Page 17 of Now & Forever
“Whatever… decision?”
“If you wish to stay with my son and perhaps one day marry him… I will support that, even if my husband may be displeased. Yet if you wish to cut ties and move on with your life, dear, I will also understand that. You’re in the most impossible position in all of this. Not even James could argue that.”
Gwen wouldn’t argue that, either.
“I’ll be frank. My husband has never approved of you once it became clear our son was madly in love with you – and you returned his ardor with the fervor only a mother can see. My husband and I have fought over your relationship more than anything else in our marriage.” Ophelia looked down at her lap, as if she couldn’t believe she was about to admit the following. “Including his affair. Somehow, that was easier to swallow than him forbidding his own son’s happiness like his parents forbade his.”
The tearoom overseer quietly approached the table and asked if Gwen and Ophelia required anything. Ophelia politely yet curtly asked him to leave them be. When a trio of middle-aged women entered the tearoom to have their afternoon sustenance, Ophelia called the overseer back and asked him to sit them as far away as possible. With a nod of the head, the man showed the bubbly, talkative women to the far corner by the sunlit windows. They thought themselves most fortunate to have such a private, beautiful table. It kept them from overhearing the intimate conversation on the other side of the salon. And it prevented Gwen and Ophelia from having to hear the details of horse breeding and racing.
“I know you do not ask my opinion,” Gwen said, “but I feel that your husband is using James to relive the life he wished he had with Sarah Welsh.”
Ophelia did not flinch to hear this truth. “He is. I’ve accused him of such many times.”
What was it like to be trapped in her unhealthy marriage? When she was married off at such a young age, she must have felt such a burden to help her family. Coupled with the era she grew up in, what choice did she have? Now, when support would be greater for her leaving a philandering husband, she was much older and had none of her own money or life skills to support herself.I could never be like that.Gwen didn’t have to be, though. She grew up in a different age with a different set of standards. Her parents would be happy if she carved out a half-decent living for herself, let alone anyone else!
“James has made it clear that he loves you and not Cassandra. I see no reason to not allow you into our family. The role I played in recent events… I’m not proud of them. But I hope you can forgive me.”
“I’m sure you had little power in the situation.”
“Yes, well… nothing a woman likes to admit, of course.”
Gwen mangled the napkin in her lap. Something gnawed at her, begging her to say the one thing she had been keeping locked in her heart for the past two – or was it three? – years. But when she and James made a secret promise to one another, they had agreed to not tellanyonewhat they had done. No one. Not their parents. Not their best friends. Nobody.
A secret just for them.
“I won’t lie to you,” Gwen said, looking up again. “I have entertained many fantasies of leaving your son this past year. What has happened has been a great strain on not only our relationship, but our own health.”
Ophelia sighed, absorbing much of the blame. “But you love him, of course.”
“It’s not as easy as me packing my bags and going home, or wherever else I may please.”
Something in Gwen’s tone must have roused Ophelia’s full attention, for now both women locked gazes as if nothing else was more important than what Gwen had to say.
If she could bring herself to say it. After all, it meant breaking one of her old promises to James, and she had weighed how much it mattered to her now.
Or how much it mattered to anyone, even him.
