4 March 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3032: a dose of something unwelcome
Sometimes things are brought back to your memory as a dose of something unwelcome, but also necessary.
Capt. R.E. Ludlow woke up very much on the alert the day after he remembered that his ex-in-laws, Alexander and Priscilla Bell Holmes, existed.
Their daughter, Alexandra, had been his first wife, as treacherous as she was gorgeous, and probably insane in a particular way … probably a covert narcissist. She had lived a whole double life as a married woman for 18 years, thinking her favorite West Point cadet would forever be duped.
Nope. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr., being endowed with a background of neurodivergence as well in his grandmother's family, eventually figured it out, and stopped Mrs. Alexandra cold in her tracks. She never forgave him – would have killed their youngest two children if she could have – but was content with a bad attempt to frame him in dying. His deployment schedule having been changed by a week saved him from her last scheme, and Sgt. Joe Wainwright saved her newborn twins.
So: Capt. Ludlow and all four of his children lived on, and the captain, in order not to do violence to anyone, simply blocked out Alexandra's forever enabling parents from his mind – until he couldn't. One day, it all came back.
The next day, Capt. Ludlow learned the reason. His plan for the day was to go shopping at Big Discounts for Your Loft, Lofton County, VA's homegrown equivalent to stores like Costco and Walmart – he shopped there because he had adopted his seven grandchildren and a little cousin, so, feeding ten always required a bit of budget ingenuity. But also, Lofton County's local farmers and producers supplied that store, so food was always farm-fresh and ready to be made into longer-storage things at home. He had spent about half his childhood living with his grandmother in the Blue Ridge, and so now in the pandemic he bought in bulk and delighted in teaching his own grandchildren and bonus grandchild/cousin how to prepare food for long storage with and without refrigeration.
The thought had crossed the captain's mind more than once: “I wish Alexandra had chosen to live to meet her grandchildren.”
The thought extended itself to Alexandra's parents that morning, but on the other hand, Capt. Ludlow knew they were at least as toxic as their lost daughter, and probably more given that they had lived two decades longer without repentance. He simply was not going to introduce toxicity to the Ludlow little ones – they all had been through enough, with all eight having lost their parents.
The captain was loading up the car with groceries when he heard the unmistakable voice, and looked up like someone in a nightmare – it was Alexander Bell Holmes at age 78, absolutely cussing out some younger person who had cut him off in the parking lot. The tenor was a bit more shrill, but still strong, and, although she was unseen, Mrs. Priscilla was hyping her husband up as always.
Something happened inside Capt. Ludlow's heart then.
Alexandra never had a chance. These are her parents … and if they are like this in public in the stripping of inhibitions that comes as the cruelty of old age, what must they have been like behind closed doors?
He remembered then … there was something real about Alexandra … he had sensed in her a response to him in his basic nature … a protector of women and children around whom she was safe. She had taken full advantage of the fact that she knew that about him … so, for 18 years, she was safe, right through receiving a quiet divorce that did not humiliate her publicly. She had despised the gift in the end, but she had married him because it was there. Amanda, her youngest granddaughter, had a favorite saying: “I feel safe now!” That was what he had provided them both.
However, it was not 1970, in which people of the Bell-Holmes class and the Ludlow class could talk to just about anyone beneath their class in Lofton County and get away with it. It was 2020, and Capt. Ludlow's ability to secure safety was going to need to extend up a generation – the person his ex-in-laws were telling off had a gun in his car and went and got it. Road rage was about to become deadly – or not. Capt. Ludlow was in motion the instant the man went back to his car, his Army training kicking in immediately – the gun was scarcely visible before it was knocked out of the would-be killer's hand and the would-be killer was knocked clean out. Security and police were already in route to the scene and saw it all, so the would-be killer went into custody for the attempt, and the captain and his ex-in-laws were free to go.
Alexander and Priscilla Bell Holmes sat in their car in shock, processing that they could have been killed, and processing who had been sent to save them. This was their double dose of something unwelcome … but Capt. Ludlow spared them the triple dose, not uttering their long former relationship to anyone in the public, not gloating over being the righteous one in the relationship all along. The police knew no better and interviewed them separately, and they went their separate ways.
Capt. Ludlow, on his way home, saw the flower stand that was always there. He bought a bouquet of white roses, and detoured to where he ha d buried his first wife and, later, their first two children. He knelt down between them and grieved them utterly … and then rose with thanksgiving.
“I thank you, Lord, that You chose me to bring to Alexandra, and Robert Jr., and Anne some sense of safety, some sense of protection, some sense of truly being loved, for 18 years. Never mind what they did with it. Thank You for gracing them through me so that they could make a clear choice, and thank You for judging me worthy to start again with Robert III, Grayson, Amanda, Edwina, George, Andrew, and Eleanor and adding Glendella. The world and the devil never offered any of them a fair chance. Thank You for choosing me so they could see, and can see, that You do love them, and offer them far more and better in Christ.”
Three roses each for Robert Jr. and Anne; a half-dozen for their mother. Capt. Ludlow took pictures, knowing that someday their descendants would want to know, and then went home to those descendants.
“20 hands make light work!” he announced as the second Mrs. Ludlow and all the Ludlow little ones came out – six-year-old Grayson had his wagon ready, too – to meet him.
“Give me five bags – I can take them!” five-year-old Lil' Robert announced, got five bags of fresh veggies sized just for him, and went to the house grinning while Grayson got his wagon filled as well.
The car was empty in five minutes, giving way to the bustle of what went where and what was going to be eaten when and how – Lil' Robert's bags of veggies instantly became the lunch salad – and by this getting done, the Ludlow household was ready for Hurricane Mneme to visit and them not to go out on the road for a week.
“We gotta take notes about all this,” ten-year-old Andrew was overheard by his grandfather saying to ten-year-old Glendella and eleven-year-old Eleanor. “The same way Papa and Grandma take care of us, this is what we gotta do when they get real old.”
“Yep, and it won't be hard because 16 hands make light work, too,” Eleanor said.
Capt. Ludlow thought of his ex-in-laws, still out shopping for themselves at their advanced ages, and went to his bedroom for a few moments … there were more tears, because it could have been different. 26 hands – one daughter, one son-in-law, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren – truly make light work. And yet, Alexander and Priscilla Bell-Holmes were still making the same kinds of choices that had led them to a difficult old age that could have ended violently that very day, but for the quick hands of their ex-son-in-law.
And yet again, the sorrow was succeeded by overwhelming gratitude.
“There but for the grace of God goes Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. – thank You, Lord, thank You for sparing and saving and leading me right, this second time around!”