could not bring himself to feel any pity for her. She had tried her best to ruin his life while she was alive, and even after her death he was paying the price for his decision to marry her.
Nick had been on his annual visit to his cousins in Boston when he had met the ill-fated Mary. The fortnight he spent there every summer was the highlight of his year. Wild Missouri was dear to his heart and would always be his home, but it had none of the excitements associated with a big place like Boston. Nick was a young man, and he needed to kick up his heels now and then, and Boston was just the place in which to do so.
And he had especially needed the time away from the farm that year. His parents had both died of lung fever not six months earlier and he had been devastated by their sudden deaths. He was, quite simply, lonely for his family. His mother’s family, who had lived fairly close by in St. Louis, Missouri, was all gone except for some very distant relations that he had not heard a peep from in years. Oh, he had people who cared about him at the farm, but it was not the same somehow. Something inside of him had demanded that he be with his kin, and his aunt and his cousins were all the family he had left. He had needed to be with them, needed to be with someone who loved him and who had loved his parents.
In hindsight, he realized that Mary had been an effort to fill the gaping hole in his life that his parent’s death had left him with. He had wanted a family to replace the one that he had lost, and a wife and children seemed like a good idea at the time. Not that he had necessarily thought of it that way when the idea of marriage first came to him. He had been head over heels in love with Mary, or rather the fantasy of her that he had concocted inside of his head. His parents had certainly set a shining example as far as married life was concerned, and Nick had naively assumed that most marriages were as happy. But it was not to be; oh, no, a shining example his marriage was not.
His Aunt Clotilde was a no-nonsense type of woman, brusque and outspoken, but he had been so glad to see her that year that he nearly dissolved into tears right at the train station. Which would have embarrassed them both no end, because his Aunt Clotilde was not a demonstrative kind of person and displays of emotion flustered her. She was a big, bosomy lady with an air of competency that was well-deserved, but he had seen the sight of another’s distress nearly bring her to her knees.
Nick knew that his Aunt Clotilde cared deeply for him, though she had a hard time showing it. She was his father’s sister, and Nick had been told by his father that she had once been very lively and very affectionate but a bad marriage had changed all that. Her husband had died years ago, so long ago that Nick could not even remember him, and she had now become used to doing whatever she wanted and speaking her mind. It could be quite disconcerting at times, but Nick had gotten used to it. To be quite truthful, he quite enjoyed his aunt’s forcefulness, not being particularly fond of mealy-mouthed women. All the women in his life had been rather strong characters, and he gravitated naturally toward that type of woman.
His cousins Joanne and Ronald were twins, just three years younger than he, and they were as spirited and loving as his Aunt Clotilde was reserved. The twins were always laughing, and they enjoyed life. They lived with an abandon that Nick envied. When he thought of them, it was always with a smile on his face.
Joanne, now there was an honest woman. She had no desire to be married and made no bones about it. Her mother’s marriage had been stormy; Aunt Clotilde was a strong woman, and her husband could not ever deal with that. They had been miserable up until the day he died, and they had made their children miserable as well. Joanne swore to Nick more than once that she would never go through all of that. She had had more than her