These Granite Islands: A Novel

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE L~heasked Cathryn if she was ever afraid God would punish her for her sin. "My sin?" "Your infidelity." "My infidelity. Mine. It has nothing to do with God. If anyone, it's Liam I'll have to answer to." "But what about the church?" "Izzy." Cathryn huffed as she stood up. "You're too intelligent a woman for that. Don't go righteous on me. Besides , Jack feels guilty enough for both of us." Isobel turned away, feeling insulted. After a moment Cathryn gently pulled her back by the shoulder. "Listen, I'm sorry. I keep forgetting where I am." These Granite Islands "Where you are? You blame geography? I suppose women in Chicago cheat on their husbands every day." Cathryn crossed her arms. "Some. More than you'd think, probably." She looked Isobel in the eye. "In a different time I suppose I'd be exiled or beaten. Something. If I were in India my husband could burn me alive. Here I'll only be ostracized - doesn't sound so bad, really." "And how do you think Liam will take it?" "I've no idea. I suppose I'll have to tell him first." "Yes. The first thing is to tell Liam. When, Cathryn?" "When the right time comes." "Do you really think there's a right time for this sort of thing? What's wrong with now?" Cathryn looked down. "Everything." If someone had asked her only a month before if she believed Cathryn would go to hell she would have said yes. Now she wasn't so sure she believed in the God who condemned souls after spreading temptation before them like a banquet. That God was man's creation, she decided. She couldn't have imagined any decent woman being unfaithful . Men, of course, strayed all the time. It was their nature . Just after Thomas was born, when she was still nursing him, Victor traveled to Duluth on several overnight trips, always returning in a better mood than when he'd left. Her heaviness seemed more than physical as the months wore on, and she came to resent his trips. In his absences flashes of slim, sophisticated girls interrupted her daily chores. One evening after he'd returned, he found her in their bedroom , rummaging through his coat pockets. She blanched, slowly freeing her hand before facing him. He stood unmoving in the doorway, blinking at her pale stare. "Whatever it is you're looking for, you won't find it, Iz." - I99 - Sarah Stanich "And what does that mean?" "It means what it means." He turned and went down the stairs. Had he strayed? She didn't know. She wondered how well she knew her own husband. If he had been unfaithful she wouldn't want to hear of it now, would never want to have it spoken of. She herself couldn't take a lover and still sleep next to Victor in a charade of duplicity. It would be too confusing. Cathryn was a good woman. Isobel knew she was. Sex, the sin end of it, was just an accessory of Cathryn and Jack's love. She could not believe the love itself was a sin. Nor could she believe Cathryn would have decided I will sin now. Her falling in love could not have been a thing she had sought or even chosen; rather it was a thing that had begun and she had not stopped its beginning. Her choice, then? Or had she allowed a fate to choose her? What woman would choose a life so off-course, so imbalanced as Cathryn'S was this day? Her hand trailed languid figure eights in the water while Jack and Cathryn made love in the cottage. In her years married to Victor, she had never thought of another man with desire. She'd been momentarily unbalanced by Jack's frailties, even envious of Cathryn'S possession of Jack. She'd fought having feelings toward him, but now she knew it was the ownership of Jack's somber heart she envied . A possession she'd never felt with Victor. That was as much as she was willing to admit. When she was near Jack now she wanted to turn away, not look at his serious eyes, not notice how thin he'd become. She looked away from the ruin he and Cathryn had made of love. Of sex. In those...