A Christian Romance

Chapter 37 - No one is perfect

The sound of loud laughter startled Molly Larking. She rushed up the stairs to meet her husband. He had an amusing smile on his face that intrigued her.

"Are we celebrating something?"

"Yeah, it seems like all my problems are solved."

"What do you mean?" Molly questioned.

"The attorney just informed me that Richard passed away."

Molly was cunning, so her husband diverted her attention to shopping and other futile things. She wasn't into David's dark schemes, therefore she didn't know that Richard had been poisoned with thallium. His partner in crime suffered from a slow death caused by the intake of small amounts of the deadly poison. The poison was impregnated in the antidepressant pills that Richard took.

"Don't you think he blabbed?"

David smirked, saying:

"He wouldn't be that stupid."

"Shouldn't you mourn, at least just a little?" She looked down, upset by his cruelty.

"Of course the circumstances aren't ideal, but most of my problems are solved with his death." He forced a serious face.

"Maybe we should care to hold a small memorial service for him..." Molly suggested, just trying to stimulate her husband's humanity.

"Would you care to organize that?" David asked her dismissively.

Molly knew that her husband had a heart made of stone, but every time he showed his cruelty it still surprised her.

"Yeah, but I need your help with the guest-list." She protested.

"Oh Molly!" He scoffed, annoyed with her persistence. "That poor wretched excuse of a human being didn't even have a family. All he did was take advantage of women, and ask me to cover everything up!"

The wife looked down, but came up with an idea:

"We gotta do something about that, at least a farewell speech; that will be good for the church's image."

"Forget him. He's gone!" He screamed and stormed out.

Molly was scared of David for a long time now, living under the threat of being deserted and publicly shamed, if she didn't behave like a loved-up wife around him, at least in the public eye. Now her husband was a perpetrator of many public humiliations and, therefore, she knew he was creative and cruel, and had ways to bring those ideas to life. She wouldn't dare mess with him, let alone ask for a divorce. He couldn't even suspect that she was seeing a retailer - married man -, who worked in one of her favorite clothing stores, but that was one of her best pleasures lately.
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Adam was in the comfort and warmth of his cabin. This was his haven, a place of refuge and evasion, where problems seemed to fade. Lying on his back, swinging on the hammock, he recalled the time he met Joel's sister. She was a tomboy, and her sense of independence intrigued him. She breathed a confidence that was menacing to any men, especially to him. Her challenging personality was what got him. She had an endearing cheeky smile and a defiant answer to any question. He concluded that Miriam's personality would be considered repulsive to many men, until the night he went out with her; that was all he needed to start seeing her with other eyes.

Honestly, Adam was the type of guy who couldn't see women his age as friends. That was caused by his teenage years. He was tall and skinny growing up. His pale complexion was considered unattractive and his introversion portrayed him as odd. Most of the girls in school didn't approach him, except to ask for random information, but even those ordinary approaches were enough for him to harbor romantic feelings.