The Man From Abroad by Joanne Morris Okano

     This is a work of fiction and is intended for teens.

     Once upon a time there was a battered woman.  She lived on a remote hillside in East Dartmouth.
     She waited for the day when her life would be safe again, when she would be kindly treated.  All through the night she waited for the strike to come.  Every night.  For years.  This meant that she didn't get a lot of sleep.
     But her husband didn't go away.  She knew she had to get out.  As kindly as possible.
     When she was young she had been beautiful but she had lost her figure from childbearing.  She wore a frilly skirt and a halter neck top.  She was a neighbour.
     One day she met a young man, a missionary.  He was kind enough to her that she realised that kind men did exist, that they weren't all like her husband.  She and the missionary never touched hands except to shake hands.  She missed him after he was transferred.
     She wrote him a letter and asked him to marry her.  He never wrote back.
     She loved him for years.
     Finally she realised he probably just saw her as a fat, old woman.
     She didn't marry a handsome, young elder, she married someone older and they lived happily ever after.

THE END