Flash Nano 5: The beanpot

 

Flash Nano 5;  Tell a family story. Fictionalize as needed.

1875

Medora Stockbridge removed the brown and beige beanpot from the oven. She used a spoon to push the smoked bacon to one side and snagged a couple of the beans. to taste. Needs another hour, she thought.

At the sink, she pumped water into a pitcher and added it to the beans. Next to the wood stove she found a log the right size to burn long enough to finish the beans and hopefully to keep the kitchen warm through the evening meal, but not too long to waste.

The log box needed refilling. Maybe her son, Archer, would be able to get some more wood from the store on the corner, Monday night after work. It was too late on Saturday. Everything would be closed on Sunday.

She had no illusions that her husband would do it. Twenty-two years of marriage had proven reliable was never a word that could be used to describe him. He had seemed like such a good catch when she was twenty. Most of her friends had already married, and at 20 she was afraid of being left on the shelf, a spinster and he was the only one who had proposed.

What else could she have done?

It didn’t take her long to realize her mistake. Fidelity was another word that would never be applied to him.

The night she gave birth to her son, her husband was in her bed with another woman. Her next-door neighbor Anna told her that she had seen him go into the house with a woman. A light went on in the bedroom shortly after. The woman left in the morning, Anna said.

Medora should have given birth in her own bed, but she had started bleeding slightly a week before and she had gone to her mother’s to await the birth rather than risk being alone when she went into labor.

At least when their daughter Florence was born four years later, he was home listening to her scream in pain.

If her marriage had been a disappointment, her two children were her joy. Archer had been second in his class when he graduated from high school and now was working with some firm doing something with numbers. She had no idea what it was. At 21 he did remind her of her husband when she had first met him, but unlike Charles, he was what she called steadfast.

She loved her home, a rental, their fifth. Not only did it have the wonderful stove, it had gas lamps. Now she could read easily at night.

The house was a pretty blue. It sat on a corner in a nice neighborhood, a five-minute walk from the beach.

Medora loved strolling along the beach, especially in winter when she was alone. The sound of the waves washed the tension of her life away.

What would she serve with the beans? This Saturday night tradition went back to her Pilgrim ancestors. They had cooked the beans to eat cold or at least room temperature on Sunday when their religion forbade cooking. Her family had no such compunctions.

The beanpot had been a gift from her mother, along with the recipe. Over the years, Medora had adjusted it, a little more molasses, a smaller onion and her own addition, a demi-dollop of mustard.

There were four slices, slivers of ham, leftovers from Sunday’s lunch. The one household chore Medora loved was cooking. It was her reward for the drudgery of her other chores.

Sleet hit the window.

She checked her watch.

Florence should be home soon. She’d taken the new streetcar into Boston to go the library. Both her children were good students. They had made the marriage worthwhile.

She heard a key turn in the front door followed by the click as it was dropped into the metal dish by the door. Footsteps went into the bedroom she and Charles shared in body but not in spirit.

Medora cut the remainder of the cabbage and sliced two carrots. Cole slaw would be a Saturday night treat.

“I’m leaving.”

She jumped at the voice. Turning around she saw her husband, suitcase in hand, a scarf, hat and gloves against the cold.

“When will you be back?” No point asking where he was going. He had left before and never revealed his destinations. Sometimes he was gone for a day or two. The longest period had been three months.

The next month Medora received a letter with $10 and a note, “I won’t be back."

 Note: The beanpot that Medora used now sits on my Saturday night supper table in France. It was used by her daughter, Florence, her granddaughter Dorothy and now by me her great granddaughter. My daughter expects to inherit it.