Chapter 3

Charlene called her father, Nick Carpenter, and waited for his secretary to answer the phone.

Her mind wandered as she waited for her father to come on the line. She saw a long line of trees on a distant horizon with elephants marching across a flat, green, plain in her minds eye. Further off in the distance, large mountains sat silently as they had sat for millennia in a haze of windblown dust and mist. A river ran from the mountains to near where she was standing in the warm sun.

Charlene’s parents had been divorced for years. Her father’s infidelities were said to be the reason for the divorce. That was her mother’s story anyway and Charlene had no reason to believe otherwise. She was just a child when the divorce happened, after all. Charlene had learned to use his sin against her father often.

Nick had cheated on his wife, Charlene’s mother, more than once and had disappeared form their lives for all intents and purposes at the moment that his wife had discovered “this act of treachery,” as she had called it for so many years now.

But Sally, Charlene’s mother, was not an innocent in this marriage’s failure. She had played her part in it just as well as her husband.

Her drinking was part of the downfall of their formerly happy and fulfilling relationship. She loved her wine and hard liquor and no desire to curb her intake, as far as Nick could see. She paid a price over time for her habits and had lost a good deal of her intellectual curiosity, spirit and beauty to them.

Nick had loved those qualities in Sally when they first met. They were all part of what drew him to her. Eventually those qualities seemed gone for ever, or so he thought. The divorce was a long battle over the usual things. The care and custody of Charlene, living situations and money wee issues, of course. It took a good deal of time and money to settle the issues. Several lawyers were made even more wealthy as the divorce dragged on.

Nick was denied visitation by Sally on her whims of the moment. They then fought about that. Sally didn’t like her father to be with an adulterous father and his “awful woman” and Nick didn’t want his daughter to live with a drunk.

After a few years of fighting in court and several thousands of dollars had been spent to a stalemate, a truce of sorts was agreed upon. Sally agreed to let Nick see his daughter on a regular basis. Over the years the parents had finally rebuilt their relationship after a fashion. But their lives were complicated, to say the least. Sally never let Nick forget that he had cheated on her. Nick decided not to mention his feelings about her drinking and lack of attention to him in their marriage. It would just lead to more trouble and attorney fees.

Yes, he had cheated and left what was left of their marriage, but Sally had been far less than perfect. Nick felt that he had spent more than enough time in a marriage that was less than perfect. Nick felt that he had tried as long and as hard as he could for a very long time but he could not save the marriage, alone.

I’m off to play tennis. More of Chapter 3 this afternoon.