He nodded. “I was aware. Brent would talk to me about it.”
“That’s more than he did with me or his father.”
“I hear you. I get the same cold shoulder from my daughter. She tells me precious little. What do they say about the preacher trying to save the souls in his own town?”
She smiled. “Children can be so difficult, can’t they.”
“When Brent lived here,” he said, “I was more aware of the situation. But since he’s been gone I’ve gotten next to nothing in the way of information. He used to tell me about the problems with Paula, as I said. He shouldered a lot of the blame for that himself. I was never a fan of hers. There were a lot of problems with her family. And I didn’t realize how Ashley felt about Brent until about eight years ago. I’m ashamed to say I was too busy being mayor and running the union and didn’t keep up with everything she did. Apparently both she and Loretta needed me, but I wasn’t there.”
“No need to be that rough on yourself, Hank. Ashley turned out fine. She’s an excellent mother and well thought of around town. And Loretta. She was a grown woman and made her choices.”
“I missed a lot of Ashley’s growing up. That was back in my wild days. I wasn’t a good father… or husband.”
“I’ve never heard you speak like this before.”
“We’re gettin’ old. Time to face the music.”
He remembered the day Loretta left after thirty-one years of marriage. His extramarital affairs started when he was mayor. A clerk at city hall. Payroll clerk at the mill. Local insurance agent. Indiscriminate strangers that meant little to him beyond casual sex. All strokes to the ego that slashed, one by one, at his wife’s heart. Characteristically, Loretta never said a word, keeping the pain to herself, only silently questioning why her husband needed the affections of another woman. Even on the day she left she’d said nothing. No point, really. The stupidity of his ways seemed apparent. And he couldn’t blame it on alcohol, he never drank. Or drugs, he hardly downed an aspirin. All he could do was beg forgiveness.
Which was never granted.
Brent handled the divorce. Uncontested. Quick and quiet. Loretta moved to north Georgia and married a dentist. She’d always wanted to live in the mountains, but he’d refused.Concord’s my life, he told her.
So she left him to it.
“You miss her, don’t you?” she said.
Catherine and Loretta had been friends.
“It was all my fault. I ruined that marriage.”
“Sometimes people just grow apart,” she said. “You and Loretta were together a long time.”
He shook his head. “I drove us apart. I was a fool. Now I live alone, which is the price for my idiocy.”
“You’ve dated since the divorce. I know that for a fact.”
“I wouldn’t say women are beating my door down.”
“You had no trouble before the divorce.”
Only a friend of many years could be so blunt without offense. “Maybe that was the attraction for them? I was somebody else’s.”
“It takes two, Hank.”
“I look back and wonder what I was thinking.”
“Loretta could have forgiven you. She could have chosen to work it out. Instead, she decided to leave and marry another man.”
He was surprised by her defense of him. “I thought you women stuck together.”
“I’m not condoning what you did, only saying Loretta didn’t necessarily have to do what she did, either.”
“Turnabout’s fair play.”
“I don’t think the Lord views it that way.”
“Thou shall not commit adultery.”
