The Bride Who Waited

 

 

Rosalie Miller lived on a farm in Iowa with her mother Mary. An only child with no father in the picture, she had not had the best childhood.

Her mother was overbearing and in no way loving though becoming pregnant and giving birth to Rosalie at 18 and being banished to her grandparent’s farm, where they still lived, must have made her tough.

Love always passed Rosalie by, not that she wasn’t attractive, quite the opposite with her flaming red curls and deep blue eyes. However she had long since given up hope of meeting someone especially now with so many men away at war but the long hot summer of 1940 proved exceptional in many ways.

Frank Wilson came to the farm in his new red Chevrolet pickup that summer in search of casual work and in a moment of weakness Mary took him on to help around the place, mending fences and general handiwork. She even occasionally cooked him eggs served with thick cut ham and homemade bread ‘to set him up for the day’

Rosalie liked Frank, his charm, sparkling eyes and cheeky smile captivated her but at ten years her junior she tried to keep herself in check, especially when she could see him watching her a little too long. Everything changed when Frank cut his hand when he slipped with the axe cutting logs, he came to the house bleeding badly and Rosalie bathed and bandaged him up as Mary was in one of the top fields beyond the lake.

Rosalie made Frank tea and they sat on the porch together talking and laughing as the light slowly faded from the sky. She learned that Frank was unable to serve in the army due to having a weak chest brought on by a childhood illness. He too was an only child and both his parents were sadly dead.

 They shared their first kiss just before Mary returned and jumped apart guiltily when she announced her presence with a frown.

Much to Marys disapproval Frank asked Rosalie out and they became inseparable with Rosalie often visiting Frank overnight in the next town. By autumn Frank had got down on one knee and asked Rosalie to be his wife and they joyfully planned a winter wedding when the farm was at its quietest.

Mary protested loudly and often about the wedding calling it ‘ridiculous’ to anyone who would listen. On the morning of the day before the wedding Rosalie climbed into her car and went off excitedly to collect some foliage to add to her flowers with her mother glaring at her from the porch.

Rosalie barely slept that night, she was so happy and could not wait to see Frank the next day, her wedding day! She could scarcely believe it was happening to her.

The following morning 21^st November was crisp and cold but dry and the sun caught the lake with its first rays. Rosalie washed and put on her beautiful dress.

It had been a labour of love altering an old wedding dress, adding fabric and lace donated by a lady who knew Frank, even her mothers face softened at the sight of her as she walked downstairs.

Then she waited for Frank to pick her up and take her into town where a simple ceremony had been arranged….

Frank never came. Rosalie was distraught, she sat in the rocking chair in her room softly crying, never taking her eyes from the road leading up to the farm. Mary declared all men were useless and a waste of time but Rosalie was heartbroken and inconsolable. 

Four days after the wedding the local police drove up to the farm informing Rosalie that it seemed Frank had jumped ship and left town as he and his car where nowhere to be found. They questioned Mary and Rosalie but could see the state his fiancée was in and left after minimal probing.

Every day after that Rosalie refused to eat and sat in her wedding dress watching the road from the rocking chair. Some days she cried and some days she was deathly silent. It took a little over three weeks for her to die of a broken heart, her body weak from her self-imposed hunger strike.

When Mary realised she had lost her daughter, she did what no normal mother would do, she left her in the chair, closed the door and never went back upstairs again.

In November 1971 at the age of 90 Mary passed away in her sleep at the farm she had lived in for most of her life, almost 30 years to the day of the wedding that never took place.  When the war ended she took on another farm hand but no one ever set foot in the house. On the rare occasion that someone asked after Rosalie she would tell them that she had moved away, embarrassed by the whole situation and only kept in contact by letter. The farm hand raised the alarm when he arrived and could not rouse Mary and then there was the alarming discovery of the skeleton of Rosalie.

That wasn’t the end of the shocking discoveries, years later when the farm was sold and the land divided up for new development, the lake was dredged. There in the bottom was the red Chevrolet pickup with the body of Frank Wilson at the wheel.

Mary would never have let Rosalie leave her so when Frank turned up the morning before the wedding while Rosalie was out gathering foliage it was so easy to make him a warming cup of cocoa on such a cold day. So easy to slip some rat poison into that drink, so easy to hurry him into his car in case Rosalie returned, so easy to release the break on the truck and watch it roll down the slope into the lake with Frank slumped at the wheel. It took just two minutes for the truck to disappear under the cold water. So EASY…

Sarah Russell Dark Wishes Designs 2020