Page 156 of The Promise Of Rain

“You had every right to be angry.You could have tossed him out on his ass.You could have insisted on counseling.You could have held him accountable, but you covered for him instead.You betrayed yourself and that’s what turned you hard and bitter, Mom.”

Her lips trembled even as she pressed them tightly together.

Disbelief, fury, and loss warred with compassion, but the reality of the past ten years of my life and everything Jenny endured alone rushed over me like an avalanche.

Where my mother held her tongue, I could not.

“You settled for the scraps he was willing to give you, convincing yourself that having his name, his children, and living in his house was enough.You might have built something even stronger, but rather than fight for your marriage, you traded it in for the picture-perfect family.”

She hung her head and clung to my hand.

I tried to stop talking but the words kept coming.

“The fact that he allowed you to settle all these years says more about the state of your marriage and his priorities than anything else.”

I loved my mother.I loved both of my parents.But they had betrayed me as surely as they’d betrayed each other.

“And that, more than the other, is unforgiveable.”

“That’s enough.”

I slowly turned my head to face my father.

I’d heard those words in that exact tone my entire life.

He stood in the doorway, clinging to his cane for support.

I narrowed my eyes on his face as I took him in.“You threatened her.You knew what she’d gone through, and you stuck to your course.”

There would be honesty, even if it was just this once, between the three of us.

He offered me a brief nod of acceptance.“I have no defense.I did wrong, and then I compounded it to hide my sin.”

His gaze moved to take in his wife before facing me.

For once in his life, I saw honest pain shining in his eyes.“I’d already hurt your mother so much, I didn’t want to do anything that might hurt her further.”

He turned his head to face his wife.“I have never regretted anything the way I regret those three months.I would do anything, give anything, to go back and make a different choice.”

So would I.

“You never once asked for my forgiveness,” she sobbed quietly, her gaze on the floor.

“I didn’t deserve it,” he confessed.“I still don’t.And I was a coward, terrified you wouldn’t give it.Finally,” he shuffled forward, “I thought I could earn it.”

He swallowed.

Looking down at him, I saw the real man, the one I’d idolized as a child, for the first time in over a decade.

“Deacon is wrong about one thing.There were no scraps.You have my whole heart, you always have.I love you.I loved you even as I betrayed us.I was a fool, chasing a high that reeked of remorse when I had heaven here at home.”

“Why?”she blurted.“Why did you do it?”

My heart broke for my sweet mother, for the betrayal that made her bitter and angry and afraid she wasn’t enough.

It hit me then, hard, how Jenny felt all these years.

My father’s actions told my mother she wasn’t enough.