Work Text:
Nora Masters didn't like history lessons at school. But her own husband evoke one particular term. "Bushwhacker". In the worst meaning of the word. Why she even was his spouse? Why she was a wife of a scarred one-eyed sergeant who got kicked form the US Army? Why? She tries to soothe him, but he nearly hisses from kind words and yells back "I have a name, woman! Another honey or sweetie from you and you'll be real sorry." And Nora is afraid. Maybe, her mother was right - no good will ever came from Missouri. And maybe her father was right too - your fiance is old for a soldier, thirty-something. What was he doing before he was drafted? A man with tattoos all over his upper body, a man with pure malice in his good eye, a man who is afraid of dogs and jumped to the nearest wall from a friendly Mrs. Rosa 's puppy and stood there in a very specific stance - face to the wall, feet apart, palms to the wall too. And Mr. Rosa asked loudly, in broad daylight: "Jailbird, eh? " And Nora doesn't want to remember that string of those words from his husband to Mr. Rosa and poor puppy. Foul-mouthed, bitter, hateful and lazy as a slug. This is your ideal husband, girl. And Nora thinks about divorce. No one in her family got divorced! It's a disgrace to woman, her mother always said that. But better to be a divorced green lawyer with an infant son, than slowly become a beaten and broken wife of one uneducated wildwood boy.
"Congratulations! You and little wormie will have your place in the vault, with me too."
"What? You actually signed their forms? Vault-Tech are frauds! And don't call your son a worm!"
"Yeah, woman. I did just that. And who on God's green Earth names a kid with your mother dog's name? I wanted Frank, if you don't remember."
"Yes, yes, Jesse and Frank! It's an awful combination, I don't want to think about it."
"Aww, itty bitty yankee still afraid of two poor ole' boys."
"You are a menace! I'm going to my mother!"
"And you, woman, ain't going nowhere! Get the kid. Haven't you heard the recent news?"