Free After the Fire by Jane Rule

them. Henrietta didn’t have real friends. People for her were projects like Red and Sadie and old Miss James. Even her husband was no more to her than a twice weekly duty. Henrietta lost interest in people without needs. Without this operation to involve herself in, she would probably be losing interest in Milly, who had noticed how often Hen simply dismissed her, as she had this morning.
    Milly hated Saturdays, nothing but the opera to listen to on the radio, nothing to watch on the one channel her TV picked up. Though the bleeding had stopped and the afternoon was sunny, she felt too weak to go out for a walk. But by dinner time boredom had conquered her fatigue. One more game of solitaire and she’d go mad!
    Though it was extravagant on her limited budget, Milly determined to treat herself to dinner at the pub. She could sit at one of the small tables so that no couple could take pity on her and join her. How Milly hated those talkative wives glad of any company to distract them from their resigned, doggedly eating husbands. But the few garrulous husbands were even worse, with nothing in their brains but jokes and facts, among which it was hard to distinguish what to laugh at. As for the young men, Milly flinched at the thought of being treated as Sadie was—a worn and blowsy drunk to be humored along. What a sorry state her life was in when even such company as she would find at the pub was better than her own.
    That Karen Tasuki was working tonight. Milly watched her with speculative interest, and, when she came to take Milly’s order, Milly decided to probe a little.
    “Where are those friends of yours?”
    “Friends?” Karen repeated.
    “The ones I saw walking on the beach this morning, the two holding hands.”
    “Oh, just friends of friends here for the weekend,” Karen said, obviously trying to distance herself from them.
    “Where are they staying?”
    “With me … just until tomorrow.”
    “Why aren’t they here at the pub?”
    “Oh, they brought their own food.”
    “I don’t suppose a place like this would appeal to them,” Milly suggested.
    “They were here last night,” Karen said. “Are you ready to order?”
    “You needn’t take offense.”
    “I’m not,” Karen said, looking around. “It’s getting pretty crowded. I don’t really have time to chat.”
    Milly ordered a small fish and chips with a carafe of white wine which, after she’d finished her meal, she could go on sipping for a couple of hours if she felt like it.
    There were more weekenders here than usual, as sure a sign of the coming of spring as snowdrops or crocuses. How young and affluent and healthy they looked, some with winter-holiday tans, their jackets and Scandinavian sweaters no older than last Christmas. If their children had come to the island with them, they were left at home with spaghetti and the choice of a hundred channels on their dish-wired TVs.
    Fifteen years ago there had been no pub, and dishes were still in the future. When she and Forbes came over with all three children, Milly had to cook, and the kids were thrown back on such old-fashioned entertainments as cards and jigsaw puzzles. City-spoiled and restless for their friends, they hated to come this early in the year. Once summer arrived they were happy enough to be here, part of a gang of summer children who didn’t mix much with the locals, though her son Martin would remember Dickie John.
    In only fifteen years, Milly wanted to call over to those young people, you’ll be just like me, an old crow in an empty nest. And in another fifteen years I’ll be just like them, Milly mused, as two old widows came in together, not friends so much as sharers of complaints about their health, their children and their pensions. She could imagine that future as she couldn’t have imagined this future for herself fifteen years ago. Then, life beyond children was going to be South American cruises and trips to Europe.
    Why under these circumstances Milly