this point.”
“What can we do to help?” Minnie finished off her eggs, bacon, and biscuits.
“You’ve already done a lot, just by listening to me. My only living relative is a sister who is ten years older than me and thinks I fell into a honeypot when I married Vince. She tells me that I should just live with whatever it takes to keep him and the money.”
“Money doesn’t mean everything,” Minnie said with a sigh.
Ava raised an eyebrow. “Do I hear a note of regret there?”
“Yes, you do,” Minnie answered. “My husband made Midas look poor, but all that money didn’t save him when he had an acute heart attack and dropped dead on the bathroom floor at the age of fifty-five.”
“And my late husband’s fortune wasn’t worth much when he got terminal cancer,” Sookie said.
“Or mine when he worked hard on a huge Texas ranch his whole life, and didn’t live to see sixty-five,” Dotty told her.
“I’m so sorry for all of you,” Ava said.
“And we’re sorry you are in this place in your marriage, but we’re here to help if you need us,” Sookie said. “Looks like we’re finished here. Let’s go out to the deck and watch the world go by. Everything always looks better out there where all we can see is sky and water.”
“Puts things in perspective.” Dotty placed her napkin over her plate and pushed back her chair.
Ava followed her lead and stood up. “I hope so,” she muttered.
***
