“Baby, everyone is deserving of mercy. If they weren’t, why did Jesus die for our sins? We all deserve to be forgiven. The liar, the cheater, the murderer, the addict, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, you deserve to be forgiven.”
“It’s funny that you should say that, because you seem to have a hard time forgiving yourself for whatever role you played in your husband’s death.”
She turned away from me and scrubbed the counter extra hard. “I drove the car.”
“Come on, you can do better than that.”
She spun around and stared at me with her hands on her hips. “I’m serious.”
“Okay, maybe. But while Jesus may forgive Paul, I don’t.”
“That’s fine, baby. Maybe one day you will get there.”
“What smells so good in here?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I made you some chicken parmesan, angel hair pasta, and garlic bread. There’s an apple pie in the oven that will come out in twenty minutes, by the time we’re finished with our dinner, and there’s vanilla ice cream in the freezer.”
“That sounds good. Let me go get undressed.”
“You do that, sir.”
I removed my equipment and undressed. By the time that I headed back out into the dining room, wearing my basketball shorts and T-shirt, she had already set the table and had our food on the table with a bottle of wine.
“This smells so good. I’m starving.”
“You didn’t eat breakfast this morning before you left. Did you eat lunch?”
“Nah. I wasn’t hungry this morning, and as the trial went on, I wasn’t able to eat lunch. We recessed for lunch, but my stomach was too knotted up to think about eating. My head hurts now though.”
“Baby, even if you eat nothing but a banana or an apple, you have to eat something. You need to keep your energy up. Just take a banana in the morning, or maybe even a Kind bar. I have a better idea. I’ll get up early enough to make you a smoothie, at least, so that you can get your protein and vitamins for the day.”
“Sounds good,” I replied.
I reached across the table and held her hand, and she said a small prayer over our meal and my state of mind. When we released hands, I dug into the meal while she talked. I half-listened to her, and the other half of my mind was turned to the day’s trial.
I wondered what tomorrow would bring, but more than anything, I couldn’t wait for the trial to be over. It was a gruelingfirst day, and I couldn’t imagine that it would get any better. The thing I worried about most was Mrs. Jones’s state of mind as the trial progressed.
“That was delicious, baby. I’m stuffed. I think I’ll need to wait for a little while before I eat that ice cream and pie. You want to watch a movie?” I suggested.
“I was thinking that maybe I could help you relax.”
A slow smile crept on my lips. “I think I like the sound of that.”
She laughed and swatted at me. “I wasn’t talking about sex,” she replied as she gathered our dishes.
I grabbed the serving dishes and the glasses and followed her to the kitchen. We set everything in the dishwater to soak, because we would return later to place them in the dishwasher.
“Okay, what did you have in mind, if not my favorite pastime?”
She grabbed my hand and led me to my bedroom. “You haven’t been in your bathroom yet, have you?”
“No. I came in here and put my equipment away, put my uniform in the laundry bag, and changed into my evening clothes. What’s up?”
She smiled as she opened my bathroom door and winked at me. When she pointed at my tub, I saw that bubbles filled the tub.
“I thought you might like a relaxing bath this evening so that you could get your mind off things.”
“Is that water even still hot?”
