A Long Trip Home

Photo by:Pixabay

March 26 2025

 

“Emery Morris, I need to go to town,” stated his wife Gladys. “I need some supplies so I can prepare meals for the Victory celebration now that the  war has ended

“Gladys, today is a busy day on the farm. You will have to wait until tomorrow. I will not be so busy tomorrow.”

Gladys sighed a heavy sigh as Emery walked across the yard to the barn. She reached up onto the top shelf and took down the second flour tin. She lifted the lid. From inside the tin she removed an envelope and added the cash from today’s egg sales. She counted it carefully and added the totals. The amount in the envelope made her smile as she added it to the other envelopes in the tin. She put the lid back on and placed the tin on the shelf where it belonged. She would have closed the cupboard door but her cupboards had no doors. She checked the heat on her cooking stove and decided that she didn’t need to add another log to the fire just yet. It would need another before lunch. As she looked around she realized that today was oil lamp filling day so she gathered all the oil lamps together and completed that task. As she stepped outside to gather some supplies from her garden the wind filled her nostrils with a scent that needed to be tamped down so she headed over to the outhouse and spread some lime through the hole to cut down on the strong odours. She noted that the weather was changing. She thought that tomorrow's laundry, which she would be doing by hand, may need to be postponed for another day.

Gladys smiled as she thought about her trip into town tomorrow. Her anticipation ran strong. 

She called over the eldest of her 4 kids, ”Carlene, I need you to go next door to see Mrs.Toms. Please ask her if we could borrow a cup of sugar. We will replace it tomorrow after your father takes me into town.”

Gladys lived in wonder of the Tom's farm. They had all the electricity and all the other conveniences a modern 1940’s farm could have. She didn’t envy them. It would just make her family's life so much nicer.  Emery had electricity in the barn to make his work easier. There was no electricity in the house. 

The next morning Gladys had completed all of her chores before 9 am and was sitting at the kitchen table waiting patiently for Emery. She had packed her travelling bag with the eggs she had for the shopkeeper in town. 

When Emery returned to the house from completing his morning chores he washed up in the kitchen sink, drawing water through the pump attached to the cistern. He turned and spied Gladys sitting in the darker depths of the room. “What are you doing sitting with your bag at the table?" he asked. 

“You promised me we would be going to town today.”

“Does it have to be today? I am very busy. Perhaps we could go tomorrow.” 

Gladys looked at him. “Emery Morris, you say this every day. We are so low on supplies that you may not get meals before too long.”

“Alright, alright,” he relented. “I will go and get changed.”

“Carlene,” called Gladys. “Make sure everyone does their chores. You will need to prepare the bread for cooking like we always do. Make sure your brothers and sister are prepared for when we return.”

“Yes mama,” replied Carlene. 

Gladys carefully carried her travelling bag out to the truck and sat there waiting for Emery. He got in and started the truck up. As he pulled out of the driveway Gladys took a look at their house with their kids waving goodbye.

All the way to town not a word was said. Emery parked the truck in front of the store where Gladys was going to pick up her groceries. 

“I’m going to the hardware store to pick up a couple of things. If you finish before I do, put your groceries in the back. I will be back before too long.” Emery closed the door and walked off down the street. 

Gladys stood leaning against the truck fender as she watched Emery disappear down the street and enter the store. She quickly picked up the bag at her feet and walked in the other direction, around the corner until she spotted her destination. She paused looking at the building, wondering if what she had planned for so long would matter. In the end she walked up to the window and said, ”One ticket please.” She paid her money and walked over to the bus that was boarding. As it pulled away from the station and town, she never looked back.

Emery searched high and low for her before he realized that night was falling and he needed to get back home to perform the evening chores. After the chores he phoned all of the people he could think of asking if they had heard from Gladys. He reluctantly filed a missing persons report. When all was said and done he was perplexed. “Where could she be?” he wondered. 

Two years later Carlene, who had assumed all responsibility for the house, walked to the mailbox. Upon opening it she saw a letter that was addressed to her. She got excited when she recognized the handwriting and ripped open the envelope.

Dear Carlene,

I am well and fine and living in Peterborough. I have a job and an apartment. I am looking after myself.

I am sorry to have put you through this. I miss you and the other kids terribly but I cannot come home. Please dont tell your father where I am. I do not wish to see him. 

You may write me back at this address. I would love to hear from you.

Love,

Mama

Carlene smiled. She was still alive. She missed them. 

Carlene sent letters and received them back for months. Her father was not aware of her correspondence until one day she had set the letter on the counter to tend the fire. He came into the kitchen, saw the letter and recognized the handwriting. He picked up the letter and read it as Carlene froze near the stove.

“How long have you known?” he asked calmly.

“Six months,” was the nervous reply. “She asked me not to tell you.”

“I understand,” said Emery. “I need to read the other letters,” he said. “She is still alive. Why did she leave?” he wondered.

Carlene left the room and retrieved the many letters her mother had written. As she handed them over to her father she said, “You need to go see her and ask her to come home.”

Emery grunted as he eyed his daughter and took the letters from her. 

