1920s: Frank takes to crime

 

While Josephine dreams of a new house, Emily and Frank's situation has, if possible, gotten even worse. While Emily has gotten into the routine of being a housewife without a made, cleaning clothes and tending the garden as well as caring for their youngest, the married couple lead more or less entirely separate lives, only really talking to each other at dinner time.

Emily tries to keep the children, in the dark, but obviously they too notice, and now that summer makes it possible, spend as much of their time as possible outside playing with each other, avoiding the tension in the house.

Frank experiment with moonshine in the basement has only grown, and recently shady characters has started to come to the house. These are not people Frank introduces, nor invites over for dinner, but people he meets in his study, and who leaves with a handshake and the exchange of money. Emily pretends not to understand just what kind of business Frank has gotten caught up with, but she is, unfortunately, neither stupid nor blind. She knows where the sudden influx of money comes from, but dares not say anything. There has been too many arguments and she know their marriage is hanging on a very thin thread. 

In the 1920s divorce rates spiked in the US, and though Emily in this case has more reason for divorce than Frank (his illegal activities could be held as a reason for a divorce), she is terrified of the very notion.

Frank on the other hand, feels utterly lonely in the family. He had a vision of what marriage and family would mean, but this isn't it. Not a wife you does not support his choices (even as she says nothing) a son who carries a grudge for something which Frank barely remember, and kids who actively avoid him. As Emily has not had the same luck as Josephine, with a doctor offering contraceptives, she only has one way to keep from getting pregnant. Utterly convinced that another pregnancy will kill her, she does what she can to avoid the marital bed. Almost to her disappointment, Frank has stopped nagging. 

Gone are the days when he'd come home drunk at night and wake her up because he wanted her. She hated that he did it, but she hates it more that he doesn't. Mostly, she's convinced he found someone else to give him what she no longer will. She's not wrong. Frank might not be fit, but he's rich, influential and something of a local celebrity. It goes a long way, and at the speakeasy that is run from the basement of used to be the local bar but now fronts as a respectable restaurant, he finds all the company and pleasure he wants. 

Lately he's taken up with the very much younger Caroline Daughtry. A bit starstruck, flattered by the attention, and longing to leave her father's household, she falls head over heals for Frank and can only too easily ignore the ring on his finger.

On the weekend, as Frank sleeps off the late night and too many drinks, Emily takes her children to the park. There, her children can live up and play on the new jungle gym, invented just a few years ago. Especially the boys love the new playground equipment, while Beatrice prefers the swings. John too, so often on the receiving end of Frank's bad mood, can relax in the park. He dabbles at painting, and goes roller skating while Emily finally has the time to play with her baby boy, giving him the attention she rarely has time for at home where something or another always needs cleaning. It's a few hours of blissful relaxation, before they need to head back to a home filled with problems that just won't be ignored.