Quiet As It's Kept by Monique Miller Read Free Book Online

put them in the linen closet. As he did this, Isaiah crawled around on the floor in the laundry room. The day before, Will had found a list of possible jobs as he located new job search engines. He’d found one Web site that was a job search gold mine.
    He’d written down the search words he’d used and the names of the Web sites for the positions he’d seen. He wanted to print out copies of each job with their detailed job descriptions, but the printer ran out of ink. A new cartridge would cost at least forty or fifty dollars, and he didn’t have that much cash. He didn’t want to ask Morgan for the money, since he had just asked for money that morning to buy some oil for the cars.
    Since being unemployed, Will tried to think of ways to cut corners, and changing his own oil was one of those ways. In the long run, it was cheaper for him to do so for both of their vehicles. But to Morgan, that part didn’t matter; what did matter was that he was asking her for money, and she complained each time he did. So he really didn’t want to hear her complain about the money he would need to buy a new ink cartridge for their printer, even though it could possibly help him in his job search.
    He wanted to get back on the Internet as soon as possible to look more closely at the jobs he had already seen, and then look for even more. He’d also located a Web site that provided sample templates for résumés. Will wanted to tweak his current résumé and try some different styles that might be a little more eye-catching.
    But the Internet would have to wait. He couldn’t sit down at the computer until he had peace of mind about the house being clean. There wasn’t any way he was going to have Morgan come home to a dirty house when she thought all he was doing was sitting around all day doing nothing. Morgan hadn’t stayed home with the baby to fully take care of him since she’d gone back to work after her maternity leave. He didn’t think that she understood just how hard it was to take care of a house and an active baby all day long for days at a time.
    He had gained a new respect for stay-at-home mothers for all the hard work they did to raise their children. And he couldn’t even begin to imagine doing what he was currently doing with two or more. He shuddered at the thought. Will imagined that with all the laundry and dishes alone that would pile up, he’d never have a chance to get a real breather.
    Will picked Isaiah up and placed him in his playpen near the kitchen doorway. Isaiah immediately grabbed one of his toys and placed it into his mouth to chew on. Will proceeded to retrieve the mop, bucket, and full bottle of Mop & Glo floor cleaner so that he could clean the kitchen floor. As he mopped, he thought about how much easier it would be for him to be able to print out the job descriptions and different versions of his résumé.
    He also thought about Morgan’s attitude lately when it came to money. Her attitude about money was totally new for him. Before they got married, money and its value seemed to be the furthest thing from Morgan’s mind. That is, when he was the one supplying the majority of the money.
    Will remembered the extravagant wedding Morgan had wanted and planned. In all it had ended up costing them over $13,000, most of which came from his pocket and savings. Her dress alone was $1,800. She paid for it herself, but the rest of the cost had ended up falling to him.
    Morgan had wanted her wedding to be memorable and beautiful and that was just the way it had turned out to be. They even had the photo albums and video to prove it. In a short amount of time she had planned their wedding like she was a professional, making sure each and every detail was perfect. It hadn’t been a large wedding, since Morgan didn’t have any family members on her side, just a few friends and her co-workers. Morgan’s parents had passed