Page 46 of Sugarplum Dreams
Chapter Nineteen
“Wilson, Charity, come on in. Hey, guys.” Marjorie opened the door and escorted his family into her house.
Wilson always loved coming back to visit. It seemed to make his mother extremely happy, and he loved the fact that his children had a good relationship with her. She didn’t seem to care that they weren’t really his, which he hated that idea, but it was there, and it was fact, and he supposed that he might as well stop fighting it.
“Hey, guys,” Terry said as she and Judd got up from the living room and walked out to greet them.
“I didn’t know you guys were here. I’m sorry we descended on you with our chaos.” Wilson laughed as he pulled first one arm then another out of Evans’s coat and hung it up by the door.
“I’m glad you’re here. We don’t get to see you nearly enough,” Terry said. “I imagine that will change come summertime when we’re all out and about a little bit more.”
It was January 25, the one-month anniversary of Charity’s and his marriage. He had a little surprise in his pocket, and he was hoping to be able to give it to her tonight after the kids wentto bed. He had been going to give it to her during naptime, but Serafina hadn’t slept very well, and Charity had ended up lying down with her and falling asleep herself.
He hoped she was getting enough rest. He was concerned that maybe she was working herself too hard, but what else was a person supposed to expect from a mother of five children? Of course she was going to be working hard.
Terry came the rest of the way out and gave Charity a hug, who had just hung up Serafina’s coat. “I’m so glad to see you. I am thrilled your children have been well and I haven’t seen them in the practice, but every once in a while, I think, ‘well, at least I would see my sister-in-law more if her kids were in here more.’”
They laughed together, and Charity said, “I’m so grateful we haven’t been sick much this winter. It seemed like last winter all I did was sit on the couch and hold one of my kids who was crying because of an ear infection or they just felt miserable because they had a cold.”
“I’m sure that wears on you.”
“It does. And it seemed like Gifford missed a lot of school because of that, and I don’t think we were in church the entire month of January.”
“It’s a good thing that this is a better year for you.”
“I think we got immune to everything last year, so there isn’t anything new to get thrown at us.”
“Well, you have Wilson now, so at least you have someone to take turns sitting with you on the couch. And now that he’s not doing the Secret Saint anymore, he has even more time.”
Wilson froze, and his eyes shot to Charity. He had never told her about being the Secret Saint.
Charity’s eyes got big, and it didn’t take Terry long to read her expression and know that she hadn’t known. Charity looked at Wilson, who didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t really the time or place for him to explain what exactly he had done,and before he could say anything, Terry put her hand over her mouth.
“I am so sorry. I just assumed… But I shouldn’t have. Wilson. I really didn’t mean anything by that.” She sounded horrified and extremely upset, but Wilson shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. I should have told her. It’s my fault for not. I just…quit and didn’t consider talking about it again. Totally my fault.”
“No, I should have kept my big mouth shut. I’m usually pretty good at that, but I messed up.”
“Terry. I promise. It’s not a big deal.” He said that, and he meant it, but Charity looked like it was an extremely big deal, and he thought again about the little surprise that was in his pocket, the thing that he finally got around to getting, and he had expected today to be a special day, because of it being their one-month anniversary and all that, but it seemed like Charity might be taking this way out of context, except she wasn’t. Not really. He hadn’t told her, and he owed it to her for her to know, as his wife, what he was up to.
Except he wasn’t doing it anymore. But she would know that he was the one who had spearheaded the groceries that they had gotten before Christmas and the gifts under the tree, and she might even wonder…if he had taken the Secret Saint thing a little bit too far and married her.
Yeah. She would wonder that. She wouldn’t know that that had nothing to do with him being the Secret Saint and everything to do with him wanting to. He had already explained that to her, how he felt like it was what God wanted, and then he realized that it was really something that he wanted to do, too.
God couldn’t have given him a better woman.
From the expression on Charity’s face, she wasn’t seeing it like that at all.
They had moved into the dining room, and his mom had set her French onion chicken casserole on the table. It was one of his favorites, and Charity had made it several times. It tasted better than his mom’s when she made it. And he told her so. He tried as hard as he could to think about what a man would do to show he cared for his wife, and to treat Charity that way. But maybe he wasn’t doing a very good job. Obviously from that horrified look on her face, he’d screwed up in that area at least. And maybe, maybe if she liked and respected him a little bit more, and trusted him, she wouldn’t look so horrified.
Chapter Twenty
“Good night, Mommy,” Lavinia said.
Charity swallowed before she replied, “Good night, Lavinia.”
She walked out of the door, breathing a sigh of relief. She had held up rather well, she thought, considering that she had a pretty huge shock at the beginning of the evening.
