Threads by Patsy Brookshire

was more fun to keep him just a little off-guard because, in too many things, he
had the drop on me.

9. Like A Girl in Love
    That David loved me but that he also loved his wife was a fact I had to accept. It was
never my intention to try to take him away from her. My desire was to have part of him for
myself. We made each other happy, that was all I cared for.
    We loved together many times that summer. Often the cabin was our place, but once, on
a gray, foggy day he made love to me behind a barrier of driftwood. The open air with the cloak
and damp of the day only added to my desire for him.
    At home I tried to be as I'd always been.
    My brothers were suspicious. I'd been seen walking on the beach with David. I was
happy and cheerful around the house, which was always clean. The flowerbed was bright and the
vegetable garden came up well. This efficiency bothered Zack.
    I was setting the table one evening and singing, when he demanded, "Sophie, what's the
matter with you?"
    "Why, Zack," I answered innocently, "nothing's the matter with me. Don't you like my
singing?"
    "Stop acting so damn prissy. It ain't normal. Not for you it ain't."
    Instantly I was on my guard. "What's so un-normal about singing?"
    "It ain't the singing. It's the way you do it. Flouncing around here. Cleaning up all the
time."
    Willie got into it then. "Oh, leave her alone, Zack. She's just happy. Nothin' wrong with
that."
    "I'm not so sure. What's she got to be so happy about? Living here on this lonely beach
doing our washing and cleaning? Is that enough to make a woman sing? I don't remember our
mother singing and working."
    Neither Willie nor I answered him. I was hoping the whole thing would blow over
before Zack thought anymore. Then, slyly, he slipped it in, "You act like a girl in love."
    I couldn't deny it, but I wasn't about to admit it either. I tried to divert him. "Sure, Zack,
I'm in love. With cooking your stupid meals and washing your stinking clothes. And I just love
the thanks I get. Do you ever appreciate it? No, all you do is complain about the lousy five bucks
a week I keep."
    It worked. At the mention of the five dollars he jumped up, shouting, "It's more than five
bucks, missy. You take a 'wage' of two bucks a week, then get a buck-fifty apiece from us each
week and then grab another three bucks apiece for us. For savings, supposedly. How do we know
what you're doing with it?"
    "Wait a minute, Zack!" Willie decided to defend me. "That's for our own good."
    "I don't like it," Zack said, "It's my money and I never see it." While they argued I got
the box with the bags from my bedroom. I'd started out with envelopes but that hadn't worked for
very long as the cash started to pile up. So I made up three different bags for the money. I loved
the feel and the sound of the money rustling around in the bags when I pulled the box from under
my bed.
    Willie's voice was loud. "You know we'd just blow it if she didn't keep it for us." I came
back and handed them their bags. Zack dumped his on the table and counted it. Ninety-six
dollars. Not a great sum nowadays but a comfortable amount for then.
    Willie handed me back his bag. He didn't even open it. "I want you to still keep it for
me, Sophie. If you don't, I'll just waste it. I'll be going home in a month and if Nettie will have
me, I want to marry her."
    I knew Nettie, a girl who went to school with Willie, and I hoped, for his sake, that she
would marry him. She came from a farm nearby where we bought pigs every spring to fatten and
slaughter for winter.
    She was prettier than any other girl around and was in a couple plays in school. I
remembered especially once when we were over there and she took me into the house to show
me the quilt she was working on. She had told me she'd like to join up with some people in
Portland she knew about who put on real plays.
    I also knew that she did like Willie, better'n he knew, but I wondered about her, could
she be a good wife to him? Recalling that