unfinished SHORT STORY (open for commentary and review)

I was born a nobody and I had no expectations for my life. Few girls born in the countryside did in those years. My parents were quiet and hardworking. Married nearly 30 years before I was conceived, I was considered by some to be a miracle; at least that’s what some village people told me. My life might have remained the same endless routine of spring planting, summer harvest, autumn slaughter, and enduring winter cold. Truly, I did not mind because I knew nothing else and had no desire to know. There was nothing in me that even wanted to acquire knowledge of anything beyond my basic needs for simple food, shelter, and the cordial companionship my parents provided. Nineteen years of this passed and I fully expected to end my days as my father had the year before, laying on a simple cot with a priest reading the Bible to me as my soul slipped quietly out of the world.

I often think of how strange it was that I ended up working in Madame Marchand’s  kitchen. Of all the chores required of and faithfully performed by rural people, cooking and cleaning alluded me.  I often grimaced at the dishes I prepared. My father was the true cook. My mother could clean anything and even the wealthier people of the town would have her come and clean expensive things once in a while. That’s how good she was. I never went with her on those trips that often lasted 2 days. I never wanted to. I was much more at home in the barn. Something about the hard, backbreaking work invigorated me in a way. The smell of horse manure didn’t bother me because I was used to smelling it in the fields. Was it the darkened privacy? The hot, humid atmosphere even in winter? But that summer, the summer after my father died, the barn was no longer my domain. It now belonged to Vincent.

Vincent was a wayfarer. He was young, though he never told me his age. He was not the usual vagabond. For one, he preferred the countryside he said, though I learned to doubt the things Vincent said. For when he spoke of the city, his eyes grew round with a wild excitement and he spoke almost too quickly for anyone to understand him. He could read quite well, which was useful because my mother liked to hear the Scriptures read and I was not such a good reader, nor did I like having to sit inside.  So the first year after my father died was a bit harder on me because I was indoors so much more. So Vincent would read the Scriptures and then he would sometimes slip in some poems. My mother would rebuke him for his worldly interest. But I could hear the smile in her voice when she did...