I've dreamed of the perfect marriage ever since I was a little girl: a marriage complete with a hardworking husband while I tended to the home and our children, preferably four little rugrats to call my own. I dreamed of a life filled with laughter...
Author's Note: Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! This chapter was a bit of a DIVA, but we got her to finally chill out and cooperate.
@snarkyxnature -- I hope he's everything you wanted (you'll know when you know)
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An ungrateful, beady-eyed ram stares at me from the corner of his pen while sweat runs down my neck as I shovel another pile of its crap on what must be the hottest day in the history of the world. You'd think he'd show some sort of gratitude for my efforts.
How do people live like this?
I'm only four days in, and I have yet to figure out the appeal. I have at least five blisters between my toes and a rather unpleasant splinter located on my left butt cheek. How did it get there? I have no idea. What I do know is I've been unsuccessful in removing it for two days. My options are now to either ask for help or allow it to remain firmly wedged in my butt cheek in hopes of it falling out on its own. I've chosen the latter because the very thought of having someone on this farm pluck a splinter from my bare bottom is completely unacceptable, not to mention, humiliating.
I had no intention of staying here, to begin with. When I arrived, I'd hoped it be a quick in and out. I just needed to convince Charlotte, or Lottie, to return home so we could start fresh on our marriage. It was supposed to be easy. That,however, did not go according to plan. Instead, I'm stuck here in a place that smells so heavily of excrement that it has somehow penetrated my skin so deeply that no amount of water or soap can remove it.
If I'm honest, I don't even remember the moment I agreed to stay here. I just remember feeling angry that Beau had his arm possessively wrapped around my wife as if he had some sort of claim over her and that he knew something about her that I did not--something I spent four years believing I had known about her.
How did I not know that her favorite pancakes weren't blueberry?
It's something so simple yet seems so stupidly profound--something that every husband should know about his wife, and yet...somehow, I failed. And, now I'm reaping the consequences. I've seen more of her back these past few days than I've seen in the four years we've been married. I walk into a room; I see her back. I help with ranch chores; I see her back. I walk her to her cabin at night; I see her back.
For the first time in the entirety of our relationship, I'm realizing that my supposedly docile wife has one heck of a stubborn streak. She's always been so amicable and giving, and now she won't talk to me; won't listen to me; and, if she can help it, won't look at me either.
Yet, she seems to have all the time in the world for Beau, a total creep-fest, if I'm honest, who can't keep his eyes to himself. Just yesterday, the girls were walking down the path when I swear I heard him, while his eyes were firmly on Lottie's butt, whisper under his breath something about "nutter butter", and it's seriously making me question Lottie's safety around here and, more specifically, around him.
