Betsy’s linen was always perfectly washed and ironed. She hung it out on sunny days to kill more bacteria, she said. And the sun added extra happy, she added. Betsy was my neighbor. Perfect in every way. She married a military man after the war and cared for the home and children. They went to church every Sunday. The lawn and garden was kept neat and they had cookouts during the summers.
Betsy was so different than me - my husband also a military man, but returned home a stranger. He had seen a lot, the doctors said. He would probably never be the same. He drank a lot, gambled, beat me. We almost had one child but thankfully it was stillborn. I worked and my house was never clean.
But she was my best friend in those days. She saw me, not the chaos around me. She did not blame me. Took me in when my husband threatened to kill me as he so often did. And when she took me in, she would hold me, put an ice pack on my face which she always had ready, and lay me down in her perfect, white, fragrant, sheets, and that would give me the strength to go on.
