Lucy’s turkey sub disappeared in short order, as did Lois’ soup and salad. Darren the handsome waiter dropped the check on the table, smiled, and said, “Your uncle said your money’s no good here today. You ladies have a pleasant afternoon, and come back to see us soon.”
Lucy smiled. “Thanks, Darren. I’m sure we will.”
Darren smiled wider. “He also said that your dessert, should either of you want one, is also on the house. May I recommend a sampler bag of gourmet cookies for each of you? That way you can take dessert home and nibble as the fancy takes you.”
Lucy chuckled as Lois smiled. “Sounds wonderful,” Lucy said. “I know I’d appreciate it. I know good those cookies are.”
Darren nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He turned to Lois and asked, “A bag for you also, ma’am?”
Lois blinked twice and her brows drew down, so Lucy blurted, “Yes! Yes, she’d love a bag also. Thanks.”
He smiled and left. Lucy watched him go and sighed, hoping it would distract her sister.
It did. “Punky, I don’t think you’re his type. You’re too female.”
Lucy smiled, then gave Lois a mock-angry glare. “You mean I’d be too much woman for him?”
Lois’ smile slowly returned and she chuckled lightly. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Besides, you have classes and studies you can’t interrupt. In fact, shouldn’t you be studying right now? And don’t you have a term paper to write?”
“The first draft is done and I’m halfway through the first critical edit. I want top marks for this and I’m about nine days ahead of schedule now. Don’t worry, Sis, I’ll get it done early. And it’ll be great. I’ll let you read it if you want to.”
“You mean I get to critique your work?”
Lucy crossed her arms and fake-huffed. “Absolutely not. I’ll give you a copy to read after I get the grade I’m going to richly deserve.” She lifted one index finger and shook it at Lois. “And you will not – I repeat, will not – give it back to me with blue or red or green or any other color markings to indicate the changes you would have made. This is my paper, not yours, and I’m working on my paralegal certification, not a journalism degree. Besides, I know for a fact that Clark still corrects your spelling.”
As Lucy had known it would, the mention of Clark made Lois turn her head away and end the teasing session. Whatever had happened between them was bad, but there couldn’t be any real reason for Lois to hate Clark the way she claimed to. Lucy had left the subject alone during lunch, but it was time to see if she could pry open the oyster and look at the pearls inside. Lucy firmly believed that Clark Kent was a pearl of great price, and if Lois truly didn’t want him, some other woman would snap him up and be thankful for Lois’ idiocy for the rest of life with him.
Darren chose that moment to lay two fairly large paper bags of cookies on the table. As he put Lois’ bag down, he smiled at her and said, “Here you go, ma’am.”
Lucy’s eyes widened at the size of the bags, then at Darren, then asked, “Didn’t you leave any for the other customers?”
He chuckled politely. “Your uncle wanted you both to enjoy your afternoon. Excuse me, ma’am, but I see two other tables I need to check on. Good day, ladies.”
Lucy watched him glide between the tables to his customers as she slid the cookies inside her purse. “I’m gonna have cookies until the end of the month, I think,” she said. “I can’t come back to Darren looking like the south end of a north-bound cow.”
Lois’ purse was too small to hold her bag, so she slid them into her jacket pocket. “Did you hear that guy? He called me ‘ma’am!’ Twice! I can’t believe it! I hate being called that! I’m not that old!”
“I know, Sis. It’s always so difficult for you to accept the courtesy of others. Come on, let’s go. I really do have some stuff I need to work on today.”
They walked to the car and climbed in. As Lois fastened her seat belt, Lucy said, “You had a good lunch and some relaxing company. Are you ready to tell me the horrible thing Clark did now?”
Lois froze for a second, then jammed her key in the ignition. “I already told you.”
“Yeah, I know, but I didn’t understand what you meant.”
The key almost snapped off from the force Lois applied to the ignition switch. “He betrayed me! He lied to me from the minute we met! He’s like every other man I’ve ever known! I hope he gets permanently constipated!”
Despite herself, Lucy guffawed. “Constipated? Permanently? Oh, what a horrible fate!” She held stomach as she laughed. When she calmed down, she said, “I’m glad I’ve never made you that mad. You probably would have wished for me to be permanently pregnant!”
