Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was now October, about a month after Peter moved in with the Camdens. The school year was progressing quite nicely; and so was, finally, Peter's relationship with Ruthie. He actually felt better knowing that both Annie and Lucy were keeping a constant eye on him and his love. At long last, they could get back to where they had been a full fourteen months earlier: intimate, but in a romantic rather a physical way.

Lucy had thought she would be spending a couple weeks redecorating the apartment to suit Peter's needs. In reality, there wasn't much to be done; Peter asked only for a couple of his favorite fichus plants to be placed around the unit and for a corner to be set aside for his dog. He assured the minister the animal had been fixed so even if he attempted funny business with Happy nothing would come of it. Lucy had laughed, saying it wasn't an issue because Happy had been neutralized, too.

Roxanne and Chandler were getting used to life together as a married couple. For the past few months, starting right after their honeymoon, they had tried to get pregnant but without too much success. They had considered getting help by artificial means but were told to keep trying; that normally medicine wouldn't intervene until a couple had been together for at least two years. This was frustrating especially for Roxie, who was having trouble enough with both her policing duties and redecorating the residence of the divinity deanery at Crawford, which her husband now held. She desperately wanted to become a mother, and a few times on her beats with Kevin she came close to lashing out at him for being lucky enough to help Lucy conceive within months of their getting married, while she herself had now been married longer (three weeks more than the point where Lucy first became with child) and was still out in the cold. Kevin reassured his friend that her time would come and Lucy would be her number two fan, right behind Chandler, when it did.

George Grayson, along with his natural father Will, were a little annoyed when they learned that Lucy had rented out the garage apartment to Peter. But there two other bedrooms, one which had belonged to Simon and the other that Mary and Lucy once shared. They agreed to take those. As they settled in, neither they nor anyone else in the household could get over the irony of it all. It was still very much a Camden household, but with a decidedly different flavor. The only remaining link to the past remaining in the house was Annie.

She wasn't doing all that well. It had now been several months since Eric had left the household over their tiff about her deception about the failed pregnancy and their admitted infidelity to each other. She truly appreciated Lucy and Ruthie being there to comfort her on the most difficult days; but she had only since seen Eric once, at his parents' funeral. She was getting despondent more and more by the day.

Unbeknownst to anyone in the house, a few times she had answered personal ads in the paper from men (mostly in their late 20s or early 30s), all of whom were looking for a one-night stand, no questions asked, with an older woman. As a fifty-something post-menopausal grandmother, she certainly fit their bill. Her excuse to anyone who asked her where she was going was she was taking "a walk on the Promenade," but in fact she was preparing for her secret rendezvous. Her only condition was that the man would use the condom that she provided - which, for extra measure, she bought fresh off the shelf earlier that day. And on all but one occasion, she had sex with all of the younger men in question. The one exception was a man who thought she was a madam of some sort. When he offered her money, she just got up; then put on her clothes, and left.

While she certainly got physical satisfaction out of it all, for in her view having a man share his body with her was better than nothing, none of them even put together could satisfy her the way Eric had done for so long. She wanted him back and to stay, even if he wasn't a minister anymore and even if they would only be staying at the parsonage at the pleasure of Lucy and Kevin, the new housemistress and master.

Sam and David? Well, they were Sam and David. The same eager, emotional, ebullient and excessively exasperating boys they had been ever since they learned to talk in coherent sentences. While everyone loved them, they all wished they'd just grow up.

It was about eleven o'clock at night. Nearly everyone turned in, except for Annie. She was sitting on the edge of her bedside deciding what to do for the next day. She settled on calling her lawyer. There was no point in keeping up the sham. It was probably over between her and Eric. His parents' estate had been wound down, and he was just dilly-dallying. There were plenty of flights coming from Buffalo to the West Coast every day. If he didn't show up by tomorrow night, she'd file for divorce. She wouldn't even warn him of her impending option. There would be no turning back this time. She'd cross the Rubicon, and take it from there, come what may.

For what it was worth, Matt, Mary, Lucy and Simon were all married and with lives of their own. Ruthie had all but started cohabitating with Peter and likely would move to the garage permanently within a year or two. So only custody of Sam and David was in question, and it was never an issue because Eric was keeping up both his child support payments and her alimony just as he promised he would when the trial separation began. Thus, it would be a clean break. She didn't believe in divorce any more than Eric did, but it was probably for the best.

Sighing, she took off all her clothes. The nightgown was hanging in the closest, but she didn't bother reaching for it. Instead, she pulled back the covers on the bed. For this one night, she would try sleeping under the bedspread, naked.

At that moment, she heard an odd creaking noise. It took her a full second for her to realize the door was opening. What if it was one of the others in the house? How would they react to seeing her in this state?

"Annie?"

She gasped. It could only be one person. She turned around.

"Eric?"

"Yeah, it's me," he said, closing the door behind him before anyone else could see them. He had one suitcase in his left hand. This he set aside by what had been his side of the closet.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, suspiciously.

'To ask you to take me back," he said simply.

Annie was stunned. God works in mysterious ways, she thought, but surely this is a crazy coincidence.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "Why now? What's taken me this long? Well, I was almost at the point where I was getting ready to throw in the towel myself. But something happened a week ago, something that made me reconsider this whole thing."

