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five weeks off to work things out with Bobbi, which is more time than Phil gave me.”
    “I didn’t say you had to have it all worked out in three weeks. I said Bobbi needs to see committed progress very soon.”
    “She will.” Chuck jerked his bag off the ground and climbed into the golf cart.
    “You want to get some of this out of your system?” Gavin asked when he joined Chuck in the cart. “I think the secrecy is wearing on you.”
    “There’s nothing to tell. We had a new attorney join in February. She’s very attractive. She came onto me and I fell for it. It’s that simple.”
    “It’s never that simple. How were things between you and Bobbi?”
    “Okay.”
    “Everything?”
    “Yeah, everything.” Chuck rolled his eyes. “Can we drive to the next hole please?”
    “I should probably wait for Phil.”
    Chuck crossed his arms and frowned. “This thing with Tracy, it’s got nothing to do with my marriage. That wasn’t why it happened. I never considered leaving Bobbi. It was purely physical.”
    “I don’t think so,” Gavin argued. “I can believe you never wanted to split with Bobbi, but I think this woman met some emotional need, or you wouldn’t have gone back to her.”
    “And your psychology degree is from where?” Chuck’s voice dripped with sharp sarcasm.
    “The ugly truth is that you wanted this to happen and you allowed a situation to develop that made it possible.”
    Chuck’s eyes narrowed in anger, but he didn’t answer Gavin.
    “You have to be honest with yourself first,” Gavin said, “or Bobbi will never believe you.”
    “Have you told her all your theories, Dr. Freud?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Then don’t. I hoped that you, of all people, would extend some grace.”
    “If your definition of grace is condoning what you did, or letting it slide, then no, I can’t.”
    Chuck played the final holes in silence and mumbled through his goodbyes. Gavin was way out of line, totally off base. He didn’t have any ‘emotional needs.’ Why was it so hard to understand that he simply gave in to a seductive coworker? He and Bobbi were fine. They were just ‘settled,’ that’s all. They had their own lives now. Isn’t that what happens to everybody after fifteen or twenty years?
    At any rate, tomorrow afternoon, he would get his chance to sit down and talk with Bobbi, and all this going before the church and emotional needs talk would be irrelevant. He stuffed his golf bag in the trunk of his car just as his cell phone rang. Plucking it off his belt, he saw his mother’s phone number.
    “Not now. I don’t have the energy to go through this with her.” He answered with all the cheerfulness he could muster, hoping to get her off the phone quickly. “Mom, how are things?”
    “Chuck, I talked to Bobbi this morning.” He’d heard that kind of grief in her voice only once before, the morning she called after his dad’s death.
    “I see.”
    “Don’t you have anything to say?”
    “What can I say, Mom? You want me to say I didn’t do it. Or maybe it’s not my fault? The fact is, yes, I cheated on my wife and, yes, it’s all my fault!” He realized he was shouting. His voice dropped to a near whisper. “I’m sorry.”
    “What happened? Why would you ...?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “That’s garbage! Why didn’t you just ask Bobbi for a divorce instead of hurting her this way?”
    “Because I don’t want a divorce!” Chuck yelled, then tears formed. He glanced toward the clubhouse, hoping nobody was watching the lunatic in the parking lot, ranting one minute, crying the next. Going for the only privacy available, he opened his car door, and collapsed in the driver’s seat.
    “Mom, I love Bobbi, but I can’t explain what happened. I’m scared to death she’s going to leave me. I’m afraid she’s going to leave and take the boys with her.” His voice trailed off, and he dissolved into sobs.
    “Listen to me.” Her voice invited, rather than