Lois glared at her little sister for a long moment, then smiled a little. “Yeah, that’s a terrible fate for any woman. Right at early stages, too, when the morning sickness is the worst.”
Lucy laughed aloud again. Lois unbent enough to chuckle, but it didn’t last. “Seriously, Lucy, I really don’t want to talk about – about him. Please respect that.”
Lucy took a couple of deep breaths, then said, “I still don’t get it. A week ago if he’d offered you a diamond engagement ring you were going to say ‘yes’ and dance a fancy jig. Now you’d use it to disembowel him and carve his intestines up for sausage. You really should tell me why the big change.”
Lois sighed. “You’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer, are you?”
“At the risk of being redundant, no, I’m not. I know Clark, I like him, and I know that he loves you like there’s no tomorrow. I seriously cannot imagine what he told you to make you react like that.”
Lois drove silently for almost a full minute. That’s it, thought Lucy, I’ve capped the well. No information today, if ever.
Suddenly Lois said, “Dad betrayed Mom, me, you, all of us. And he was just the first.”
Lucy tilted her head but didn’t speak, hoping for more. After a long moment, Lois continued. “Paul betrayed me in college. I thought I loved him, thought he loved me, and then I walked in on him in bed with Linda in the middle of – you know.”
Lucy touched Lois’ near wrist and whispered, “I know. I’m so sorry.”
Lois’ voice was rock-steady and the Jeep was under full control as she continued. “When I went to Ireland two years later, I was convinced that Patrick loved me unreservedly. He didn’t. He tried to get me in bed the week before I left, and when I backed away he accused me of leading him on and lying to him. All he wanted was my body, didn’t give a hoot for my mind or my personality or my writing skills.”
Lucy squeezed Lois’ hand slightly. “I remember you telling me.”
Her voice took on an angry edge. “And Claude! That – that fiddle-headed French moron got me to sleep with him and stole my story! Then he told everyone that I was a horrible lover and a hack writer and probably plagiarized everything I turned in to Perry! And almost no one believed that he’d printed my story under his name! He – he betrayed me and broke my heart and almost drove me away from the Planet!”
Lucy started rubbing Lois’ hand, then almost hit the dashboard face-first as Lois slammed on the brakes at a stoplight. “Now Clark comes along and convinces me he’s not like other men, that he’s honest and trustworthy and brave and transparent and that he’d never lie to me but he did!” The light changed but the Jeep didn’t move. “He – that – that man took my trust and shattered it, destroyed it! There ought to be a special place in hell for all men everywhere! I hate them! I hate them all and I hope they all die slowly and in terrible pain!”
A horn honked behind them. Lucy rubbed her shoulder where the seatbelt had grabbed her, then looked at Lois and saw someone who wasn’t safe behind the wheel anymore. So she put the console shifter in Park and said, “Come on, Sis, Chinese fire drill time. Let’s swap seats and I’ll drive.”
Accompanied by a horn duet from other drivers, each sister moved her seat back, and they each moved over the console to the other side, with Lucy sliding in front of Lois. Lucy quickly adjusted the seat and mirrors, buckled her belt, and shifted into Drive – only to see the light turn red in front of her. Oh, well, she thought, at least Lois isn’t driving. She’d either run the light or not move through the next cycle.
Lucy moved forward as soon as the light turned green and the last of the cross traffic running the red light had passed. As she watched the driver behind her in her mirror, she saw that driver’s frustration mount as the middle lane beside her moved faster than the Jeep but was too dense for the angry driver to change over. Lucy flipped on the turn signal before she turned right at the next intersection and idly wondered why it wasn’t a lot stiffer, considering how seldom Lois used it.
The turn seemed to snap Lois back to the present. She grabbed her own seat belt and fastened it, then sighed deeply. “I never would have thought Clark would lie to me, especially about something that big. I mean, everybody has little secrets, like blowing off a homework assignment in second grade or stealing a piece of candy from a store as a kid or cheating on a sixth-grade test but not—” she stopped talking and turned to face the passenger window.
Lucy’s ears perked up. She’d almost said it. She’d come that close to telling Lucy what Clark’s secret was. And Lucy thought Lois needed to say it. She needed to tell someone, to spill the beans to some listening ear.
Besides, Lucy’s curiosity was chewing her up inside.
