Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-1-2021
Abstract
The Waking is proud to nominate "Upon Learning My Uncle Doug Had Been Married and Divorced Before He Died: A Dialectic" for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net 2021 anthology.
Doug was married to a lady who didn't grow up on a farm. He met Beth in college, a real pretty girl with brown hair and brown eyes. Doug was broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, good-looking too. But Beth didn't get why he worked all the time, running from barns to the shop and back to the feedlot. She didn't know a thing about livestock. She didn't get it's not a job but a living you either love or you don't, and it was in Doug's blood. So Beth stewed at home, staring at the clock, wishing she was out. It was too much of a shock, from college to the country. Seemed to me she wasn't bored but angry that Doug was living the life he chose and she was stuck in a house she swore seeped dirt. Hated it like an allergy. And not a school in sight was hiring then, so she had all this time when Doug had none. But farming paid her school loans. In the end she got out debt-free and damned if Doug got slammed with alimony. He just couldn't tell the judge what everybody knew—no, he wouldn’t talk of her indiscretions. Probably he was embarrassed, too proud and too private, but in any case, boy did he pay in every way. Probably best she didn’t go to Doug’s funeral. What’s Beth doing now—do you know? Is that so. Well, now. That’s a shame.
Recommended Citation
Peckham, Rachael. “Upon Learning My Uncle Doug Had Been Married and Divorced Before He Died: A Dialectic,” Ruminate Magazine. June 1, 2021.
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