Fred Pinninger married his Martha early, on July 13, 1943, just a week after their high school graduation. They didn't have a big wedding because their families didn't have a lot of money. As a matter of fact, Fred wore his father's old suit and Martha wore her elder sister's wedding dress on her special day.
They spent their first wedding anniversary apart because Fred was serving in the army overseas. For weeks, Martha didn't even know whether her husband was still alive, and she could hardly sleep at night. She thought that if her husband died now, the only comfort she'd have would be her newborn son, Fred Jr.
They celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary together as a family. Actually, the fourth member of the family, a daughter they would name Irene, decided to join them on that day as Martha went into labour during the party.
Fred almost forgot his tenth wedding anniversary as he was a busy salesman at the time, driving around Michigan and trying to sell his employer's soap to various housewives. He only remembered that it was his wedding anniversary when a potential client asked him whether his own wife used the soap as well to clean their home. It was intended as a put-down, but Fred was really thankful for it later. When he had returned home that day, he had found out that his Martha had been so desperate about his neglect that she had contemplated running away with a neighbour.
Martha was really sick at the time of their twentieth anniversary. She was suffering from cancer, but in those days, nobody was supposed to talk about the disease. So Fred and Martha kept quiet about it, prayed a lot and hoped things would get well again, which they did after a while.
They didn't celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary either because their son Fred Jr. had just been severely wounded in Vietnam.
Martha wanted to celebrate her fortieth wedding anniversary with a big party, but on the day before the party, she found out that Fred had been cheating on her with the party planner, a lady who was twenty years younger than she was and lived in the neighbourhood. That is why she contacted a divorce lawyer on the very day she had once married her Fred.
They didn't go through with the divorce in the end, but it took Martha a long time to learn how to trust Fred again. They finally had their big party with their two children and six grandchildren in 1993. Actually, they even invited the entire family on a cruise and spent the happy day, frolicking in the sun in the Bahamas.
It was the happiest day of Fred's life, and it would also be his last as he died in his sleep that night.
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120 Blind Dates... And Other Short Stories
General FictionThe first short story in this collection was written exclusively for the Chicklit contest "120 Dates" in November 2020. The collection has been growing ever since.