“Lois, will you please tell me what this big secret is? You keep hinting around it and poking at it but you don’t say it. Come on, tell me!”
Lois’ mouth worked several times. Nothing came out.
She took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, Punky, I really can’t tell you. I gave my word – sort of.”
“Sort of? What the heck does that mean? How can you ‘sort of’ give your word on something? It’d be like – like being ‘sort of’ pregnant!”
“Why do you suddenly have pregnancy on the brain, anyway? You haven’t been – what did that junior high civics teacher say – oh, yeah, ‘out and about with a member of the opposite sex?’ It would explain why references to impending motherhood are popping out of your mouth so often.”
“Trust me, Lois, I wouldn’t settle for any guy less trustworthy than Superman.”
Lois grunted like Batman was rumored to. “Trustworthy – oh, if you only knew.”
“You can trust me and you know it. For example, I have never told anyone about Little Jimmy Burns and his fourth-grade fascination with your underwear.”
Lois huffed as if a laugh had choked to death in her trachea. “Yeah, you’ve kept that one. But I still can’t tell you Kent’s secret. I said I wouldn’t let it out into the wild before Wednesday. If Kent is still in the city on Wednesday morning, I’ll tell everyone.”
Lucy turned into the underground parking below their apartment building. She guided the Jeep into Lois’ reserved parking space and pulled out the key. She released her seat belt and turned to her sister with anger starting to bubble up in her chest. “It almost sounds like you’re blackmailing Clark into leaving.”
“It’s not blackmail, exactly – more like coercion.”
“It quacks like a duck, Lois! You’re extorting an action from someone with a threat to reveal a secret that the someone doesn’t want to be made public! That’s blackmail! You ask any of my law professors and they’ll tell you the same thing!” She shoved the driver’s door open, hard enough for it to tap the car next to it.
“Hey! If old man Nowitzki thinks I’ve scratched his classic Mustang he’ll sue me! You better not have nicked the paint!”
Lucy slammed the door shut and yelled, “Forget the Mustang! We’re talking about a person with a life that you’re trying to wreck! You make him leave forever and you’ll regret it!”
Lois stomped around the back of the car and faced Lucy, then put her fists on her hips and leaned into her sister’s face. “Regret, huh? How about this for regrets? I regret ever meeting him! I regret partnering with him! I regret every moment when I let him lie to me and tell me he cared! I regret not smothering him with a pillow the day he was born! How am I supposed to believe he – he loves me when – when he lies to me?”
Lucy stopped and looked into her sister’s eyes, full almost to overflowing. She forced her volume and intensity down and did her best to relax. Her next point was important.
“Okay. You don’t want to tell me what the ‘big lie’ is. I get that. I don’t understand it, but I don’t have to. But I think you’ve overlooked something, Lois. If Clark’s lie was that horrible, that destructive, that repellent, and you know the truth behind the lie, you’re perpetuating that lie by not revealing it – and you’re just as guilty of lying as he is.”
Lois’ jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide. As if in a trance, she stumbled away from Lucy to the elevator entrance and pushed the call button. Not once did she look over her shoulder at her sister. It was obvious that Lois wasn’t going to talk, not now.
Monday evening, thought Lucy. If Lois hasn’t told me by then, I’ll go ask Clark.
Right now there were assignments to finish up and tests to study for. Her father wouldn’t pay for her tuition forever. She was too close to finishing the next step toward para-legal certification to stop now.
*****
Martha sat at the kitchen table and stared at the clock on the wall, trying to will the hands to move. Two fifty-three and Clark hadn’t called yet. She wanted to hear from him, wanted him to tell her that he and Lois had thrashed things out and were on a path for their future together. That young woman was fire and spit and vinegar and full of drive and she was just the kind of person Clark needed beside him. The fact that he loved her more than his own life didn’t hurt, either.
She stood and walked to the refrigerator where she poured a tall glass of iced tea. She sat down again and looked at the clock. Two fifty-five! Maybe if she ate a cookie or two the time would pass faster. No, she needed to watch her weight and set a good example for Jonathan. It wouldn’t be right if he walked in and caught her nibbling because she was nervous.
She took a big sip and swallowed. A magazine? No. She’d never be able to concentrate on the words on the page, not even the new Reader’s Digest. She had to keep her mind clear for Clark’s sake.