He read the letters carefully, many times, learning a little more about her life away from the farm. She seemed satisfied and thriving. “Would she want to come back?” he wondered. He had an address. Now he needed to go see her. She was needed here. Could he make it right for everyone? 

After a few days Emery gathered up his strength and drove his truck the one hour drive to where she was living. He parked and wondered if he knocked on the door would she answer. He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t angry. Just determined to have his wife come home. She was his wife. She would come home. He walked to the door and knocked.

She opened the door in a dress he had never seen before. “She looks very good,” he thought.

“Emery Morris,” she said with a note of despondence.

He smiled. “Hello Gladys. Would this be a good time to talk to you?” he inquired. 

“As good as any since you drove all the way up here. Come in.” As he stepped through the door she noticed with some sadness that he had not lost his swagger.

“How have you been?”

“As you can see I am doing well. Carlene tells me that the kids are doing fine.”

“They miss you. Will you please come home?” He asked brusquely as was his way. 

“I do miss the kids. I may even miss you a little.”

“I have missed you too,” he quickly replied. “How can you afford all this?” he inquired as he looked at her modern furniture. 

“I got a job in a store.”

“A job?”

“Yes,” she replied. "I work in a store. They treat me well and value my work. On the farm I saved my egg money. I still have some left and use it when I need it.”

Emery grunted at this news. He wondered how much money Carlene had set aside as the egg money was now hers. It seems selling eggs made more money than he knew about.

Gladys eyed him suspiciously. She knew he missed her. That was a given. “Have you installed electricity into the house?” she asked.

“Well, no,” he replied as he looked away.

“Have you installed an indoor bathroom?”

“Well no,” he mumbled.

“I miss the kids and would love to see them and be with them but I am not coming home.”

“You’re not?” he responded with sadness bordering on anger. His plans were being thwarted.

“Emery Morris. You have turned down, deferred, or simply not done what I asked for the kids and my welfare. Yet you have spent money on farm improvements that brought a good deal of money into our home. I have spent many years living in substandard conditions. I could return home but I will not live there the way things are. You will have to change your ways and demonstrate more respect.”

Emery stood there dumbfounded. “I thought everything was good.”

“Emery Morris, then you weren’t paying attention,” she replied. 

He wasn’t sure how to respond to this so he didn’t. He stuck with what he knew. “In order for you to come home you need an indoor toilet and electricity installed in the house.”

“Those are two of my requirements.”

“Are there more?”

She paused for a second gathering up her strength. “You will take my thoughts and feelings more into consideration. You will begin proving that you are a loving husband rather than an army officer who demands things be done. I will need a fully remodeled kitchen with the latest appliances. I need a clothes washer that will ease some of my hours on that job and allow me to do more around the farm.”

“More around the farm?” He wondered what she would do.

“Yes. I am capable of doing many of the jobs that need to be done. You have seen that when you were too ill to get out of bed.” 

He grunted in acknowledgement. “So, electricity, an indoor toilet, a remodeled kitchen, a clothes washer and other modern conveniences like a refrigerator, as well as treating you with more respect.”

“And a stove,” she added.

“And a stove. If I promise to do these things will you come home?”

“Emery Morris, I am no fool and you straight out know it. If I come home you will go back to your old ways and nothing will get done. I will stay here until you have done everything that needs to be done. You will have to show me that you deserve me. If not, Carlene is capable of cooking and cleaning, as you know. Before too long she will want her own home.”

He opened his mouth to speak but knew straight up that she was one determined woman. She always had been. He closed his mouth and nodded.

“If you don’t agree to these things then I will stay here. Do you want me to stay here?” she asked with some trepidation.

“No,” he replied in his slow manner. “That wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

“Agreed,” she replied. “I want you to bring the kids here once a week. I need to see them and they need to see me.”

“I will get this done,” he said as he bade her goodbye.

“We shall see,” said Gladys. She was certain that after some careful considerations that he would comply with her wishes. How long that would take was anyone's guess. Emery tended not to hurry any more than he had to.

Gladys and the kids had a very fine time when they were together. Even Emery joined in. The feeling was different than on the farm. They felt a closeness the family had rarely felt. 

Emery, as always, did things in his own manner and in his own time. Gladys kept working. She knew his intentions regardless of how long it took. He would complete the task. It would weigh more heavily on him as time progressed. 

In the end it took Emery another 36 months to complete all the renovations. Both remained true to themselves. Emery progressed slowly but surely in his acknowledgement of her importance in his life and slowly oriented himself to meet her most basic needs. Gladys knew that what he offered was the best he was capable of achieving. She had learned long ago to accept him for who he was, even though now she demanded more. He rose to her basic level of acceptance. He could only be pushed so far. 

In time, Gladys moved back home. She stepped out of the truck to the hugs of her children.

She looked around the farm and thought “It’s good to be home.”

“Emery Morris,” she started, “after I get oriented and have things the way that I want them…”

Emery gave her a look somewhere between what was love for him and acceptance.

She continued, “I will be out in time to help with the threshing.”

Emery smiled, pulled on his pipe, and replied with a simple, “That will be fine,” as he walked towards the barn.