What Will Be Will Be - The Story

The next story to be published is titled What Will Be Will Be.  This was a hard story to write.  In this story, Claire and Ned just return home from planting the garden with Bartholomew and they get into a fight.  This fight is one that has been brewing for awhile and whose precursors have appeared in previous stories.  Life is hard when you are not meant for the person you are with.  It is especially hard when neither of you realize this.

People can be close, share their lives and then choose to be forever separated from each other.  This can happen with lovers, spouses and even children.  How is it that so much can be shared and then it is all thrown away?  This is a part of life that confuses and disappoints me.  When I was young I thought things were constant.  As I get older I find this is certainly not true, especially with relationships.

What Will Be Will Be is about two people who are fighting to have someone close, someone special.  They are forcing the person in front of them to be that special someone.  If they were to step outside of their desire, they would see the person in front of them for who they are, not what they want them to be.

Here is an excerpt from What Will Be Will Be, to be published at The Book of Bartholomew on Friday, July 5, 2013:

Claire collapsed in a stuffed chair that wasn't stuffed enough. “Ow,” she said as a spring poked her butt.

“Can't we get a new chair? This one is horrible,” she commented.

Ned sighed.

“What's up with you?” asked Claire.

“What do you mean?” responded Ned.

“You were quiet all day at the garden and Bartholomew's. You were crabby about where you were planting things and quiet the whole way home. And now you aren't answering my question. So, what's up?”

“Nothing's up. I just don't feel like talking.”

“You spend the whole day with your partner and your friends and you don't feel like talking? That's just weird.”

“My partner? What does that mean?” asked Ned, never having heard Claire use that term before.

“Uh, we've been living together for almost five months. At this point, it's not like I'm just a girlfriend.”

Ned wasn't sure what the difference would be between a girlfriend and a partner. “So, you’re my partner? Like a business partner? Like, you help me pay the rent and buy groceries and things like that? Cuz, last I checked, you still don't have a job. At this point, it's not like this is much of a partnership.”

Claire's heart winced but her anger did not. “What? You think of this as a business partnership? I didn't know there were conditions on me being here. Is that what you want?” Ned did not respond so Claire continued. “No, I don't have a job. But it’s not like I haven't taken care of things around here. It's not like I don't contribute. I clean the apartment and I cook and fix things. And I have paid for some things.”

“Look, I'm tired,” said Ned, “let's forget I said anything.”

Claire moved over to the couch. “I can't forget something like that. Is that why you've been quiet all day? You’re mad that I don't contribute around here?”

“It's not that you don't contribute, it's just that I needed a roommate to help cover the rent and here you are costing me more money. I'm dipping into my savings to float us here. I'm trying to save my money for other things.”

“Like what?” demanded Claire.

“Well, I've always tried to save enough money to cover four months worth of bills. That way I have a nest egg and if anything happens, like I lose my job, or I get sick or something, I have a cushion. It's the prudent thing to do.”

“What? You're saving money in order to save money? Being prudent is more important than our relationship?” asked Claire as tears came to her eyes.

“It's not that its more important...,” began Ned. He stopped. His mind raced back across time. He revisited all the times he felt that Claire was being unfair or demanding. He thought about how embarrassed he was when she was kicked out of the Earth Day Celebration and when she broke down at the spoken word event. He thought about how she kept expressing her opinion even when she knew it would be uncomfortable for him. He often had thought that Claire relied more on her gross-emotional skills than her fine-emotional skills. In a word, she was blunt – blunt as a stub. This even carried over to their love-making. Every time they made love, Claire needed it to be at a certain emotional pitch. She didn't have a sense of lingering, of spooning for hours or of having fun while being intimate. She seemed to have no imagination. It had to always be the same game, the same roles and then done.