My heart was breaking. I sobbed more tears than I knew I had in my body. Earlier, when Joe and I decided to end our marriage, I was calm and stoic. But sitting on my parents’ faded brown couch I had broken down. My mother’s worried frown and her eyes glistening with unshed tears for me seeped through my fences of denial. I felt like a child again. She held me and patted my back, saying, “There, there, it’ll all work out. Don’t worry. Your boys’ll be fine.”
I felt like such a failure. Joe and I had been happy once. How did it turn out so bad? Was I depriving our sons of a father they needed?
Mom sorrowed with me as I cried. She wanted to help, but I didn’t know how anyone could help me. She reached over to hand me a tissue from the box on the coffee table. Her fingers accidentally brushed one of her prized possessions, an amber colored glass nesting hen. In two pieces, the hen sat on a bowl shaped like a nest. During my childhood it was always filled with special candies. Mom looked at it and looked at me.
“Darlin’ I know you’ve always loved this. Please take it.” And she pushed the carnival glass hen into my clenched hands. I almost laughed. My mother was trying to comfort me in the only way she knew how. I carefully held the hen to my heart and thought, ‘At least this hen will be more faithful to me than my husband was.’
I hiccupped, wiped my face with the tissue and shook my hair back. “Thank you, momma. I’ve always loved this cute little hen. And I’m going to use it as a symbol for my new life. Just as a hen doesn’t need a rooster hanging around to take care of her and her young’uns, neither do I.”
That was the start of a new life for me. I still had lonely nights when I cried myself to sleep, but I would look at my little nested hen and remind myself that I didn’t need any rooster, either. I had an interesting job at our local college which kept me busy during the day, and running my two sons to after school activities kept me busy almost every evening.
I also discovered a weekend activity that kept me happy. Flea markets. I had told Diane, a close friend the pathetic story of my treasured sitting hen. She encouraged me to go with her on one of these fun outings. “You might even find another nesting hen. They were popular in the 1920s. And flea markets have a lot of old stuff.”
“No. One hen is enough. The whole point of the hen is that she doesn’t need anyone else to be happy.”
“Maybe she doesn’t NEED someone else, but don’t you enjoy our friendship?” She gave me a mock glare. “Everyone needs friends.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed sheepishly. “It’s nice to have friends, especially like you that I can talk to and have fun with.”
We started going to flea markets about once a month. And that’s where I did find a second nested hen one sunny weekend. It was made of white milk glass with tiny raised knobs all over it. When we first saw it on the cluttered table filled with glass collectibles, Diane nudged me, “Hey, there’s a nested hen.”
“It is sort of cute and maybe my amber hen would like a friend.” I consented.
“You’re darn right. Now buy this hen because I know you really like it, don’t you?”
Once my sisters, cousins and other friends heard I liked nesting hens they multiplied rapidly. Everyone felt she should give me another nested hen to represent her relationship with me.
I can look around my house and see 100s of nested hens, in all sizes and colors and made of all kinds of material, from cloisonné enamel to braided straw. I have to admit I became addicted to the cute little things.
And then the impossible happened. At a flea market I almost got into a fight with a man over a special hen with a bright yellow beak, flamboyant colored feathers and a saucy tilt to its little head. We both reached for it at the same time. I looked up to see who was trying to grab ‘my’ hen. A long, white sleeved arm was attached to a nice looking man with the deepest dimples.
At first he tried to argue me out of it. “My grandparents had a chicken ranch and this hen looks just like the one I had as a pet.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “I’ve heard that story before. I need this hen to give to my poor sick son.”
He frowned. “Are you messing with me?”
I laughed and admitted, “Yes I am. But I want that hen.”
He looked hard at me and said, “I’ll do you a trade. If I let you buy that hen, then you have to buy me a beer.” He looked clean and decent and had those devastating dimples. I thought, ‘What the heck, it’s a public place.’
Ten years later, we still argue over who owns the yellow beaked hen sitting on the mantel overlooking our living room.
The End
Ha,ha,ha. And they were married over 50 years....
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