October

Jean, part iii:
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Jean and Marjory had shared a hospital room some twenty-three years ago. They were both very pregnant when they first met. And they would each give birth to boys, born just hours apart. In those days, the St-Boniface General took good care of their new mothers, well aware that once they arrived home, they would be alone to care for their bundled joys while the proud fathers celebrated their offspring with a den of men, a scotch and a cigar.

And so, the women were best of friends for three days. Marjory’s exuberance sometimes got under Jean’s skin, it’s true, but the guilt-filled single mother was pleased for companionship during those first frightening days. Jean had taken it as a blessing that she was not roomed up with some judgmental church-going mother of five who would make certain her whispers would be heard through the thin linings that passed for walls between the beds.

The two young mothers had met on several occasions after the big event. Jean suspected that Marjory thought she would be having difficulty handling an infant on her own. And she would have been correct. Those were trying days. There were times Jean didn’t know how she would manage on her own, although stubbornly wanting to show her family and neighbours that she could make single parenthood work.

Jean took solace in those hours shared with Marjory, and those lovely early days of Spring they had spent with Adam and Peter playing in the park. How was it again that they had lost touch?. .
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