They had a church wedding. Amy wore a very elaborate wedding gown and
veil, and six of her best friends were bridesmaids, in pale green. Amy
showed her artistic training by designing huge fans for the girls to
carry, instead of the usual flowers.
Amy and Kenton went to housekeeping in an apartment in Minota,
Oklahoma, which they furnished with huge overstuffed chairs and
mahogany furniture.
Amy did not like Minota. It was an oil town and the smell of the oil
permeated everything. Minota was a little smaller than Belleville and
definitely newer and flimsier. She knew several former Belleville
people there, so, after a first loneliness, a feeling of not belonging
to any place, she settled down comfortably enough. Soon she was one of
the set of “younger matrons” and went to bridge games and parties quite
as she had done at home.
She missed Belleville. After six months she went home on a visit. When
she got there she was at once restless and dissatisfied and didn’t
know what to do. After she had seen her parents and her friends and had
walked down the familiar streets, she was quite willing to go back to
Minota again.
She grew to like Kenton a great deal. Now that she could read while he
was at home or ignore him altogether, he did not bore her. They had so
many things in common—their home, their friends—that at times he seemed
almost interesting.
A year after Amy married, Millard, junior, was born. Amy had read and
thought that motherhood was a thing apart, almost an exalted state. She
welcomed it, frightened but eager. It left her much the same, without
the ecstasy she had anticipated.
Two years later Mary-Etta came. Amy was very fond of her children.
When Millard was four Arnold Thompson came to Minota. He was
good-looking and had the reputation of being popular with women. Amy
encouraged him to notice her. The Kentons were living in their own
home, now, a white bungalow, and they had a coloured maid who took
almost entire charge of the children.
Thompson telephoned and asked to call one afternoon.
Amy sent the maid out with the children and dressed in a great flutter
of excitement. Thompson came about four. They talked, and Amy listened
attentively, though to her surprise, Thompson’s conversation was just
like the other men’s she knew and did not interest her. She played a
little on the piano. Before she knew it, Thompson had put his arms
around her, was kissing her. She lay passive in his arms for a moment,
even kissed him in return. The thrill she had expected was not there.
She felt cheapened instead. She pushed him away, not angrily, but
rather with indifference, and told him “You’d better go.”
For weeks after that Amy suffered keenly from remorse. It was the
deepest emotion she had had in a long time. Kenton was so good—and
she had let another man kiss her. What must Thompson think of her? If
Kenton should find out? She was ashamed of herself. She was greatly
relieved when, a month later, she heard that Thompson had left Minota.
Life in Minota went on pleasantly enough, punctuated with visits to
Belleville and even a visit to New York, after a successful business
deal. Kenton was doing well in business. The children were growing
nicely.
Sometimes Amy felt the old desires, the wanting to live. She would grow
restless and walk in her room, up and down, and long for something to
happen. Then would come a reaction, a hope that nothing would take
place to change her comfortable state as a nice little married woman.
Things did not change until Amy was thirty-six. Then Kenton took cold
and died of pneumonia after only four days’ illness. Amy grieved
sincerely. She missed Kenton a great deal and told every one that
theirs had been an ideal life.
She sold the house, and she and the children went back to Belleville to
live with her parents.
In Belleville Amy took up, in a quiet way, the activities of the women
of her age. Kenton had been insured. The hardware store with the red
axes on the windows was still prosperous. Amy’s father was bald, now,
and quite fat. Her mother was complacently busy about home and church
matters. Clarence was married and had a home of his own. Life in the
Martin home was comfortable, in a quiet, uneventful way.
Lulu Fredericks came through Belleville on her way to California and
stopped for a visit with relatives. Amy was rather awed and resentful
at Lulu’s clothes and her grand manner and Eastern accent. Lulu had
travelled in Europe even. Lulu, who had been of so much less importance
in Belleville, had had adventures. And she, Amy, hadn’t lived at
all—nothing had happened.
Amy remembered the book she had read when she was a little girl, that
had said that each person’s life contains a plot for a story. It made
her angry to think of it. Her life hadn’t been a story. Nothing had
happened to her. She was sorry she had read that book. If it hadn’t
been for that she would never have felt the way she did about life. She
might have enjoyed things more, one at a time. Now, though she couldn’t
touch them definitely, she felt that she had missed pleasant things, or
ignored them, because she had wanted bigger things, instead.
The author of that book had cheated her—life had cheated her. How could
any one have written such nonsense? Amy knew there was no story in her
life—in most lives. Yet she knew that there always would be people like
Lulu to remind her of the fact that there were people whose lives were
like stories, after all.
After the children were in bed, Amy sat at the window and looked out
on the little lawn. The trees and the bushes looked badly taken care
of, neglected. She must see that the yard was fixed up, right away. Her
life—it was all she had—it did seem too bad that nothing had happened
to her—school—parties—marriage—babies—widowhood—nothing—no story at all.