Chapter One – Nettie Johnson
I loved George ever since I could remember.
We were playmates when we were children and then he thought I wasn’t much of a playmate, as he spent much of his time with other boys. I read to him as he didn’t read very well. He was genial. He was also the most handsome boy in our class. He grew tall and had dark hair and eyes and struck such a figure. Every girl was taken with him. But I thought even from an early age that we would always be together, and we were.
We had a fall harvest festival every year in our small town and the year I turned fourteen everything seemed to sparkle, including George Meek. I had begged my mother for a new dress and she resisted until an idea sprang in both our minds: we could re-do an old dress in her trunk to look like new. My mother was good with a needle and together we crafted a delicate gown that was, if nothing else, new to me.
I bounced towards the harvest supper, looking for George. When I finally spied him, and I knew he had seen me because he looked me up and down, I ran at him. As I approached, he turned and had his hands out to a younger woman. She was tall, almost as tall as he was, and dressed in new clothing, topped with a bonnet that was spectacular. I slowed down. He was listening intently to something she was saying; they were both smiling. He glanced back at me and motioned behind himself to move on. I was crushed.
That was the first time I laid eyes on Peg. I was so jealous of her I could feel a raw taste in my mouth and the ire crept up my spine. I pined away after George as his gaze turned towards the glamorous Peg. And I thought: my life is over before it’s even begun because he loves someone else.
But George and I remained friends. He told me “My first wife will be Peg,” and I nodded along while he went on how he loved Peg and how beautiful she was. But he was also looking at me funny. He said, “but we are still friends, and our love is also unrequited,” and I was dead set against being wife number two. If a man was going to marry me he could darn sure make me wife number one, if we were to live in a celestial marriage.