After Donald turns off his computer he decides that he too is rather tired from the last two days of almost constant sex and he is ready to go to bed. He walks down the hallway, stopping at Emma’s room for a moment, but shakes his head and tells himself, ‘No, you can not keep indulging that way,’ and continues on to his room.
He crawls into bed, and on his back, he sighs deeply, remembering how wonderful it felt holding Emma as he slept. In the darkness of the night, he admits to himself that he does long for her, and wants her with him. But that is something she should not know.
Like Emma in her bed, he falls into a deep sleep.
Monday morning arrives, and Donald hurries to shower, dress and have a quick breakfast before he needs to leave for the college. But in his car, before he pulls out of the garage, he texts Emma a quick message.
“I hope you slept well, have a good day today, I will be in touch this evening. Do not reply to this as I am on my way to work.”
The ping of the incoming message wakes Emma. She leans and picks up the phone and reads his message. She is sorry she is not allowed to send him a message back now, but it is heartwarming that he has texted her to start her day.
Donald, driving to work, curses himself for sending such a message to her. He is getting in too deep.
Emma looks at the clock and sees it is eight a.m. She is sleeping in more now, rather than her usual six a.m. arising. It feels good, all the hours of sleep since going to bed early last night.
She gets up and quickly bags all the piles of clothes, shoes, and undies and throws them down the stairs to be taken to the garage. That only takes a half hour. She decides that since her meeting today is not until one p.m. she should finally also do what she has put off for so long.
Her parents' room.
Her mother had died at seventy-three after over five years of being bed-ridden. Her father followed her less than a year later, though he had seemed in good health until just before the end. She always felt that he died from the loss of her mother and grieving so. That had been over a year ago. But she had never gotten rid of any of their things, nor actually entered their bedroom.
She goes to their bedroom and opens their closet. There are more suits of her father’s than dresses of her mother’s. He had been a bit of a peacock. She takes several suits and puts them in a bag. All are top of the line and in very good condition.
There are several in garment bags, and as she looks at them, three are brand new, ones he never wore, and five more are almost the same condition. As she looks at them she realizes that her father and Donald are of the same built. She ponders for a few minutes, and places these eight suits on the bed, instead of in the bag. They are of the finest quality in black, navy, grey and even a southern-styled white suit.
Then she starts on her mother’s clothes. And as she does, she remembers her mother repeatedly telling her to always check clothes pockets before getting rid of them.
She knows there is nothing left in any of her own clothes pockets, but takes the time to go back and check her father’s suits. She does find a number of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills in them. She starts piles of each.
When she starts to bag her mother’s rather drab clothes, worse in style or form than even what she had been wearing, Emma begins to find one-hundred-dollar bills in pocket after pocket. In wonder, she stacks them too.
The pile grows as she discards the dresses into a bag.
And then, when she starts to bag their shoes, Emma finds even more one-hundreds tucked into the toes of her mother’s shoes. ‘What is going on here?’
She throws these bags down the stairs too. It is now going on ten a.m. She still has another hour until she needs to get ready for her meeting.
She opens the hutch which is her father’s and sees his array of colored ties. Again, they are in pristine condition and of the best silk. She takes about twelve of them and places them on the bed; the rest, she bags. And his shirts, the best quality and in white and pastel shades. Some never worn, it appears.
Ten of them go on the bed; the rest, she adds to the bag.
Finally, she goes to her mother’s dresser and cleans the drawers of her drab underwear, finding more one-hundreds tucked in among them. When she finishes she sees a bulge under the paper lining and lifts it. It reveals a rather large bound notebook. Emma is curious.
She throws the bags of clothes down with the rest to be taken to the garage. She counts the hundreds. Emma’s mind boggles; there are over one thousand hundred bills, over $100,000. All tucked away by her mother. ‘Where did they come from?’
The money from her father’s pockets comes to another three thousand. What were her parents hoarding? She realizes that the money in her father’s pockets was just what he left there when he took a suit off and did not think about, but all these one-hundred-dollar bills from her mother?
She gathers the money and takes it to her room and puts it in one of her dresser drawers which is now empty.
‘I will deal with this later. I need to get ready for my meeting,’ Emma thinks.
She hurries and showers, gets her makeup on and dresses. The grey dress does look wonderful on her, and knowing the lingerie she is wearing underneath, and the feel of the silk stockings on her legs, Emma starts to drip.
When coming back to her room with the money, Emma also brings the notebook. She has about fifteen minutes until she needs to leave, so she opens it and sees it is a diary of the fifty years of marriage of her parents. She flips through it a bit and suddenly realizes that it is probably better than the book Donald has been having her read.
She would love to waste her afternoon reading this right now, but her meeting calls her.
She hurries downstairs, kicks the bags out of the way; she will get them to the garage when she gets home, and goes to her car.
She is antsy throughout the meeting, wanting it to conclude the business at hand and adjourn. But it drags on. And she does see the others there catching glimpse of her in her new look.
Finally, it is over. But now several chat her up and tell her how nice she looks today. A few men and a woman or two all look at her in what she realizes is a lustful way. Emma just smiles politely and thanks them for their comments. As soon as she dares, she is out of there.
Wondering, wondering what the diary holds, she does stop at the liquor store and buys wine and several other things. Yes, she is ready to enter this new world, while she wonders if it is such a new world for her family.
Emma’s mother, Charlette, was always very plainly dressed and seemed to be there only to raise her and take care of her father. Her mother and father would go out regularly as she grew older, but her mother was always primly dressed. Her father, Edward, had been the president of a local bank which had been founded by her great-grandfather. It was the family occupation. But when he was in his sixties, and her mother grew ill, he sold out to one of the bigger banks in the state and devoted his attention to civic and service organizations. Which is how Emma is now so involved with them.
As said, he was a peacock, and her mother fawned over him always. So what secrets does this diary hold that Emma never imagined?
She puts away the liquor and wine, leaving one bottle of wine out, which she opens, and with a tray of cheese and crackers and a wine glass heads to her room.
She is undressed in moments, takes the diary to her bed, and she fills her wine glass and opens it to the start.
It is dated a week before her parents' wedding date. And next to the date is written 'one-hundred dollars.'
All the entries are a couple of pages or less long, and her mother’s handwriting is rather small.
April 18, 1974
Edward and I have been dating for about four months now. He seems interested but tells me I am a bit high spirited, flirty and mean to others at the same time. I have just laughed at him and said, but doesn’t that make me more interesting?
Tonight, though was different. I admit I was rather catty to the wife of one of the bank officers, but Edward is the heir apparent so if I am with him why shouldn’t I be?
Rather than taking me home after the dinner, Edward took me to his apartment. I was surprised, as though the seventies now, we had done nothing more than kiss and a little groping. When we got there I learned it was not for us to have sex for the first time. At least not yet.
Edward led me into his living room and sat on the couch. He told me to sit beside him. And then he floored me.