My Husband Let The Village Punish Me Chapter 08

My Husband Let The Village Punish Me Chapter 08

That afternoon, I asked Elder Samuel Whitaker to intervene.

He was in his eighties and was the oldest and most respected elder in Greyhaven.

Even the chair of the town council deferred to him.

I went before him, told him everything from beginning to end, and handed him Nate’s sworn statement.

After reading it, Elder Whitaker sent someone to bring Caleb to him.

“Caleb, there is no place and no circumstance in which what you did could be defended.”

Caleb kept his head lowered and said nothing.

Elder Whitaker turned to me.

“Tessa, what do you want?”

I lifted my head and answered each word clearly.

“I want a divorce. I don’t want a cent from the Shaw family. I only want my freedom.”

Elder Whitaker sighed and looked at Caleb.

“Will you stop fighting her and agree to the divorce?”

Caleb remained silent for a long time.

His lips trembled, and his eyes were red, as though he had a thousand things he wanted to say.

In the end, he gave only one answer.

“I will.”

Once Caleb agreed not to contest the divorce, the paperwork moved quickly.

He did not cause me any more trouble.

Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps he had finally grown a conscience. Perhaps he was simply exhausted.

I did not know.

I did not care.

I only knew that when I stepped out of the county courthouse with the final divorce decree in my hand, the ocean breeze felt wonderful against my face.

That was what freedom felt like.

Caleb pressed a bracelet into my hand.

“I never gave you much when you became my wife.”

“Take this.”

I lowered my gaze.

It was a silver bracelet engraved with a delicate pattern.

Three years earlier, I would have been overwhelmed with happiness.

I would have believed he had finally seen me.

Now, I simply handed it back.

“Keep it. Give it to someone you truly want to give it to.”

Six months after leaving Greyhaven, I came across a news story online.

Lila’s photo series, *The Blessing*, had won third place in the National Documentary Photography Awards.

The judges’ comment read:

[The technical execution is rough, but its authenticity is undeniable.]

Of course it was authentic.

The blood was real, a woman’s life had truly hung in the balance, and the beating had been as vicious as if they meant to kill her.

Lila had spent three years studying photography, traveling all over the country, and submitting her work hundreds of times without a single acceptance.

I had never studied photography at all, yet I had casually snapped a few shots and won third place.

It was bitterly ironic.

A reporter later interviewed Lila.

Her expression was complicated as she faced the camera.

“The concept for the series was mine, but someone else took the photographs.”

The reporter asked who the photographer was.

Lila remained silent for a moment.

“Someone I had a complicated history with. I don’t know where she is now.”

She did not reveal my name.

I had no intention of coming forward either.

A month later, I received a cashier’s check from Lila for $10,000.

The memo line read:

[Full rights to the photographs.]

I deposited it.

Ten thousand dollars was enough to begin pursuing my dream.

Once, I had wanted to leave Greyhaven and see the country.

A local tour operator had even offered me a job as a guide.

But the offer arrived on the same day the Shaws approached my family about marrying Caleb.

I looked at him and made my choice.

Unfortunately, I made the wrong one.

Now I bought the course materials and began studying for a professional tour-director certification.

Later, Caleb signed on as a deckhand aboard a coastal freighter.

He was too ashamed to remain in Greyhaven after everything that had happened.

He left aboard a cargo ship that carried freight between ports along the coast.

Once he left, he never returned.

For the first few months, he still called home.

Then the calls stopped going through.

Eventually, even the ship’s captain said he no longer knew where Caleb had gone.

Caleb’s parents cried again and again.

“The Shaw family line is over.”

They cursed the world, cursed me, and eventually fell silent.

I ignored them and never went back to see them.

The following year, a mutual acquaintance introduced me to a motorcoach driver who worked for a tour company.

He never questioned me about my past.

He did not care that I was divorced, and he never pressured me to have children.

“We can have children whenever you’re ready.”

In our second year of marriage, I gave birth to a daughter.

The following year, I had a son.

My husband and I became a team. He drove the coach, and I led the tours.

Sometimes his parents and our children came with us.

We saw the snowcapped Rockies in Colorado, took a riverboat down the Mississippi in New Orleans, and watched the Atlantic from Key West.

Back in Greyhaven, I had believed the entire world was no larger than that little fishing town.

Only after leaving did I understand how vast the world truly was.

It was vast enough to reduce all the people and events from my past to a speck too small to see.

I built a new life.

That chapter was finally over.