It looks like [PATRICK DEMPSEY] but it’s actually just [GEORGE SANDERSON] walking around Silvervale.They are [50] & [MALE]. They work as [THE REVEREND] and live in [MAIN STREET]. Like everyone they have regrets and secrets, like [CHEATING ON HIS WIFE INSTEAD OF FIXING OR LEAVING, LOSING HIS FAITH, FAILING HIS DAUGHTER]
Reverend Sanderson has always been a reliable and charismatic figure. He was brought up a devout Christian and, though he’d never been one to push his opinions on anybody, he did his best to get the word of God out into the world. Like his father before him he turned to his religion in times of crisis, finding comfort in the words, and teachings, of the bible. As a child he studied hard, got good grades, and even planned to go to university in the city and maybe even become a doctor. He never did leave Silvervale, though. Instead, at the age of twenty-one, he became the temporary head of his father’s Church, the older man being unable to work any longer after contracting a rare and incurable illness. George assumed he’d get better in time despite what the doctors told him. His father was strong, his hero, surely he’d pull through. The first time George felt his faith begin to shake was the day his father died. He’d been to town to get bread, and had only been gone half an hour. By the time he returned, his mother was sobbing her broken heart out beside his father’s bed, and George knew that he was gone. He hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye to his own father. What kind of God wouldn’t allow him the chance to say his final farewell? It didn’t take him long to shake the feeling away, though, and he got on with life as best he could. After a mourning period in which somebody temporarily took over his post in the Church for him, he went back to permanently take on his father’s position.
It was around this time that Sophia Henderson came into his life. He’d seen Sophia around, of course, but he’d never taken much of an interest in her. It wasn’t until she suddenly started showing up at Church, her hair up in a red ribbon, that he really saw her. She was seventeen and from the other side of town, the poorer side, not that it really bothered George whether or not she had money. He did wonder why she showed up though, because he was certain she wasn’t religious. When he found out the truth it shocked him. Arranged marriages aren’t very common in this little place in the world, but it turned out that George and Sophia’s fathers were once very good friends, and they’d made some sort of pact that their children would one day marry. The whole thing seemed awfully absurd to George, and to Sophia by the look on her face, but it was what his father had wanted. Sophia, he found out, had long since agreed to go through with it because her family could no longer afford to look after her and her two brothers, and she couldn’t find stable work. George agreed to go through with it because it was his father’s wish and it was the only way he could think of to honour his memory. Somehow it made not being able to say goodbye sting a little less. So, that year, the two were married and moved into the little house next to the Church to start their life. For the first few months, George slept in the guest room. Sophia was taking this all very hard and didn’t even seem to like him very much, though she was making an effort to attend his services on Sundays, which he appreciated. It took her a long time to open up to him, but when she finally did everything only got better from there. They started to genuinely fall for each other, and soon their daughter was born. Lacey, redheaded and beautiful like her mother. Everything was perfect for a long time after that and George never again felt his faith in God shaking. Until a few years ago, anyway.
He cried when he and his wife caught their perfect daughter in tears, knife against her wrist. The idyllic, perfect little world the Sanderson’s lived in started to slowly crumble. He attempted to physically drag Lacey to the doctor and made the mistake of shouting in fear and despair at the situation, which made his daughter close off to him and he never did find out why she’s so sad. But it’s never far from his mind. The next tragedy struck soon after. When Sophia told him she was pregnant again, he was overjoyed. Finally, some good news! Maybe it would be a boy this time, and they could have the full little family they’d both always dreamed of. It wasn’t to be. Sophia suffered a miscarriage two weeks later, which devastated them both. They never told Lacey about the baby, or the miscarriage, not wanting to upset her fragile mind further.
That was when everything changed. Sundays in Church hardly meant anything to him any longer and he had no idea what to do to comfort his broken daughter and wife and began staying late at the Church to ‘work’. Then he made his biggest mistake of all. He was in the Church late one night, needing to be alone with his thoughts, when he’d found a young girl crying, obviously in need of help. When he met Katie, his entire belief system went out the window. She was twenty-five, lost, and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He was disgusted with himself, of course. But when she started to show interest in him too, he just couldn’t help himself, and they embarked on an illicit affair. He knows it’s wrong, that maybe he started this out of grief, but there’s something about her that makes it impossible to stop. He’s tormented by guilt and keeps planning to call it off but every time he does something stops him. He knows he should have left Sophia long ago, as soon as he even considered anything with Katie, but he doesn’t have the heart to. He does love her, he always will, and he doesn’t want to cause his wife and daughter any more stress.
