Review: Sauce for the Gander

Sauce for the Gander by Rose Lawn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Liked it!
=====================
s
p
o
i
l
e
r



I cheered for our heroine from the beginning and got hooked on reading from start to finish. What a horrible husband, what a toxic mother-in-law and what worthless children. I loved the ending! Dump the cheater and run away with the new guy.

"I think we should take a sabbatical."

Keith shook his head.  "Not a sabbatical from work, Kate.  From our marriage."

"A year!" Kate exclaimed.  “A whole year?  That’s as good as leaving me.” She was near to tears.  This couldn't be happening, she thought.

"What you really mean is that you find me dull.  Not glamorous enough to share your new life, to play hostess to your new colleagues." Keith

As he drove away from Pack Bridge House Keith Graham felt guilt and excitement in equal proportions.  Guilt because Kate had taken the sabbatical so hard; excitement because he was starting out on what could prove to be the most interesting year of his life so far.

He had been flattered when Rosanne had `come on` to him, and whichever way he looked at it, that is exactly what she had done, and suggested that she would like to be his co-newsreader.

Marrying Kate had been the right thing to do; he had no doubts on that score.       His sudden urge to leave behind all his responsibilities and give himself just one year of freedom to enjoy his new responsibilities to the full had surprised even him.

"Keith phoned last night."

"He asked me if I would wash his shirts."

There was something in the look Keith exchanged with Rosanne towards the end of the newscast that disturbed her, as did the easy camaraderie between the two of them as they wished the viewers Goodnight.

"I'm talking about your husband and my wife

“- living together," he concluded.

"You didn't know!" he said. "No!" Kate's voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

"I think deep down I suspected something was going on," Kate admitted dully.

Even so, it never crossed my mind that they might be living together.  I can't take it in, Sally.  That Keith - Keith of all people - would do such a thing."

Fighting back her tears, she said bitterly, "I understand that he is living with his mistress, Rosanne Carlisle.  The woman newsreader."

"He left for the same reason most men do," Kate replied.  "For another woman.  In Keith's case, it was – and still is I imagine - Rosanne Carlisle.  I suppose Emma told you they are living together?"

In the bar of the Castle hotel, Keith Graham ordered a glass of wine while he waited for Rosanne.

He had been flattered when Rosanne had made it plain that she wouldn’t say no to their having an affair.

For if he hadn't insisted on their taking a sabbatical, if he hadn't been unfaithful to her, she would never have experienced the joy she had experienced last night, and would almost certainly experience again.  And again.

"Quite frankly, Kate, I'm not surprised my son has left you for that delightful young woman. "Oh yes!" she went on in response to Kate's startled glance.  "I have met her.  They gave me dinner last night, and I found her quite charming! 

“No!” Kate repeated.  “I will not do it, Keith.  You’ll have to ask Rosanne to be your partner.  In that, as in everything else at present.”

“He’s a skunk-faced rat!” Sally exclaimed.  "But that's your husband for you, Kate.  Are you sure you want him back at the end of the year?"

"It doesn't matter how far apart we may be, if you are in my heart, and I am in yours, we shall always be together."

More than anything else he had missed Kate’s cooking. Cooking and homemaking hadn’t been Rosanne’s forte.  She had had other talents …

Only what she hadn't expected, which was for Keith to walk in, briefcase in hand, mackintosh over his arm, drop a perfunctory kiss on her cheek, and ask: "What's for dinner?  I'm starving."  Exactly as he had every evening for as long as she could remember.  Exactly as if he had never been away!

View all my reviews