Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
C harity 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, and it 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 she said 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.”
“It was about money, rather than the things that were really important, your children.”
“Yes.” She nodded, grateful that Wilson understood. He truly got it and knew why she couldn’t do what everyone thought she should have done and fought for child support.
“You chose the harder way, in order to do the better thing for your children.”
“That’s right.” Their eyes met, and she felt like something stirred between them.
Something real and…visceral. Her fingers started to tingle.
She was suddenly very aware of where he was across from her, and for some reason, she wanted to move closer, to move her hand so it touched his, like she needed that physical contact.
She didn’t know how long they stared at each other. It was probably only a few seconds before the waitress came with their orders, setting a plate down in front of her and one down in front of him.
After saying they should let her know if they needed anything, she walked away. The spell was broken. Although, the feeling remained. The feeling that…she liked Wilson. Truly liked him, not just as a person, but…as a man.
She wasn’t under any illusions that he felt the same about her though. After all, she was a lot different than he was. She could go through all the ways that she was inferior, but she didn’t want to depress herself.
Instead, she looked at her food and closed her eyes, breathing in the aroma and feeling totally spoiled and coddled at the food that she had not had to prepare, that was sitting in front of her ready to eat.
“Shall I pray?” Wilson asked as she opened her eyes.
“Sure,” she said, smiling and closing her eyes again.
She listened to his deep voice rumble across the table.
She did still have some misgivings, mostly related to what people were going to think when they found out golden boy Wilson McBride had taken up with her, scourge of the town.
Although that might be overestimating it just slightly, people were going to talk.
They were going to say that she did something to catch him, to snare him, because she didn’t think that any of them would believe that he wanted her for her.
And that wasn’t true anyway. He didn’t want her for her, he was here because he felt it was the will of the Lord.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked, already having a bite of food on his fork and having it lifted halfway to his mouth.
“I just want to savor the moment. This is so nice.”
“We’ll have to go out at least once a week. You know, date night and all of that.”
“I don’t even know what date night is anymore.”
“Well, I’ve always thought that a man should court his wife before their marriage and date her afterward, but… I wasn’t expecting to marry a woman with five children. It might be kind of hard to get away from them.”
“The hard thing is finding someone who’s willing to watch them. That’s never easy.”
“I see. Thanks for the warning. I guess I should start lining people up.”
“You do that. Let me know how it works out for you. Typically, people run the other direction when they find out that I want them to watch my children. It’s not that the kids are so bad, it’s that there’s five of them.”
He laughed as she stuck the first bite of her meal in her mouth and closed her eyes, trying not to sigh out loud. “We’re definitely having date nights. At least until you can eat without closing your eyes and making groaning sounds.”
“I did not groan.”
“I heard you.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’ll record it next time and play it back to you. In fact, I can use it as blackmail.”