Remembrance by Mary Monroe

Author:Mary Monroe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

It saddened me to hear how much pain Charles was in. His situation made mine seem so insignificant. I felt sorry for him, and less sorry for myself. My being bored and feeling neglected by my husband and children was nothing compared to what he had to deal with.

I didn’t expect my life to be perfect, or run as smoothly as it had for so many years. But I still wanted to remain as spunky, wholesome, and positive as possible, without turning people off. If that meant making changes in the way I dealt with everybody, like not badgering them to accommodate me for one thing or another, that was what I would do. I didn’t want another one of my friends to feel the way Natalee Calhoun felt about me. I had decided not to call her again to see if I could restore our friendship. I’d leave that up to her. In the meantime, if anybody needed some emotional support from me, I was more than willing to give it. And right now, that was what Charles needed.

“Don’t blame yourself for what happened to you. And don’t give up. You’re still fairly young, so you have time to turn things around,” I said gently.

“I know and I’m working on it.” He gave me a guarded look.

I wondered how many other people he had told so much about himself. Other than that woman I’d seen him talking to at the tent encampment, I had never seen him converse with anybody else. He was not the only one who’d bared his soul to me. Strangers would approach me in public and immediately start telling me all kinds of personal information about themselves. I didn’t know if it was my friendly face, or the fact that I displayed so much patience once they got started. Of all the people who had used me as a sounding board, Charles was the most intriguing. I could have sat and listened to him all day. “Thank you for sharing your story with me. I have a feeling you’ll be back on your feet soon.”

“I will. I have a cousin who owns a dairy farm in Erie, Pennsylvania. He wants me to move there and work for him. We’ve been chatting a lot lately.”

“Oh? How do you communicate with him?”

“I rent a post office box he sends mail to. And I use the computers at the library to e-mail him. Listen, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent and bore you with my . . . my tale of woe, as they say. I hope I didn’t depress you. I’m sure you hear enough hard-luck stories from some of the other people you help feed.”

“I don’t mind listening to hard-luck stories. It makes me want to help people even more. And, yes, I’ve heard quite a few stories.”

“Oh? You want to tell me about some of them?”

“I’ll share just one with you, because this is a subject that’s not easy for me to discuss.

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