Marjorie, Thirteen Years Later

[Aslanslamb]

Marjorie Preston was twenty-nine years old when her life changed completely.
Before her life changed, Marjorie spent most of her time going to the movies with men she hardly knew. Her friends set her up, so she went. The men would kiss her passionately and she would kiss them back…but they always lost interest after several weeks. Some lost interest because they saw that she didn’t want to go any further than kissing. The more decent ones lost interest for other reasons. Perhaps, Marjorie thought, they realized that she wasn’t very clever. Had she been stunningly beautiful…only Marjorie wasn’t that either. She had a very ordinary face and was constantly trying to lose weight.

Then her father suffered the stroke that nearly killed him.
Now, her father could not go on studying history and writing scholarly articles. He was so frail that he needed twenty-four hour care by a trained nurse. Once that nurse was paid for, as well as all the medical bills, and once their two servants were dismissed, they had enough money to live on. Barely. It occurred to Marjorie that any decent daughter in her place would immediately begin to look for work to ease the burden just a bit.
So she applied for a job as a nanny for a ten year-old boy.

She didn’t know very much about children. But she could cook a little. And she had a vague sympathy for anybody who was forced to spend six hours a day in a school because she remembered being so miserable there herself. Her friend Lucy had been the only good thing about being in school…but thinking about Lucy hurt too much, even after thirteen years.
To her surprise, she got a phone call from the boy’s father, quietly telling her that the job was hers.
The ten year-old boy she was supposed to look after went to school in a pleasant green neighborhood about two hours away from Marjorie’s home, if you took the trolley. Marjorie resigned herself to the fact that she would spend four hours a day travelling back and forth. Maybe I shall start reading books to pass the time, she thought, but felt skeptical about it. She wasn’t a book lover, although with such a clever father, she probably should have been.

The first three days were uneventful. She took the boy to his home after school, made him cucumber sandwiches and watched while he played with his friends outside. Then, she watched him do his homework, afraid that he might ask her for help with his mathematics. But he didn’t. He hardly spoke to her at all, except to ask her if she liked football (which she didn’t).
Then on the fourth day, a miracle happened.
She was waiting for the children’s dismissal along with a group of other nannies and mothers. A group of girls stepped out of the school building. One of them had a dark-eyed, pale face that made Marjorie freeze and gasp out loud.

She looked almost exactly like Susan, Lucy’s older sister.
Marjorie hadn’t seen Susan since that nightmarish funeral thirteen years ago, when Lucy and her two brothers had been killed in a railway accident.
She had been too afraid to call Susan or write to her after the funeral, too heartbroken herself to offer any kind of comfort. The knowledge that she should call had made her guilty, and the guilt had mixed in with her fear and pain until they were merged into one awful feeling of deep, deep sorrow. Marjorie carried that feeling with her still.

Now, she stood looking at the dark-eyed girl, speechless. The girl looked about twelve. Suddenly, the girl and her two friends took off running down the street. And hardly knowing what she was doing, Marjorie followed.
Marjorie’s shoes had not been made for running. They were heels, very good for walking sedately as an English nanny should. But they were not good shoes for running. She thought this as she ran but before she could do something about it, she felt herself trip and fall right to the concrete.
The girls stopped and turned, immediately concerned and polite.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Can we help you?”
The child who looked like Susan didn’t say anything, only offered her arm and helped Marjorie up.
“I’m all right, thank you,” Marjorie said. Her knee stung, her face was red but, she was smiling idiotically. She addressed all three of them. “Would you help me find someone named Susan Pevensie?”
The girl’s dark eyes widened. “That’s my mother’s name. At least it was, until she married father.”
“You look very much like her,” Marjorie said.
The girl sighed. “So everyone says.”

[Lil]

I really like this. It is interesting and intriguing. An Interesting look into Marjorie without Lucy's Influence. I'd like to see more.

[Ajnos]

I love this idea. Well written. Are you planning to write more?