Susan is a divorced, middle-aged mother of one adult
daughter. She is a devout Catholic. She
doesn’t believe in divorce. She hates
speaking of her divorce. She is ashamed
of being a divorced woman, even though she had no choice in the matter.
Her daughter was 12 when her husband left. One week he was the seemingly perfect
husband, coming home after work, eating dinner with the family, playing with
their daughter. She thought of herself
as blessed to have married such a wonderful man. She occasionally had a sinking feeling of
doubt about his fidelity, as sometimes there were unexplainable
absences. But she ignored them. Her denial was so great she happily looked
the other way, until she couldn’t anymore.
He left her for his mistress, moved out of state, and completely exited
the life of Susan and of their daughter, Stacey.
Stacey was the child that Susan had prayed for every day for
years. She was a miracle baby. Some doctors had told Susan she would never
have a child, and if she wanted to be a mother, she would have no option but to
adopt. Susan never stopped believing, never stopped
praying, and Stacey entered the world.
She always regretted that she couldn’t give her siblings, but she worked
very hard to raise Stacey to be a good, Catholic girl. It was especially hard
after her husband’s abandonment, but she put on a strong front and put
everything into raising her daughter alone.
Now, Stacey is grown and no longer at home. Susan believes she did a good job. Stacey has made her proud. She went to college and did well, was able to
find a good job shortly after graduating and even found a good man to
marry. Sure, Stacey went through some
tough times after her father left. Susan
knew she had a little rebellious phase as a teenager. But as long as it didn’t affect school, and
she was still up and at mass every Sunday with her mother, nothing else
mattered. On the outside, they looked
good, and appearances meant everything.
Susan is soon to hear surprising news of the man that left
her years ago. She is also soon to learn
that her daughter had a traumatic experience that she knew nothing about.
Susan is, of course, fictional. She is the mother of my main character in
Absolved. As I approach the release of
my book I hope to introduce you all to some of my characters and I wanted to
start with Susan. I hope you enjoy
getting to know her even better as you read my book, which will be available to
you on or around April 8th.
This is it for tonight, but I’ll be around again soon to
introduce you to Timothy, the husband of my main character.
Until next time…
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