Page 23 of Sugarplum Dreams
“Yes. I mean, I don’t really want to be forced to take birth control that I feel is causing a fertilized egg to not implant, because I don’t feel like that’s right. I know that happens at times, that an egg naturally gets fertilized and just doesn’t implant for whatever reason, but I don’t want to do that chemically on purpose.”
“Gotcha. I agree with you on that. That’s a definite no for us.”
Chapter Eleven
Charity nodded, grateful that Wilson saw that her way and wondering how she would have handled it if he hadn’t. It probably didn’t matter, since there were multiple different kinds of birth control, and she didn’t have to choose one that went against her beliefs.
“So, what’s your favorite color?” He grinned at her.
She waited while the waitress came back, setting their drinks down before walking away again. “Purple. It’s a color you can use with boys or girls, and it just looks happy to me. And it makes me feel calm.”
“If I hadn’t been at your house this morning, I might not have realized what a gift calmness is, so maybe we should paint the entire house purple.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Although, I think sometimes when you get too much of something, you get sick of it.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of my favorite color.”
“I’d like to ask you what it is, but I thought of a different question that I really want to know the answer to.”
“She doesn’t want to know what my favorite color is?” He looked up at the sky like he was talking to the Lord. “I don’t think she likes me all that much.”
“What’s your favorite color?” she capitulated.
“It’s blue. Like all good men, I love the color blue. And since you asked me the question I wanted you to ask me, now you can ask your question.”
She wasn’t going to argue with getting an extra turn, so she jumped right into her question. “Where are we going to live?”
She tried not to hold her breath. After all, he hadn’t even said that they were going to live together. She just assumed. He had gone on all of that discussion about how important families were and all that stuff, and for some reason, she just figured that he would be moving in. But it was an assumption, and she could be wrong.
“Well, I guess that’s something we’ll have to talk about. I do believe that the man should be the head of the home. The Bible says so, but that doesn’t mean that the man’s the only one making the decisions and the woman just has to sit there and do whatever he says.”
“That’s nice to hear,” she said, but she figured that it might be harder to live out. Clancy hadn’t been a very good Christian and often browbeat her with the fact that she was supposed to submit to him. It was funny that he never, even one time, admitted that he didn’t treat her the way he was supposed to or the way he was commanded to in the Bible, to give himself for her the way Christ gave himself for the church. Interesting that he picked and chose what parts of the Bible he wanted to browbeat her with.
“I hoped that we could sell your house and move into mine. It would give us a little bit of wiggle room, financially, not that we have to count our pennies, because we can afford both houses, but I think the kids would really enjoy living on the farm, andit might be a place that you could make use of too. If you are doing your baking and want to expand it, there’s already an outbuilding for that very thing.”
“You’re kidding,” she said, shocked. It was like God had just set the desire of her heart right down in her lap. She had always wanted to be able to open up her own baking business and turn it into something profitable, but she was limited in what she could do out of her kitchen in her house.
“Nope. I’m serious. But I don’t want to make you move out of your house if you don’t want to. This isn’t something that I am unwilling to negotiate on. We can talk about it.”
“Well, on the one hand, I know that it would be better for the children to have stability, but on the other, growing up on a farm is probably the absolute best place that you could raise children. And I know that they would love it. Plus, you’re right about us not needing to pay for two houses. And the money that we would make selling that house would be beneficial, although… I might have to split it with Clancy. I’ll have to look into that.”
“Maybe you can let me know what the terms of your divorce are?”
She hated that word. The D word. The word she never said, the word she cried over when her husband had said it to her. It was the one thing she didn’t want to have happen to her in her life. Cancer would have been preferable to divorce. Sad, but true.
“Yes, absolutely. I have sole custody of the children. He wasn’t interested. And he didn’t want any of the house, but we didn’t have it put in my name, so it’s in both of our names. That’s why I’m not sure how it will go when we sell it. But he basically walked away from everything and told me he wouldn’t fight for anything as long as I didn’t insist that he had to pay child support.”
“What?” Wilson said, which was the reaction of pretty much everyone that she had ever said that to. She wasn’t sure why shesaid it so freely. She should have been more cautious. “He’s not paying child support?”
“First of all, he’s in Australia, so it would be kind of hard for the United States government to force him to do that. And secondly, I didn’t want any strings attached. So, I gave him whatever he wanted, but I wouldn’t budge on the children. They are mine, solely mine.”
“I see.” It might have been her imagination, but it looked like admiration that entered his eyes. “Wow. That was…courageous.”
“Or stupid. Most people say stupid.” She nodded, narrowing her eyes and just being honest. That was pretty much the conclusion of everyone she talked to. They didn’t understand how important her children were to her. She didn’t want them to be brought up in a home where they were taught that it was okay to commit adultery, to sleep with another woman’s husband, to leave your five children and run off just because you claim that you are in love.
All those things that Clancy and his girlfriend could teach her children. She wanted them away from that influence. And Clancy didn’t have any interest in being a father in their lives. So it wasn’t like she needed to worry about it anyway.
“I would have been okay if he wanted to see his children. I wouldn’t have kept them from him, but he wasn’t interested in that. He just wanted to not have to pay so much child support, so he was going to insist on half custody. When I gave up the idea of child support, he was totally willing to give up all rights to custody. It was that easy.”