Two fifty-eight! Come on, son, be early for once!
As if on command, the phone rang.
Martha leaped to her feet and snatched it off the hook without looking at the caller ID display. “Hello! Clark, is that you?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s me.”
“Tell me you have good news for us!”
He sighed into the phone. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Oh, no, honey! What happened!”
“Lois is really mad. I mean, really, really mad. I’ve never seen her like this. She wants me out of Metropolis before Wednesday or she’ll print the secret.”
What? No! She mustn’t do that! She wouldn’t! Not sweet young Lois!
“Mom? You still there?”
Martha realized she’d stopped breathing and inhaled. “Yes, I’m still here. Uh – Clark, are you sure that’s what she told you?”
“I’m sure. She told Perry the secret at the same time. Sorry, this is out of order. I couldn’t sleep so I went to the office early this morning to do some work and found Perry there. About nine forty, I knocked on Lois’ door and she was still livid and she dragged me back to the office and told Perry the secret and all but swore she’d tell everyone if I was still in the city on Wednesday morning.” He stopped and took his own deep breath. “Sorry about the babbling. Guess I’m still pretty upset.”
“That’s only natural, sweetie. What are you going to do?”
“Perry said he’d talk to her on Monday and that I was supposed to go to the office at nine-thirty. I’ll know more then.”
“Oh, Clark, I’m so sorry. Call us when you have something definite, okay? I’ll fill your father in on what you told me.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He sighed again, then said, “I need to go. There’s a car wreck a couple of blocks away and I think someone’s hurt. I’ll just go check to see if Superman’s needed.”
“Go be helpful. We’ll talk again on Monday. Bye for now.”
She waited until he disconnected. Poor Clark. He was always so scared to tell anyone about himself, and now when he’s finally found a woman he thought he could trust with the secret, it’s turned around on him and bitten him. Lois must have some deep pain in her past that Martha hadn’t known about.
Too bad, too, because that hurt in Lois’ past is killing Clark in the present.
*****
Rachel walked through the grassy field of the hospital, listening to the soft harmony of the machines around the beds as they sang to the patients. A nurse wearing a mask, cap, and leafy mini-bikini danced from bed to bed as she tossed maple leaves on the supine figures. One patient rose from his bed and held hands with the nurse, dancing around the maypole in the middle of the ward. The more they spun the fewer leaves clung to the nurse. And she was far from ugly. In fact her hair was downright beautiful, just like her mother’s. The man looked at her with such tenderness that – wait a minute.
It was her father.
Her father was dancing with a nearly naked nurse? The woman was barefoot, too! That just wasn’t sanitary!
Rachel tried to step closer so she could separate the couple but suddenly her feet wouldn’t move. Someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. She growled and swiped at her attacker but whoever it was held on and shook her. She swung at the place her attacker’s head had to be—
—and just missed her mother’s jaw.
Her mom lurched back a step and hissed, “Rachel! It’s me! It’s Mom! Calm down!”
Rachel tried to sit up but rolled off the edge of the couch onto the floor. She caught herself with her hands, then slowly stood. “Mom, I’m sorry, I had this crazy dream where Dad was dancing with a nurse wearing a bikini made of leaves and I wanted to tell him that you were coming and he shouldn’t be doing that with her in public – wow.”
She climbed back onto the couch and dropped her face to her hands. “That was really weird. Wait – I just realized that her hair looked just like yours does on Sunday morning before church. I think – I think he was dancin’ with you in my dream!” She rubbed her cheeks and peeked at her mom. “That’s kind of embarrassing, actually. I never thought I’d dream about walkin’ in on you and Dad being – married like that.” She covered her eyes again. “I’m glad it was you he was dancin’ with, though, and not just some random sexy nurse.”
Janey gave her a corner-eye look. “I should hope so,” she said primly. “Your father doesn’t dance with just any leafy bikini babe he meets.”
After a moment, Rachel lifted her head and laughed. “Yeah, I guess not. Hey, what time is it?”
“Just after four. You slept for almost five hours.”
“Guess I needed it.” She stood. “You been to the hospital yet?”
“No. Martha convinced me to lie down for a while. I set my alarm for three-thirty, and I just got out of the shower.” Janey leaned in and sniffed, then said, “I think you should take a shower too. Make it cool if not cold. You need to be awake for a while.”
