Read With a Tangled Skein for Free Online

said. "What do you want to do?"
     
    "Well, I will need to check your wardrobe," she said. "I'm sure your clothing is wearing out and will need attention." Which was not at all what she wanted to say and, indeed, fell comfortably into the major category of Things Never to Be Said, because she was being motherly. But she couldn't even conceive of, let alone formulate, what she might have intended to say. The Profs remarks had colored her perspective, and she had not yet completed her readjustment. She liked to keep things orderly, like threads in a tapestry, and hated it when a thread broke. But mending a thread was a special process, requiring time and consideration.
     
    "Uh, sure," he agreed somewhat lamely. "You always take good care of me."
     
    Damn it! she thought furiously. She had definitely done it again, putting him in the junior role. How could he ever become a true husband this way?
     
    So she wended her way home, bearing a burden of tangled feelings greater than before. She might be an expert weaver of ornamental tapestries, but she was plainly inadequate in marriage. She had expected to marry a more experienced man and just wasn't competent to educate a younger one in the necessary way. If only there were a college course in-
     
    She halted that thought in place. No, she certainly didn't want Cedric taking that kind of course! Not with those colleens! Marriage was a private thing.
     
    The winter passed somewhat bleakly, and when the ice melted from the surface of the swamp, she proceeded again to the college. This time the students were out in force, enjoying the first genuinely nice day in some time. Some of the more voluptuous girls were in very brief outfits for sunning, and the youths were in shorts. Niobe, conscious of the flattery of the Prof last time, and not wishing to be taken for a college girl, had garbed herself this time in very conservative fashion. She wore an old-fashioned long skirt her mother had outgrown, and a figure-de-emphasizing jacket. Her hair was severely bound back in a bun, she wore no makeup, and She had button-down boots. She felt quite dowdy.
     
    She checked Cedric's room, but he was not there, and she wasn't sure what class he might be in at the moment. So she sat on a bench near the dormitory and waited for his return, taking advantage of the time to do some knitting. She was good at that too; in fact she was adept at any type of yarn manipulation. It really was pleasant enough here, and of course she had arrived early; he wouldn't be expecting her for perhaps another hour.
     
    Several college youths came walking along the path. They had evidently been drinking; in fact one still carried a bottle of red wine, half-finished. Niobe's nose wrinkled; she detested wine of every type, ever since the disaster during the courtship. She was surprised and not pleased that its use was permitted on the campus. Was Cedric being subjected to bad influences?
     
    One of the youths paused as they passed her bench. "Say, who's the old lady?" he demanded half-facetiously, staring at Niobe. She knew she looked older than the college girls, as was her intent, but he was exaggerating. He was the one with the bottle, showing signals of intoxication; as he paused, he lifted the bottle and took another swig. A driblet of pale red fluid ran down the side of his chin; then he lowered the bottle and burped.
     
    "Somebody's mother," another youth joked. Oh, that stung, for a private reason she would never let them know, "Hey, whose mother are you?" the first demanded. "No one's," Niobe replied primly. "I am Cedric's wife."
     
    "His wife!" the youth exclaimed. "He never let on he was robbing the retirement home! He always claimed his woman was beautiful!" And all four of them laughed coarsely.
     
    Niobe tried to ignore their gibes, hoping they would go away, but the wine gave them persistent insolence. They closed about her, their wine-soaked breaths fouling the air. "Please go away," she said at