Harriet

Harriet wants a husband. For several years now, every time she passes a child on the street, she turns to watch it walk away, clutching the hand of some nanny or other, stumbling nonchalantly over its own feet. Harriet wants a child, and therefore also a husband. Ideally, she thinks, a pregnant woman should read, only. She believes that career women are admirable and that the way things are going these days, both members of a marriage should be working. But ideally, she thinks, when she is pregnant, she would have a husband who makes enough money to support all three of them, at least for the time being. Because she has never had enough time in her life to read. She has read plenty, sure, but never enough. And when she is pregnant, it will be all the more important that she has read everything she needs to read, books about child development and Jungian psychology, obviously pre-natal care, but also perhaps something religious, some book that might put her back in touch with a latent spirituality she must have forgotten. Nine months is really not all that long, when you think about it, and it’s hard to say how much of that time could actually be spent reading, once you deduct time for all that eating and sleeping that is also so necessary, as well as, presumably, some time for the husband as well, who very likely has his own needs that must be met, and that would probably be part of the understanding between him and his wife.

to be continued...