“’Kay,” Rachel yawned. “You want to drive to the hospital?”
“Sure, as long as you can drive back. I may want to stay with your dad.”
Rachel nodded. “No problem. You had anything to eat lately?”
“You mean since the meatloaf Martha heated up for us?”
“Yeah. That was good, but I think I’m hungry again.”
Janey grinned. “You go jump in the shower and I’ll make some sandwiches for us. Don’t wash your hair, though, we don’t have time to comb it out and dry it.”
“I do. I don’t wear mine that long anymore, remember? I’ll just dry it fast and put it in a little ponytail.”
“Fine. But if you take too much time I might go without you. I still have to put that leafy bikini together.”
Rachel goggled at her mother, then laughed with her. “I’ll hurry, I promise. I want to watch Dad’s face when he first sees you in those leaves.”
Janey shooed her daughter toward the shower. “No way! I’ll tell you part of it when you’re older. A small part, anyway. You’re still my little girl, remember?”
*****
Early the next morning, Rachel sat beside her father’s bed in the ICU and held his hand. Unlike most big city hospitals, their visiting hours for ICU patients weren’t limited to five to ten minutes every hour. And they were reluctant to run the county sheriff out of the previous sheriff’s cubicle.
A nurse stopped by and felt his forehead, then frowned. Rachel saw it and asked, “Anything wrong?”
The nurse shook her head. “I don’t think so. He feels a little warm, but that’s not unusual at this stage of recovery. He’s still considered to be post-operative. According to the monitor, his blood pressure, heartbeat, and respiration are all within the norms, so I’m going to take his exact temperature—” she pulled a handheld device out of her pocket and touched it to his forehead “—and we’ll monitor it for a few hours to make sure he doesn’t develop a fever.” The device beeped and she looked at it. “Ninety-nine point two. Like I thought, just a little warm, not too bad, but enough for us to watch him.” She faced Rachel and said, “If we have to work on him, you and your mom will have to leave the ICU. Where is she, anyway?”
“She said she’s had too much coffee and her kidneys are fussin’ at her.”
The nurse grinned. “I know what you mean. I have to watch my coffee intake at work or I’ll wear a path in the tile to the ladies’ room during my shift.” She turned to leave. “I promise, Sheriff, we’ll take good care of him.”
“You better or I might have to introduce you to my jail.”
The nurse chuckled. “Too late. Your daddy took care of that when he caught a bunch of us girls joyriding in my friend’s parents’ car. They didn’t know we’d left the slumber party, and when Sheriff Harris took us back and woke them up, boy, were they mad!” They shared a quiet laugh. “Put me on the straight and narrow, though. He told us we were just a few wrong decisions away from being stupid, and just a few stupids away from wrecking our lives. Got through to me real clear.”
“Good for you. Hey, I know my dad’s not y’all’s only patient. Go do a good job with them, too.”
“I’ll do my best. You need anything, you just call for Evelyn. And if you see something about your dad you think we should know, just push the call button on the bedside panel.”
“Will do. And thanks, Evelyn.”
“You’re welcome. You just take all the time you need.”
Evelyn left Rachel alone with her thoughts. Despite her father’s condition, her mind kept flitting back to what Martha had told her and her mother about Clark and Lois and how they were fighting over some secret he’d told her. And she still bad that she hadn’t had any advice for Martha to pass on to Clark.
Maybe if she could talk it over with her dad it would help. He wouldn’t answer, of course, but maybe voicing it would help her think more clearly. And she’d heard that talking to patients, even if they didn’t respond, did no harm and often appeared to do some good. Rachel thought it must ground them in this world and encourage them to stay instead of passing on to the next one.
She’d give it a shot. She adjusted her uncomfortable chair as close to her dad’s ear as possible, took his hand in hers, then leaned forward and spoke quietly.
“Hey, Dad, this is Rachel again. We’re doin’ okay without you in the office, but it’d be better when you can drop by unexpectedly and shake hands with the deputies and the staff and just be your big old friendly self again.
“Everybody misses you. Mom’s outside waitin’ for her turn to sit with you. We’re gonna swap out in about ten or fifteen minutes, so I’m gonna be here until then. You just keep on gettin’ better, okay?”