"What was that?" asked Annie.

"I guess I got to the point where I just couldn't stand being lonely anymore, so I went to a place in Buffalo that's well known in some circles as a bawdy house," Eric replied. "I didn't give my title or anything else that suggested that I was, or had been, a minister. I just said I was out to have some fun. The madam there just pointed me to a room, so I paid up some money in advance, and went to the assigned place. There was this, I don't know how to describe it, incredibly beautiful woman, only nineteen years old. She had just been hired and this was her first night on the job.

"Well, something told me that something wasn't right. So rather than just do my thing, I decided to hold off and started talking to her. At first, she claimed she was a virgin and I was going to be her first. I asked her why she would want to give away something so special to someone she didn't even know, as if it wasn't a big deal. It turned out she had incredibly bad self-esteem, owing from years of abuse. Like many other women who've been subjected to similar torture, she didn't see herself as having lost her virginity because she never volunteered to give it up. I repeated the question, emphasizing that her first experience as a 'born again virgin' should be with someone she trusted and loved, if she couldn't wait to get married.

"Her answer was she had tried, but her search had been futile. She knew it wasn't right, but she was convinced God hadn't intended for her to remain celibate for the rest of her life, and until she found Mr. Right this would fill her need."

"So what does this have to do with us?" asked Annie, her still naked form facing the still fully clothed Eric.

"On a lark, I asked her if she ever pressed charges against her tormenter. She said she was going to until he was murdered earlier this year." He paused for emphasis.

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Her name is Cindy Taylor, and she's the late Frank Henderson's first cousin once removed. She was the 'smoking gun' witness that the DA was saving in case the judge had thrown out all the other material evidence against him. After he was murdered, she just went into a tailspin. She had wanted to contact me for help, but I had left for Buffalo by that time. She took the plane right after, desperately looking for me. She knew who my father was - her mother is an Air Force General - but he had an unlisted number, as did George."

"Why couldn't she talk to Lucy?" pondered Annie. "She's licensed to handle this kind of stuff, the same as you are! In fact, you'd think she'd relate better to a woman than a guy."

"She wanted a 'father figure' who could bring her back from the brink, or at least that's what she told me. She knew there was an interim moderator at that mega-church I've been pastor for the last few months and when she realized it was me, she decided she'd do whatever she could to get me. So she let it slip, through a friend of a friend of a friend, that there was a whorehouse in town that catered to the business and clerical elite in town. The madam, knowing who I was, sent me right to her."

Annie was listening to Eric all this time, trying to make sense of it all. Then it finally struck her.

"Having been abused all that time, Cindy thought that, in spite of all the counseling she went through, the only thing that could equalize the terror she underwent it was a one-night stand with someone she thought was so inherently good and caring it wouldn't matter what anyone else thought. She could consider herself healed, and move on with her life. Is that what you're saying?" Annie looked at Eric squarely in his eyes for the first time since January.

"That's what she told me," confirmed Eric.

"And did you have sex with her?" asked Annie pointedly.

"I did, only to oblige her and knowing it was just a one-night stand and the next time I saw her it would be in counseling," admitted Eric. "But a funny thing happened while she and I were doing it. We weren't one human being, but rather two separate beings just physically together. All that time, I couldn't stop thinking about you. It was like you and I were back in college, the night we first made love to each other. That's what it was. I may have had sex with Cindy Taylor; but in my mind and heart, I was making love to you. And that's when I realized I couldn't take it anymore. We belong together Annie, and I miss being with you. I want you to take me back, and I want us to make love, and this time I want to make love to the real Annie Jackson Camden; the woman of my dreams, the woman who's the mother of my seven children, the woman I want to grow old with and die with and be buried with. I don't care if you've been sleeping around while I've been gone, because I know you have. I know that when you've been with them, all you could think about was me and how it was when we were young, too. I love you, Annie, and I want it to be us, from this night and forever more."

Annie was starting to shake as Eric was speaking. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She burst into tears, ran across the room, and embraced her husband.

"Oh, Eric, I love you so much!" she said, kissing him over and over. She ripped the shirt off her husband so fast that it literally tore apart. Eric was furiously kissing his wife on the lips, earlobes, bosom and navel and down towards her feet as she worked her way up him, starting with his feet. Once she peeled the last of his coverings, they ran towards their marital bed and made love like they never had before. They were at it all night long.

The rest of the group was both stunned then absolutely giddy when they saw Eric taking his usual place besides Annie at the breakfast table the next morning. They didn't need to be told; the glow in both their faces said everything. It was Lucy who finally spoke for everyone after nearly a minute.

"It's good to have you back, Dad," she said, giving him a huge hug. "And don't ever scare us like that, telling us off then running away, ever again!"

Ruthie and Peter looked at each other longingly, as they broke apart one of the freshly baked loaves of bread that Lucy had made. Unspoken, they knew what they wanted to say to each other; that if they could be as romantic as her parents were, the times they had been together in the past were nothing compared to what lay ahead in the future. But Peter knew it still wasn't the right time. He knew now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, he was going to propose to Ruthie. The only problem was how he was going to top what Kevin had done when he popped the question to Lucy.