“At least I don’t stink up the entire house with my perfume.”
“My perfume doesn’t stink, you jackass,” she said. “It smells a hell of a lot better than your Axe body spray.”
“You both smell wonderful, now drop it,” Jessica told them. “And as for your father, go easy on him. You don’t understand what he’s been going through.”
“Hehasn’t been going through anything,” Winnie said. “You have, and Grandma has, but he hasn’t.”
“When you love people and they’re hurting, you’re hurting too,” Jess told her. She nodded to herself, thinking about how wise she sounded. Yes, she was going to be a very wiseattorney at law. Eventually, the other associates would come to her for advice. Not at first, on account of her being new, but after a while, they’d realize how all of that real life experience she had was an asset.
“He’s just making it all about himself, which is what men do,” Winnie said, shaking the empty box in her brother’s direction.
Noah shook his head at his sister in disbelief. “What happened to you to make you so cynical?”
“Life!”
Jessica sighed, feeling all that delicious optimistic energy draining out of her body. “Just … have some yogurt or something.”
The bickering finally stopped when both kids disappeared to their bedrooms. Jessica took out some eggs and got started making omelets with tomato, mushrooms, ham, cheese, and green onions for dinner. Mike loved her omelets, and she hoped that the effort would help soften things between them.
When Baxter announced Mike’s arrival, Jess wiped her hands on a dish towel and walked to the hall to greet him. He looked tired as he toed off his shoes, his tie already loosened.
“How’s your mom?”
He looked up, seeming surprised to see her standing there. “She’s coming along. They’re releasing her tomorrow, which will make it a lot easier.”
“Is she ready to be at home?”
He nodded. “They’ll send over a care nurse every couple of days to help her bathe. It’s for the best. She’ll sleep better and be able to relax, and my dad won’t have to go back and forth every day.”
They both started for the kitchen together, and when they got there, Mike stopped. “Are you making supper?”
She smiled at him. “Yep.”
His eyes hardened as he stared at the pan on the stove. “You shouldn’t do that. Remember the nurse said not to be a hero.”
“I’m feeling a lot better today,” she told him.
“That’s good, but if you overdo it, it’ll only set you back further,” he said, jamming his hands into the front pockets of his slacks. “I’ll go up and change, then finish making supper.”
“It’s fine, really,” Jess said, feeling oddly rejected. “It’s almost ready.”
Mike smiled at her, and it was a smile that made her feel like the dark cloud over their marriage had finally blown away. “Okay, well, great. Thanks.”
She smiled back at him, then said, “I’m sorry things have been so tense between us this past week.”
Mike pursed his lips. “It didn’t have to go that way, you know? If you could’ve just accepted my apology in the first place.”
“I know,” she said with a nod. “I just wasn’t ready and by the time you got home from work, you were clearly mad at me, which annoyed me.”
He sighed. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, the next move was up to you. I tried to say sorry.”
Jess shrugged. “In a text that honestly didn’t sound all that apologetic.”
“Because of the goddess joke? I wasn’t trying to make light of the situation. I was trying to make you smile.”
“Well, it felt like you were making light of it.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, and Jess knew he was doing the same thing she was—trying to decide if he could let the whole thing go or whether it was worth digging his heels in for a few more days. But she didn’t want to dig in her heels. She wanted to move forward with her life. “I should have talked to you about it that night and let you know why it bothered me, and I am sorry I let it fester so long.”
