Her head had begun to ache, and she turned to look out the window without answering him. She tried to distract herself from the sizzling undercurrents that vibrated between them by turning her thoughts to his parents, and as the Jeep passed through the silent streets of Salvation, she began sorting through what she’d learned about them.
Lynn hadn’t always been the reserved, sophisticated woman who had entertained so graciously tonight. But what about Jim? Jane wanted to dislike him, but all evening she’d caught glimpses of yearning in his eyes when he’d looked at his wife, and she couldn’t seem to work up a good solid dislike for a man who had feelings like that.
What had happened to the two high school kids who had once been in love? she wondered.
Jim wandered into the kitchen and poured himself the last cup of decaf. Lynn stood at the sink with her back to him. She always had her back to him, he thought, although it didn’t make much difference because, even when she faced him, she never let him see anything more than the polite mask she wore for everyone except their sons.
It was during her pregnancy with Gabe that Lynn had begun transforming herself into the perfect doctor’s wife. He remembered how he’d welcomed her increasing reserve and the fact that she no longer publicly embarrassed him with bad grammar and overexuberance. As the years passed, he’d grown to believe that Lynn’s transformation had prevented their marriage from turning into the disaster everyone had predicted. He’d even thought he was happy.
Then he’d lost his only grandson and a daughter-in-law he’d adored. Afterward, as he’d witnessed his middle son’s bottomless grief and been helpless to cure it, something inside him seemed to have snapped. When Cal had phoned him with the news that he’d married, he’d finally begun to feel hopeful again. But then he’d met his new daughter-in-law. How could Cal have married that cold, supercilious bitch? Didn’t he realize she was going to make him miserable?
He cradled the coffee mug in his hands and looked over at his wife’s slim, straight back. Lynn was shaken to the core by Cal’s marriage, and both of them were trying to come up with a reason why he’d chosen so badly. The physicist had a subtle sex appeal that he’d seen right away, even if Lynn hadn’t, but that didn’t explain why Cal had married her. For years they’d both despaired over his preference for women who were too young and intellectually limited for him, but at least all of them had been sweet-natured.
He felt helpless to deal with Cal’s problems, especially when he couldn’t even deal with his own. The conversation at the dinner table had brought it all back to him, and now he felt the passage of time ticking away so loudly he wanted to shove his hands over his ears because he couldn’t go back to fix all the places where he’d made the wrong choices.
“Why haven’t you ever said anything about that day I bought the cookies from you? All this time, and you’ve never said a word.”
Her head came up at his question, and he waited for her to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about, but he should have realized that wouldn’t be her way. “Goodness, Jim, that was thirty-six years ago.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday.”
It had been a beautiful April day during his freshman year at UNC, five months after Cal was born, and he’d been coming out of a chem lab with some of his new friends, all of them upperclassmen. Now he didn’t remember their names, but at the time he’d craved their acceptance, and when one of them had called out, “Hey, it’s the cookie girl,” he’d felt everything inside him turn cold.
Why did she have to be here now, where his new friends could see her? Anger and resentment turned to acid inside him. She was so damned hopeless. How could she embarrass him like this?
As she’d brought the buggy with the wobbly wheels to a stop, she’d looked thin and ragged, barely more than a child, a raw mountain girl. He forgot everything he loved about her: her laughter, the way she’d come so eagerly into his arms, the little spit hearts she’d draw on his belly before she’d settled beneath him so sweet and giving he couldn’t think of anything but burying himself inside her.
Now as he watched her come closer, every poisonous word his parents had said shrieked in his ears. She was no good. A Glide. She’d trapped him and ruined his life. If he ever expected to see a penny of their money, he had to divorce her. He deserved something better than a roach-infested apartment and a too-young mountain girl, even one so tender and joyous she made him weep with love for her.
Panic welled inside him as his new friends called out to her. “Hey, Cookie Girl, you got any peanut butter?”