To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: Mother's Margins
The plant manager came up my stairs.
The third step cracked under him, and he said, "Pardon me, miss," to the stair.
He filled the bedroom door. Nine women moved aside for him.
"Gertie," he said. "Give me that."
She handed over Hal's little green book. I think it was the first thing she had ever handed him without being asked.
He held it at arm's length, because he needed spectacles, and found page forty-one.
He read the margin with his lips moving, and his shoulders began to shake.
He closed it and put it against his chest.
"Thirty-one years," said the plant manager, "I have been married to the Guide, and no man ever wrote me that."
Nobody laughed. Then the thin wife in the brown felt hat did, behind her glove, and then three others.
Gertrude's face did not change, but her hands went white on the strap of her pocketbook.
"You will not," she said, and stopped.
"Go on and get your coat, Gertie," he said mildly.
He turned to the window and raised the sash, and he called down to the garage.
"Rausch! Come up here!"
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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