I rubbed at my eyes, "I'm happy for you two. Thank you for your forgiveness!" I turned to leave, but a gentle clasp on my arm stopped me. It was Grace, Jim's wife.
"What's your name?" She asked softly.
"Kim Pollock." I said in response.
She stepped forward away from her husband and took both of my hands with hers, "Kim I don't know what this evil woman has over you, but I have some advice I feel led to impart to you. The saddest thing I witnessed after my husband's affair was that he waited a year to tell me. He put himself through a living hell, when all he had to do was come to me. Whoever it is you're protecting some terrible secret from, stop! If they love you then they will forgive you whatever it is. The longer you keep this a secret the worse it's going to get!"
"You don't understand! I can't tell them! They raised me better than to do what I did. I……" I shook my head helplessly for lack of words to express the hopelessness of my situation.
Jim's hand closed over my shoulder and I looked up to him to hear him say, "Yes you can and you should! Trust me, I know what you're going through, but the correct course of action is to do the right thing! The thing you know that's right to do in your heart like coming here to apologize tonight. Even at the risk of losing their love honesty is what you owe those to whom you love. You have to do the right thing or you'll never be free!"
Both of their words were hitting me hard and I balled out in misery, "But their missionaries!"
That didn't even make sense to say. I was making a complete fool of myself, but neither of them were treating me like they saw me as a fool.
Grace peered into my eyes in a way that made me feel like she saw all the way to my soul, "Are you a Christian Kim?"
I stuttered on the response, "I was once, but I……"
She cut me off as she squeezed my hands firmly, "He still loves you!"
Her words were delivered softly in the gentle caring manner that was about her as a person, but there was an authority to them as well as the truth in her eyes that was beyond question and which completely overpowered me. I let my head fall forward to her shoulder and I cried like I never had before as her arms came around me tightly.
Never would I have expected such an outreach from a perfect stranger and one at whose family I had plotted against. I really was making a fool of myself now.