I still recall those days as if they were a faded tapestry hanging in the attic of my memory. Arthur Whitaker was my whole support until the moment our little George turned three, and then he vanished as if hed never existed.
I married at eighteen, a sensible age for a girl from the village of Littleton. Arthur was twenty years my senior, and his maturity drew me like a moth to a lamplight. Within a year a daughter arrivedEthel, a quiet child with a laugh like church bellsfollowed soon after by our son, George. Arthur stood by me in every undertaking; with his aid I found work, saved enough to attend night classes, and finally earned my diploma. Yet when George was merely three, Arthur packed a bag, closed the front door, and was gone forever.
For weeks I wept, unable to picture how a single mother could sustain two youngsters. There was no one to look after them, so I could not take any job. The maintenance he left was a pittancebarely enough to buy a loaf of bread and a tin of beans each week. I scrimped, I rationed, and eventually managed to secure a place for George at the local crèche and a position as a clerk in the towns post office.
It was then that Arthur returned, his eyes pleading for forgiveness, begging to rejoin the family. I told him plainly:
We have learned to live without you. You never thought of the children, and now you ask for pardon? Leave us be and never come back.
A month later he hauled me before the magistrate, hoping the courts would restore his parental rights. The judge saw through his game; the children stayed with me.
Six months after that I learned the true reason behind his sudden contritionhis father had drawn up a will that left a modest sum to our children. The money had never reached us; Arthurs hope of a sudden windfall had driven his return.
Now, many years later, the story is behind us. Yet the memory of stretching a single crust of bread, of scraping together pennies to keep Ethel and George fed, still lingers like the scent of rain on the old stone road.
