BOOK 1: SERENDIPITY / CH. 20: PETE'S LETTER
“Dear Kate,
I really hope you enjoyed the cake. I was stunned when I saw your photo. I didn't even know you lived here. I moved into town a couple of years ago, after deciding to branch into the cake-faces business. Somehow cakes sell better than fine art, so this is as close as I've got to my artistic dreams. It's a small world, isn't it? I met James and his wife and daughter at a wedding exhibition earlier this summer. Their daughter is engaged and going to be a Christian missionary apparently. James wasn't that pleased, but said, ‘it's her life, if she wants to follow a delusion, that's her stupidity.’ So at least he hasn't cast her out of his life, but I guess he's not changed his attitude to God. What about you? I'm still pottering on in my faith, but do miss all our old debates. No, that's not entirely true. I seem to remember leaving some of them feeling like you'd ripped me to pieces. But I do have fond memories of our student days which is why I begged them to let me do proper justice to you. Please accept it as an honest token of past friendship. I would really like to meet you again so that our friendship could be renewed, or at least so we can swap stories for a while. Yours as always, Pete.”
Kate looked up at the ceiling and thought of Pete. Steady and meticulous and not one to leap to his feet in fiery passion like James had done so often. That poor daughter, to have James for a father. Come to to think of it, poor wife to mediate between James and daughter. He'd surely be difficult to live with if you didn't agree with him. It had never been the other way round, she remembered; James didn't change his mind to agree with other people, they had to change theirs first.
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Then she realized what she was thinking. This was the first time she'd thought critically about James. She realised that for almost all of her adult life she'd been worshipping at the feet of a rather manipulative, domineering man, and that actually he wasn't the Mr. Right she'd always thought of him as. That had come from him, and she'd swallowed it. Hadn't she been a foolish woman. What a blessing that he'd dumped her.
[Oh God, why have I been so foolish?] she prayed. Sarah, who was standing close by with a piece of delicious looking cake looked at her, surprised at overhearing what sounded like a prayer and a cry for help. “Kate, here's your portion of cake, but are you OK?”
Kate held Sarah's hand and thought at her, [Do you think they'd miss us if we went somewhere quieter? I want to talk and you know more about this than most people.]
“I don't think they'd mind,” she answered. “John can reassure them.”
They slipped towards the door and Sarah touched John's hand long enough to say [Kate needs to talk. Don't let anyone follow, please.]