Crystal Lies - Melody Carlson [37]
“Come on over here,” said Mrs. Fieldstone as she opened the gate. “I’ll put on some tea, and we can talk.”
Just then Rufus ran up and barked happily at me. I knelt down to pet the scruffy little guy, taking time to really scratch him behind the ears. Then I stood, and with Rufus running excitedly at my heels, I followed this small, white-haired woman into her house. I’d only been inside it a couple of times, but I had been quite impressed with its unique Frank Lloyd Wright-style of architecture. And everything in it was still original. Soon we were sitting at her kitchen table beside a window that overlooked the city and drinking tea.
“Yes, the next day your husband asked if I’d like to have the little dog as well,” said Mrs. Fieldstone. “And I wasn’t too sure at first, but then Rufus came over to visit me, and we’ve been getting along like a house on fire ever since. Both of your animals are very nice and well behaved.”
Just then Winnie jumped into my lap and began purring happily. “Do you really want to keep them?” I asked, feeling somewhat dismayed at the idea that I wasn’t only losing my home and my marriage but now it seemed my pets as well.
“Oh, I only want to keep them until you’re ready to have them back, dear.” She passed a china plate of wafer sandwich cookies my direction. “I just couldn’t bear to see them taken to the pound.”
“The pound?”
She nodded. “That’s where Mr. Harmon said he was taking them.” I shook my head. “Well, I’m so glad you were kind enough to rescue them. Thank you so much.”
“Not at all, dear.”
“The problem is that I’m staying in a tiny apartment where pets aren’t allowed,” I explained. “And it’s on such a busy street that I don’t think they’d be safe there anyway. I signed a six-month lease.” I shook my head. “And I’m already regretting it.”
She nodded as she set her cup down. “Regretting the lease? Or leaving your husband?”
I shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
“Are you two going to work things out?”
“I don’t know for sure.” I studied this sweet-looking little woman and wondered how much I should really divulge.
“It’s hard making a marriage work,” she said. “George and I were married for fifty-one years.” She shook her head. “I wish I could say they were all happy years, but that wouldn’t be completely truthful.”
“You weren’t happily married?” I was surprised, since I’d always assumed the Fieldstones were a perfectly happy family. I knew they had four children and lots of grandchildren, all who came to visit regularly.
“In my day you had to put up with a lot,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Yes, it’s true. My generation of women were taught to just grin and bear it. If your husband cheated on you, you had to turn your head and pretend you didn’t see. Or if you couldn’t take it anymore, you threw a little fit and” —she held up a wrinkled hand to show me a very large diamond ring that hung loosely on her ring finger—“you earned yourself a little bauble. Something for your troubles.” She laughed. “And in time it got a little better. Over the years George and I grew to be more compatible.” She looked closely at me. “But the hurt never went completely away.”
I nodded.
“And if I was a modern-day woman”—she smiled—“like you…well, I’m not sure that I would stick around and put up with that kind of hanky-panky either.”
Suddenly I wondered if Mrs. Fieldstone knew something about my husband. “So have you seen them together?” I asked, hoping to make my voice sound lighter than I felt. “Geoffrey and Judith, I mean.”
“I’ve seen a woman over there,” she admitted. “I knew you were gone, and I knew it wasn’t you. I figured it wasn’t a good thing.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s definitely not a good thing. I only just found out myself.”
“Really?” she seemed surprised. “Then what made you leave, dear?” I considered this. “A lot of things, I guess. We were already having problems.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Knowing a bit about these things, you can be fairly assured that this fling with your husband and his fancy woman didn’t just happen because you left.”
“No,” I said slowly,“I think it was already