O joy

It’s not that he’s not a good man - he is. He loves the children, he’s a dutiful husband, sober, church-going, and a good provider. And he has a point: those department stores don’t have big flashy buildings because they’re giving things away. Yes, that lamp down at Hempel’s was expensive, but if she bought the cheaper cuts of meat for a month the budget would’ve been fine. (If she could find cheaper cuts, that is; he was always suspicious when there wasn’t a bone in the pork chops, and sometimes made her fish it out of the garbage and show it to him to prove she wasn’t getting those fancy Rockefeller-style cuts.)

It’s just that sometimes when she’s squinting at her darning, she looks over at the lamp, and she begins to cry.