She sighed and gathered her thoughts. “I know you remember Clark Kent, the guy who took me to his senior prom when Lana Lang dumped him. He’s been working as a reporter back east in Metropolis for about a couple of years now, and he’s found a lady he wants to stay with forever. You know, that ‘forever and a day’ kind of love you and Mom always talk about, the kind you want for me. Clark thought he found that love with her but it seems like things ain’t going so good between ‘em right now.
“Anyway, he told her some deep hidden secret he’s been keeping from her, and she got mad and seems like she don’t want him now. I guess he tried to get back with her but that didn’t work out. Maybe she don’t love him like he thought. She sure acted like it last year when they was here for that EPA investigation, but I guess she ain’t so constant as Clark wishes she was.
“Martha asked me and Mom if we had any advice for him to help him fix things with her and – and we didn’t have doodly-squat and now I feel bad about it, like I let Clark down. I’m telling you all this because you know how – you know how I never found a guy I could trust and love, not around here and not in college.”
She stopped and took a deep breath. “I think Clark could be that guy for me.
“I know, I’m dreamin’, but it’s a nice dream and I don’t dwell on it. ‘Cept now, when you’re here like this and Mom don’t have nothin’ in her head but you and me, makes me sad to think how I don’t have a guy I feel like that about. I want that kind o’ love in my life, Dad. I really do. I see it with you and Mom and with Martha and Jonathan and with other couples and I want it and I ain’t got it.
“And yes, you told me a lot of times to open my heart and look for a guy I won’t have to work to keep myself from shooting. Problem is, when I do that I always circle back to Clark. Can’t help it. He’s just that fine a man. And I know what kept us from goin’ anywhere near that when we were in high school was that he wanted to go out in the world and do big things and save the world and then do it again and I all I wanted was to be sheriff right here in Smallville after you retired.
“I did that. And it’s great, Dad, don’t misunderstand me. I wouldn’t change a minute of what I’ve done since that prom. I got that law enforcement degree, I was your deputy for two years, you helped me get elected, and if I run again in another year I figure I’ll get elected again. It’s a good life, Dad, and you’re helping me to live it, showing me what to do and when to do it.
Smallville’s my home and it’s a good place for me.
“But if Clark came to my office one day after you get well and asked me to leave with him and travel all over the world with him and be with him and love him like nobody’s business I’d do it without lookin’ back.” She bent her head forward and closed her eyes, trying not to cry over everything in her life and mind and heart. “Don’t know if that’s wrong or not. I just know I’d go and not look back, even if I ended up an unhappy traveler.”
She sighed quietly. “I don’t wanna disappoint you, but I don’t wanna miss out on something really good in my life, either. And Clark’s a really special guy, Dad. I just wish – I wish I knew what to do.” Rachel gave her father’s hand a soft squeeze, then slowly released it. She sat back in the chair with her head still down, her chin almost resting on her chest.
Her breathing slowed until she was almost asleep again.
A gentle pressure on her shoulder roused her. “Rachel?” her mother whispered. “Honey, it’ll be okay. We love you.”
She lifted her head without looking. “I guess you heard all that, huh?”
“Most of it. But don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. And honestly? None of that was a surprise to me. I already knew how you felt about your father and me, about your job, about your life.” Janey paused, then said, “I even knew how you felt about Clark.”
Rachel huffed and allowed a tiny smile to show. “I guess I ain’t been all that good at keeping that secret after all.”
“You have. I know because I’m your mother. I don’t think your dad knows how you feel about Clark, but I can’t be sure. We’ve never talked about it.” She chuckled. “Maybe we’re each trying to prevent the other from interfering in your life. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Rachel smiled wearily. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”
“I know, honey. And I love you too. But I think it’s time I got to tell your father one of my deepest darkest secrets. Besides, it’s after five in the morning and you need to eat. And I think maybe you need to go home and get some real sleep in a real bed that’s used to your body.”
She yawned and stretched her arms forward. “You talked me into it. I’ll come back this afternoon.” She stood and held her mother’s hand, then kissed her mom on the cheek. “Dad’s a fighter. He won’t give up. I know it and you know it. He’ll come home.”
Janey smiled and nodded. “I’m hanging on to that, honey. I know he’ll be okay.” She returned her daughter’s kiss. “And so will you.”
Rachel nodded and left. Sure hope so, she mused.
Comment thread here.
