We-Write Partner Up!!

Prompt: Death on the Table

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Grandma put up with Grandpa for 60 years

of marital bliss, aka un-bliss. Lloyd and Leona, living like paupers while "his" (their, she reminded him in vain) assets were frozen in several million dollars worth of land, tractors, combines (yes, two, not one, of the house-sized, house-priced behemoths), and grain bins bursting at the seams with rotting corn or beans because prices were too low for him to sell, or so high, Lloyd Bossum would have to - gasp! - pay taxes.

Every birthday, Valentine's Day, holiday and Mother's Day, Leona cooked as usual for the man who was once upon a time handsome and charming. He swept her off her feet and lured her from town life, social life, a life, and overnight, after the "I do, until death us do part," he transformed from handsome boyfriend to Property Owner. She was his property. His servant.

All their children wearied of her complaining and his narcissism, but that's just the way things were, and Leona declared it was her lot in life. See, right in the Bible, it said so. "Accept your lot in life." She could recite it from memory but she didn't get it: It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. Ecclesiastes 5:18.

Funny how she passed over the part where her God wanted his people to enjoy life. The county fair was on, but "it took all the fun out of it" to pay $5 for a hot dog, Lloyd said, he who was worth millions. He was no longer able to climb the fence to avoid paying admission at the gate, and Leona had half a mind to go without him, but Lloyd knew that would never happen. Now that Lloyd was 87 his mind wasn't as sharp as he'd always claimed it to be, and even his tongue wasn't as sharp as it once was, but Leona's was sharper than ever.

He stood in the doorway of the hot August kitchen as she canned tomatoes, froze sweetcorn and pickled his beloved beets. Work, work, work, and never a break from it, she whined.

Lloyd shuffled out to the barn.

"All the good people dying," Leona muttered over the steaming kettle of fruit jars being sterilized, while Lynnae, their youngest, pursed her lips and shucked corn. "Mean old S.O.Bs like him never die."

Well, there was a new twist! Leona had never uttered a profanity in all her life, and S.O.B. was in itself a blasphemy, so Lynnae knew her mom's stoic endurance was being strained to the limit.

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@sarez, you're on!