To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Legion Dance
Hal put the jam in front of my mother and said nothing at all.
It was the wisest thing a man has ever done at a breakfast table.
"It is not a criticism," said my mother, breaking her toast.
"A stair that tells the truth is a convenience."
"I lived nineteen years in a house with a loud stair, and I was grateful for it."
She dabbed her mouth with her napkin.
"Pass the jam, Harold."
He passed it with a hand that shook.
She went home on the twenty-sixth.
On the thirty-first Hal came in from the plant with two tickets in his foreman's jacket.
"The Legion dance," he said. "Midnight. Hot cider. A four-piece band."
"Hal."
"I haven't been to one since 1951."
"You don't have to."
"I know." He put the tickets on the table. "I'd like to take my wife."
The Legion hall had paper streamers across the rafters and a ball of silver foil on a wire over the floor.
The band was a piano, a drum, a saxophone and a man with a banjo, and they played everything a little slow.
Marlene had come alone in her green dress.
She stood by the cider bowl with her arms folded and told me to stop looking at her.
"I'm fine," she said. "He's in Kentucky. Dance with your husband."
Hal stood at the edge of the floor in his one good suit.
I watched him look at the couples.
"Mrs. Rausch," he said, and held out a hand.
I took it.
We stepped out onto the boards, and he put his arm around my waist and the other around my hand.
For the first four bars his whole body was stiff.
Then the saxophone started a slow song I knew, and I felt his shoulders let go.
He moved like a man who had been taught as a boy and never forgotten.
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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