The Stew ~Flash Fiction Friday

The stew smelled wonderful. She thought as she stood there looking around her kitchen to see that everything was in order.



It had been a long year for her. She had gotten married to a man she loved and moved to another city to follow him when he got himself a job in another state. She had left her family and friends behind. As much as everyone had promised her that they would keep in touch they had slowly drifted away. Even her family had drifted more than she would have liked.



'Not that they had ever been all that close to begin with.' she thought as she stirred the stew again and felt the baby kick.



That was the other thing. The baby.



It hadn’t been her idea, but when she had had so much trouble finding work when they moved here that her husband had thought it was the perfect time to start a family.



No career to get in the way, he had said.



She hadn’t really had an option in the end. After all he was the one who brought in all the money, he was the one who gave her everything. It was the least she could do for him. It was her duty as a wife, to give him a child.



He had wanted a son. He said in his family sons were always born first. It was a big deal to him. And so she tried, but in the end again she had had no option.



When the doctors told them that it was a girl he had not been happy. He had insisted that the doctor had made a mistake. He demanded another test, much to the doctors dismay, and when he was shown that there was no mistaking it he had not talked to her for over a week.



It had been the longest week of her life. She had had no one to talk to. Even a phone call from her mother had done nothing to ease the loneliness in her heart. But she couldn’t tell her mother what had happened. Her mother was one of those stand by your man people, who believed that husbands could do no wrong.



As the months passed her husband had done nothing to make it up to her. He spent more and more time away from the house, saying it was because he had to work late. But she wasn’t born yesterday. She might have been stupid, but not so much so that she missed the smell of perfume on his clothes, the lipstick on his collar or the late night phone calls from some woman.



No, stupid she was not and when she confronted him, he had told her that if she hadn’t become a fat cow and pushed him away that he wouldn’t have had to turn to another woman to fill his needs.



It was always HER fault. Never his. Even their little girl who was not even born yet was her fault. Even when he called her names it was HER fault. That’s what he said anyways.



She on the other hand had had enough, and was going to set things straight. That was why she had made his favorite stew tonight. He was actually home in time for dinner for that reason alone.



After she had served the stew and brought it out to him in the living room where he sat in HIS reclining chair, she stood there beside him, waiting on him to start eating it.



“This smells good for once. Did you do something different?” He asked taking a huge spoonful and stuffing it into his mouth.



She just shook her head and smiled.



He was right, for once he was right. The stew smelled wonderful.