The Doughertys' Home Front

III | III

Similar to how sleep served as an impermanent relief to the Doughertys' troubles, the passage of time also proved itself a short-term remedy to the gaping severances along the couple's home front.

After their contention that August night, Harvey and June had chosen not to speak of its implications again. Instead, the couple had allowed Margaret and Ronald to enjoy the company of their dolls peacefully without further interference. Soon, nearly a year had come and gone like narrow waistlines. During that time, Harvey had picked up a second job at a lumber yard and June had remained employed under Mr. Cain.

With their own respective means of employment, the two saw little of each other which saved their bedroom walls from hearing the meat of any disagreement. This arrangement was much preferred for June who thus felt reacquainted with the independence she had once been hip-to-hip with when Harvey was serving overseas; the same independence that she had suspected she'd never be able to bask in again.

Though that was not to say that June did not like having Harvey home. For her children's sake especially, a man in the house provided the family with an umbrella of security that June otherwise could not simulate herself. Both of Harvey's incomes were also of use, for with them, June was able to send her children to a private school on the Northside likened to the one she had attended as a young girl.

And while June appreciated what a man like Harvey provided from a distance, there had been times when direct interaction between the couple had been unavoidable. The housewarming party Beverly was currently hosting, for instance, forced the family of four to collect their straggler pieces and appear intact.

Which was the very reason why June now found herself hovering over her dressing table in search of her vermeil gold brooch that she had located the night previous and had set out for her convenience for the following evening.

She eventually found the brooch after some rearranging and pinned it above her left breast. The golden finish of the sunburst brooch introduced an elegance to the emerald peplum top dress that clothed June's body. With sleeves that stopped short of her elbows and housed rectangular shoulder pads, a neckline that spelled the letter v, and a flare of a pocket on her right hip, it was appropriate to assume that the dress could use some flavor in the form of an accessory like a brooch.

Other than the brooch, a set of aureate bangles hugging her left wrist also aided in curbing the dress's appetite for fashionable flavor. Bringing a hand to her warm victory rolls that fell down her neck and kissed her shoulders, June let a ghost of a smile slip as she appreciated the control she had exerted in appearing put together, for it seemed that her appearance was the only thing she felt she garnered control over in the past week.

Rumors had begun circulating at her work that her employer planned to make cuts to his employee pool. And due to the known fact that June could not tie the lips of her workplace counterparts though she would if she was allowed, she had no choice but to turn her ear towards the unconfirmed statements.

What's more, Mr. Cain had done nothing to water such rumors nor to let them die as one would annuals at the summer's end. Because of this indifference that seemed out of character even for Mr. Cain, June had begun to doubt her sticking around for the first time since the war considering her securement of her high ranking position had only been possible in the event that Mr. Cain's male accountant was called to serve in '43.

But now that the war was clearly over and the men were home, June knew that Mr. Cain preferred his office to be riddled with cigarette-wielding men who had rhubarbs over baseball plays and who were always up for a game of poker after hours.

Her knowledge of this stemmed from June's first few days as Mr. Cain's secretary, a position she had partook in on the eve of the twins' first birthday. Along with constant misogynistic remarks and expressions of favor for his own sex, her employer's public declaration of her as the office broad that merely did the work his male employees need not to concern themselves with had convinced her that this man's respect for women was as nonexistent as the Nazi Party's chance of ever winning the war.