He sat for a minute and thought of the years of volunteering, the lies, the women he’d slept with in different country towns.
After the death of his wife, Helen, he had felt alone with only her shadow for company. Eventually, he and his business partner, Victoria, had fallen in love but for Tom it was a love based on mutual understanding, propinquity, and shared needs and Tom always suspected Vic felt more sorrow than lust for him. Yes, he’d been unfaithful to her in a way he would not have allowed himself when Helen was alive. He hated himself for it but acknowledged that his affinity for the morals of the world had shifted since Helen’s death.
He used to care but things had changed. In fact, he felt a part of himself separate when Helen died. It left a shadow behind, a shadow filled wi
