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She stretched her arms high over her head and watched the sun setting behind the distant hills. Finally, she thought, there's
no quiet when the sun is still up. She looked down at a little boy clinging to her skirt: James, the youngest of 14. He
watched the sun set by her side, his eyes a brilliant blue, just like his father's, she thought. His father's... her thoughts
took her back 7 years, to her third marriage. He was special, she thought. He had something the others did not. "A
soul?" she thought aloud, and laughed at her own joke. The first one wasn't so bad, really... when he was asleep. He
had fathered three before he left town with that woman from Wyoming. Wyoming. She couldn't imagine how anyone half interesting
could come from there. And she didn't look like the motherly type. Maybe that was it.
And then there was Sam Jr., the shoe salesman who thought the slogan 'comfortable enough to live in' was worth proving...
and by his own family. She supposed their living situation could have been worse, but the place constantly smelled of old
leather and it was just so hot. She rolled her eyes as she remembered how Freezy Steve's Air Conditioning Service had provided
the best (and most expensive) installation they could offer and all that unit ever did was rumble and clank and keep the kids
up for hours on end. Not that Sam Jr. noticed. He didn't even notice that half of his progeny looked more like his bowling
buddies than him. And that whole escapade wasn't as fun as she thought it would be. Eventually she threw him out, hoping
for a reaction, and he never came back. Sam Jr. (and his friends) had fathered 7.
She met him several years later, at the elementary school. He had two kids of his own, a little older than her youngest;
he had won custody in the divorce. She had been working with the school as a teaching assistant since Sam Jr. took off...
she hoped to one day live in a proper house and be able to afford bread once in a while. If only her first child hadn't been
born before she finished high school. He seemed to notice her immediately... she figured she must look old for her age, never
sleeping, barely eating, and that shoe house of hers just HAD to possess some harmful chemicals in its walls. She was no
spring chicken, and yet he didn't seem to mind. He even politely complimented her home and family, and allowed his children
to make swift friends with hers. They got along famously, and eventually married. They lived happily with many dreams and
planned to build a new home in the near future. But then again happiness was never intended for this woman and her children,
as a sudden onset of cancer swiftly took him away forever. These walls, she thought, they did it to him. Aside from his
two that she adopted, he had fathered 2 children, including little James.
James, she thought, as his grip on her skirt brought her back to her senses. "It's time for bed," she said,
lifting him up. She playfully smacked the older boys that were peering over their cold dinner broth and saying today it tasted
like river water. They obediently went to bed and she was left alone again. Story of my life, she thought. Her oldest children
had left with promises to return, but that had been years ago. They were embarrassed, she knew. They couldn't help it.
She was too tired to be ashamed, though, of anything. Even that tattered old shoe house she lived in. She stood by the window
watching the stars, hoping maybe tonight she'll be able to sleep... and then, maybe, she'll dream about bread. Loaves and
loaves of bread.
The End.
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