House Husband

 Occasionally, as most writers do, I launch into fiction and today is one of those days. I write about Jenna's House Husband. Jenny, an octogenarian lady and widow of some years, lay in her bed one morning and thought about her ideal once husband. Their life was charmed. When they were launching their careers each, having been fairly well educated at colleges and universities, they fell into their jobs easily and furthermore, they liked them. They met, courted, became engaged without any actual sex act and then married with their kin as witnesses, consummated and worked a few years before having a family. They built a house, had their one child and life went on. Their own adult child married before a divorce some almost two decades later, but in the meantime bore a couple of healthy, happy children before divorcing amicably ( as was said). Both Jenna's husband and son were now dead and Jenny was alone. All alone, but with two ideal career-involved grandchildren. Some would say, it was the ideal life, an ideal marriage, comfortable with pensions, benefits and savings. They retired and travelled the world.  It was, in  fact, more than ideal. As Jenny lay, single, in her big queen sized bed pondering how much time she had left in life because she was a healthy, happy, not-too-bad looking widow living in her owned condo with some very nice friends around her and a unit full of rather lovely things. But was it all? Was it everything? This life that appeared to go on and on? Sure, she had the usual, as most women did, when their husbands died, an exciting love affair after, that taught her, love doesn't happen just once even though the first one is the best and never forgotten and is forged as "the love of your life". Along the widowhood way, she learned to beware of men whom she never quite "got" as she described it. They were strange creatures with very different sorts of aims. But thinking about her first and only marriage, she began to doubt. At the time, with the busyness of it all, it had been impossible to analyse exactly, on a scale of one to ten, how good the marriage was. It seemed to be ideal. It would have been irrational and nasty to dissect what was all rosy and perfect. Her husband was especially perfect. Or was he? In Jenny's day, home life was divided into neat male and female roles, and happily so. The world was in its place and even though there were small wars on the globe, filled with mostly men who both hated and loved the military.  Her life had begun when the Second War in the World started, and it would likely end perhaps, right before the Third and final one. Way things were going. But what about the husband she once adored mutually? Yes, him. She knew friends who talked about something called a soulmate. Remembering this term, she recalled, she and husband never did sit together to discuss their relationship. Why would they? He managed all the finances even though she earned well at her profession. He was attractive, faithful to the marriage, hard working and handy around the house. He was in fact, just that. A house. He was, like a house, big and reliable and safe. He surrounded their little family with dignity, respect, honour and diligence. Were they, a couple, warm and cozy and deeply into one another? No. Life ticked along as though he were actually the house inside which they lived and all went well and beautifully the whole marriage. He was just a house husband. A house, the house.