Page 14 of Sugarplum Dreams
“Did you just remember something else you have to do on Christmas Eve?” Kyra prompted when she didn’t say anything more for a while.
“No. I just went off on a rabbit trail in my head, but I know that wherever I am with Wilson, he’s not going to keep the children and me out of church. And he’ll be there too.”
“I’m sure he will. He and his family are staples in the church. It would be weird to be there without them.”
“They are there every time the doors are open as far as I know,” Charity said.
And that was true. They really were there, and that’s what she wanted. More than romance, more than everlasting love, she wanted a man who followed the Lord. Even more than she wanted that sexy stubble on his chin.
Although, she wouldn’t turn that down.
“All right. I better get going. I have to head in to work. Are you going to be okay?”
“Actually, if this works out the way I’m hoping it will, I’ll be more okay in the coming year than I’ve been in the last ten.”
“Yeah. I hope so, and I hope Clancy comes back and you can rub it in his face.”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t have a problem giving up custody of the children and sending the divorce papers. I signed them, they’re filed, and that’s that.”
“Oh, you might be surprised. I don’t think he’s going to be happy with that bimbo that he ran off with, and when he comes crawling back, you can spit in his face.”
“I don’t think that I would spit in his face, although maybe that’s just me liking to think I’m a better person than what I actually am.”
Kyra laughed for a bit, and then after a few more comments, they hung up.
Charity sat on the step watching her children, feeling a little better now that she’d talked to someone. Sometimes she was pretty good at making decisions in her head, by herself, and basing what she thought on the Bible, but the Bible didn’t have a whole lot to say about this.
She could point to Isaac and Rebekah as a marriage of convenience, so she didn’t think that it was forbidden. Although the Bible didn’t label it as such, and their situation was much different than hers.
It did say that to be divorced and remarried was to commit adultery, although Jesus said except in case of fornication, which to her understanding meant that if one of the people in the relationship committed adultery, the other one was free to go. That would be her. And her ex-husband had committed adultery.
She consoled herself with that for a while, telling herself that she was doing what God wanted her to do, even though it was hard. On the other hand, Clancy had stepped completely outside of God’s will, and while he might prosper for a season, there could be no good in the end. While she expected to step into heaven and hear “well done.”
That did not negate the fact that every day was a struggle. Although times like this, when her children were playing and getting along and not going to her crying every two seconds, were the best times, the happy times, but she supposed she wouldn’t appreciate happy times nearly so much if she didn’t have those other times.
Glancing at her phone, she realized that she needed to get the kids in and get them settled in for their naps since Wilson and his mother were going to be there shortly.
And she was going to go get a marriage license. For the second time. Hopefully, it would be the last time.
Chapter Seven
“Hey, Mom,” Wilson said as he stepped into his mother’s kitchen. It was one of those rare times where the kitchen was actually quiet.
“Hey there. I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” his mother said, looking up from where she was pulling a mincemeat pie out of the oven. The whole house smelled like mincemeat, and Wilson tried not to cringe. Mincemeat was not his favorite.
“I know. I’ve been…working on a couple of things, and I have a favor to ask of you.”
She set the pie on the counter, closed the oven door, and took the mitts off, setting them back in the drawer. She came over to the other side of the bar and faced him across it.
“You know I’m always ready to help you with anything you need me to. What is it?”
“I want you to watch the children so my fiancée and I can go down to the courthouse and get a marriage license.”
His mother stared at him. Maybe he should have worded that slightly differently. He didn’t seem to be any good at breaking this gently to people. But it wasn’t really happening in a gentleway, it was happening lickety-split, and maybe that’s the way he needed to break it to people.
“So do you want to back up and start the story from the beginning?” his mother said, calmly, and then she grabbed her coffee from the counter, pulled out a stool, and sat down.
He laughed a little, pulled out a stool on his side of the bar, and sat down facing her.
