HER NEW LIFE
Emily had to resign from her job when she got married and so for the first few months after the wedding, she enjoyed her time off and loved her new role as ‘Mrs. Mendonca: Wife and Homemaker’. She found joy in the littlest things, like being introduced as Ethan’s wife to his colleagues, or arranging the photo frames and cook books on the shelves she had put up by herself. It was such a drastic change from the mundane old nine to five routine that she had been used to that she had a lot more fun than she thought she would.
There were many times during those initial months when meals were left half eaten as even something as small as a gentle caress of the shoulder or an accidental touch or even a certain look would catapult the two of them into each other’s arms and into their bedroom. On some days, the ones she loved best, they weren’t able to restrain themselves till they got to their bedroom.
However, all good things come to an end and that phase didn’t last as long as Emily would have liked. Once Ethan got involved in his work full-time again; he became very busy at the hospital and was on call all night at least four times a week. Emily spent most days with only the oven for company and meals that had once been left uneaten thanks to urges of the flesh, were left untouched because Ethan was home only in time for breakfast.
During the day, when she had very little to keep herself occupied, Emily went for long walks in the park near their apartment. One afternoon, she chanced upon a group of women playing basketball. Wonderful memories of matches she had played all through school and college came flooding back and without really knowing what she was doing, an otherwise reserved Emily called out to them. “Can I play?”
“Sure! We could use another player. We’re usually two against three – would be good to even up the odds.” A tall young woman, the others called Leanne, with short hair dyed deep purple shouted back.
Emily ran onto the court to join the game. Her team lost, but she had more fun than she had had on her own in a long time.
A great camaraderie formed among the women in a short time even though they were all in different places in their lives. Emily was able to escape a little of her loneliness thanks to their company. Yet, she was bored at home the rest of the day and it wasn’t long before she was wishing she was back at a desk in front of a computer screen again.
After about six months of refreshing her e-mail every half an hour hoping to see a response from one of the companies to whom she had sent her resume, it came. Emily made it through a grueling three rounds of interviews and landed a great job. She loved being back at work, even though it meant that she had to give up her trips to the basketball court. Sadly, with time, she lost touch with almost all the women with whom she once played.
Life fell into an easy, pleasant routine. On the commute back from work, Emily would think about what she could make to tantalize the taste-buds and would scour the internet for interesting recipes. Whenever Ethan was at home, he enjoyed her culinary masterpieces and slept on a content stomach. Unfortunately, he was usually at the hospital.
Being as busy as he was, Emily noticed that apart from everything else, even their love-making began to follow a schedule – once a week, on a weekend and sometimes not even then if Ethan was at work. She had got the idea that men spent a lot of their day thinking about sex from all those sitcoms and soap operas she had watched over the years. Ethan appeared to be an exception to that general rule. She was finally forced to conclude that for him, a relationship was much more than sex and his work, she thought despondently, was probably a little bit more important to him than that. Besides, she reminded herself, the passion he had for research in his field was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him in the first place. So, she didn’t question but accepted it, as the priest had advised in his homily on their wedding day.
******
Still more Emily to come tomorrow. Hope you’re enjoying the story so far. Click here to catch up!
Post 16! UBC…I’ve gone past the halfway mark!!
Filed under: Fiction, novella, UBC October, Ultimate Blog Challenge Tagged: Emily, fiction, new life, novella, routine, sex, story, UBC, UBC October 
