To be fair, Mercury the dog was the only friend she had. He was a chow chow and had been on heart medication for a little while. His suddenly demise was always going to be a possibility. On the other hand her husband had been on no pills. “It’s a pity there’s not a pill for verbal abuse,” Rosslyn used to declare throughout their marriage; for Earl had a tongue that Rosslyn nicknamed “Whiplash”.
And so it was that her best friend, Mercury, and her least-best friend, husband Earl, both died on the same day. Who was to know? Rosslyn paid to give her husband the skimpiest funeral possible. Mercury got the works, and his ashes were returned from the crematorium in a silver-plated urn inscribed with his name.
The marriage had been a mistake. She should never have gone ahead with it. There were ample signs during the engagement period that he would verbally abuse her once they were married. And indeed she was proved right. The honeymoon had barely started when the abuse began.
It was sad that Mercury wasn’t going to be about to celebrate the wedding anniversary next Saturday. The absence of a husband at such a celebration was no loss. Rosslyn always celebrated the wedding anniversary with her dog. What else was there to do?
Goodness! Coming up this Saturday they would’ve been married for sixty-four years.
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