“If you’re even going to say something about me giving your kids therapy without charging you, I don’t want to hear it. You said that so much already, and it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I told you, Ihad an affinity toward your kids, and especially Larissa. I just want to see them succeed.”
“I think that’s what you want with everyone. You are selfless, in the very best way, and I admire that. I’d like to be more like that.”
“I’d like to be more like that too. You make me sound better than what I am.”
“No, I don’t think so, and trust me, I know what selfishness looks like. My wife—” He stopped abruptly. He hadn’t meant to talk about Desire. He didn’t want to ruin the day.
“I’m sure those memories are painful for you,” Summer said, all traces of a smile off her face and concern and sadness replacing it.
He hated that she was deceived. She didn’t understand that it certainly wasn’t sadness or pain that kept him from talking.
“She cheated on me.” There, the words were out. It felt good to say them.
Summer’s eyes widened, and she stopped walking, planting the stick that she used as a walking stick in the ground. “What? I’ve never heard anything about that around town. Not that I listen to a whole lot of gossip, but that’s definitely something that would have made the rounds.”
“It certainly would have. But I never said it.”
“Oh. All right. Well, you can rest assured that I won’t say anything.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. I guess that’s why I felt safe saying it. You can’t begin to imagine how good that felt.”
“Yeah. Why in the world would you keep that to yourself?”
“My kids. I didn’t want them to think badly about their mother.”
“It’s one thing to think badly about their mother because you’re smearing her, trying to make her look bad. It’s another thing to speak the truth about her.” Summer still sounded like she couldn’t quite believe either that his wife cheated or that he hadn’t told his kids. He wasn’t sure which.
“But she’s not here. She can’t defend herself, although she admitted to me that she had been cheating.”
“That’s devastating,” she said, immediately getting to the word that best described how he felt.
“Yeah. We’d… We’d been together for so long, and I eventually found out that the time I discovered wasn’t the first time.”
“Oh no.” She put her hand over her mouth.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I kind of feel like I’m dumping on you, but I hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t want people to know. I guess part of it’s because I’m so embarrassed. What kind of man am I that I couldn’t even keep my wife?”
“It’s not your fault that she doesn’t have character.”
“I know those words are true, but it’s hard to apply that to yourself when it’s your spouse that doesn’t stay true to you. You wonder what’s wrong with you? What did you do? What didn’t you do? How could you have prevented this?”
“It’s not on you. It’s on them. It shouldn’t matter how terrible you are, if they can’t keep their word, if they can’t keep their eyes on themselves, if they don’t have the character to do right, it’s not your fault.”
“Yes, I know what you’re saying is true, but?—”
“Okay. I believe you. I suppose it would be devastating in a way, but I guess I would be angry.”
“Oh, trust me. There were plenty of times where I was angry,” he said, holding a two-by-four braced against the ground as he stood and stared at her. He couldn’t believe he had admitted to her something he hadn’t admitted to anyone, not his mother or sisters, or his best friends. But she just felt so safe.
“It was tough when she died. Because of course the kids were sad, and that was the thing that ripped my heart. Because I had trouble feeling anything. Other than a faint sense of relief and a little bit of wonderment about whether or not that might be God’s punishment for her.”
“I guess it could be. I hate to think that that’s what God does, although in the Old Testament, He certainly did punish people that way.”
“I know. And he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever, but we’re living in the dispensation of grace. Which I need, even more than she did maybe. Because like I said, I was angry. I didn’t think about killing her, but I did wish she would die. So then I felt guilty when she got cancer. Was that my fault? Did I wish that upon her?”
“If wishes were horses, beggars would drive,” she said, repeating the little ditty that he hadn’t heard in a long time.
“I suppose that’s true, but it’s still tough. I… I guess we kind of came to a mutual understanding, but I always wondered, and I wonder now a lot, if she hadn’t died, would we still be together? Because I was determined that if she cheated on me again, I wasn’t going to stay. Or maybe more accurately, I wasn’t going to allow her to stay. But she didn’t seem to be able to help herself.”
