The House by Anjuelle Floyd

Heather’s father being sick until I picked him up from the airport two days ago.”
    “Hmmm.”
    “Things have been a bit strained for the past year with the divorce proceedings,” Anna confessed. “I haven’t been speaking to the children that regularly, except for Theo.”
    “Were the children upset about the divorce?”
    Anna considered the depth of Serine’s anger and her accusations. I can’t believe you didn’t suspect something during all those meetings over the divorce. He was sitting right there in front of you, wasting away. “After I told them that I’d asked their father for a divorce, I didn’t call them. I d idn’t answer their calls or return their messages. Theo was persistent. We talk every Friday night.”
    “Why did you step away from them?”
    “I was ashamed.”
    Father Richard made no sign of judgment.
    “After all these years, with everything we’ve been through, I was asking their father for a divorce.” A nd then there was Inman . “I was tired and needed a break. I wasn’t about to ask the children for what they couldn’t give.”
    “And what was that?”
    “Forgiveness for having lied to them about their father, presenting him as one person while he was really another. Edward went from one woman to the next over the course of our marriage. He never flaunted it. He also never made a secret of it.” Anna leaned back, and took in a breath. “He had a woman wherever he was overseeing a real estate project: South America, Panama, Portugal, Greece.” Anna inspected the wedding band on her left hand and grew frustrated at how tight and awkward it had become. She had put it on that morning before leaving for Mass. Father Richard remained quietly attentive. “The first affair was with woman in Rio de Janeiro. Edward had been flying back and forth for over a year, managing the construction of a hotel on a property he had purchased, and then sold to an American buyer. I found the letter in the inside pocket of his jacket when I was dropping some of his things off at the cleaners. Stella was her name.” Anna continued to stare at her wedding band. “I confronted him when I got home. He said it was nothing. That she was infatuated with him.”
    “Did you by any chance read the letter?” asked Father Richard. Relieved that for the first time someone wanted to know—talking to Father Richard was like talking to her father—Anna said, “She never mentioned sex, though I’m sure there was some. Like most of the women whose letters I later found, she thanked him for listening to her, not looking down on her, and of course for giving her money. All the women with whom Edward was involved were poor and struggling, like his mother, Violet.” For the first time ever Anna considered how difficult life must have been for Edward and his mother. “She was grateful,” Anna said of Stella. She lifted her head and looked across to Father Richard. “Like Esther and the others, she appreciated how kind he had been to them.”
    Father Richard and Anna both took a sip of tea. Moments later Anna added, “He never stayed with anyone of them more than two or three years.” Again, Anna examined her wedding band. Now feeling slightly loose, she turned it around her finger.
    Father Richard said, “How is it that you feel you misrepresented Edward to the children?”
    “He’s nothing like what they know of him—good father, wonderful provider, hard working. Edward was an adulterer, persistently unfaithful. A philanderer!”
    “Are you certain the children had no idea? Better yet, how would it have benefited them to know?”
    Again Anna fell sullen. “I suppose I didn’t want them to see who I was or what I’d become. I was weak and disgusted with myself.” Her thoughts halted preventing the word adulteress from slipping through.
    She then said, “I’ve met someone at the gym. I’d been working out while battling with Edward over the divorce. He didn’t want to let go of the house.