Page 81 of A Hero Comes Home

She could hear the smile in his voice, and waited for the zinger.

“They brought a couple of gifts for me. Some cannabis oil for my leg, and some funny cigarettes for pain.”

“Don’t you dare smoke weed with the kids around.”

He laughed. “I might be tempted. You better hurry home to restrain my impulses.”

When she clicked off her phone and set it aside, José remarked, “You’re smiling again.” Her assistant baker had been teasing her for days about the loopy grin she sported all the time, a sure sign, in his male handbook, that her maracas were being rattled on a regular basis. “Chac-chac!” he added, in case she didn’t get the message.

When Sally got home, her parents were sitting on the back porch swing, sipping at lemonades, which Jake, bless his heart, must have made for them. She kissed them both, and marveled at how good they looked.

“I swear, you two don’t ever age,” Sally said.

Her father preened. Her mother arched her brows sardonically and said, “Lots of hard work on all the drooping parts.”

They were a sophisticated couple, more attuned to city living and its attire, especially the Broadway scene with its many opening nights and cast parties. Her father, whose salt-and-pepper hair was designer unruly, looked elegant even in the T-shirt and slacks he wore today. Of course, the T-shirt was aqua silk tucked under a twisted leather belt into pleated white pants, no socks, and white deck shoes. He wore a plain Rolex watch on his wrist and a small diamond stud in one ear, which should go over big with the folks of Bell Cove. It was the kind of outfit you might see at a Long Island afternoon cocktail party where George and Amal might drop by while in the city, or Bette Midler, who was a frequent participant or visitor to the Great White Way and its players’ homes, or whoever was the celebrity du jour.

Her mother was casually elegant, as well, in a red short-sleeved, scoop-necked fitted top over multicolored harem pants and black sandals. Her brown hair, like Sally’s, was long and coiled into a loose chignon at her neck. Her only jewelry was the set of ruby drop earrings that her father had gifted her the night they got their first Tony Award for set design. It had been for the musical Magi. As far as Sally could recollect, there had been a half-dozen other Tonys since then.

“You look good, too, sweetheart,” her mother remarked. “To what can I attribute that beautiful flush of your skin? Some new retinol cream? The healthy climate? Or . . . ?”

Sally felt herself flush some more.

“Whatever it is, you could bottle it and sell it at Saks for a fortune.”

“And you smell good, too,” her father added. “Eau de vanilla?”

She laughed. “I was making a wedding cake today, and, yes, it was heavy on the vanilla piping.”

“We are so proud of you,” her mother remarked, and her father nodded.

Sally hoped that was true. For years they’d been urging her to come back to New York and pick up her music studies. Especially after Jake’s “death.”

“I need to take these inside,” Sally said, indicating the bakery bag she was carrying. “I brought some of my latest monster cookies for you to sample, and a fresh loaf of ciabatta. I also stopped at the deli for some of that roasted pepper hummus you liked so much last time you were here.”

“Ooh, good!” her father said. “I’m starving.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t believe it for one minute. He ate two of those horrible cow-meat patties when he thought I wasn’t looking.”

Her father grinned, unrepentant.

“Where are the kids and Jake?”

“Boys are inside, and Jake is in the garage working out,” her mother said. Then, a bit teary-eyed, she whispered, “He looks surprisingly good, though way too thin. I was expecting—I don’t know—that he would be changed, I suppose.”

“And he was very welcoming to us,” her father added.

What he didn’t say was that Jake wasn’t his usual quietly defensive, almost surly, self when they were around.

Good!

Her parents followed her into the kitchen where she left them to set the table and lay out the light lunch and dessert from the bakery boxes. She told them that the boys would probably join them, even though they’d just finished their own midday meal. They were always hungry.

She went into the living room then to find the three of them kneeling on the floor, hard at work on a hundred-piece puzzle of New York City that was laid out on the coffee table. They barely noticed her entrance.

“Hey, boys, what’s up?”

“We did all the corners and are looking for side pieces like you taught us,” Mark said, “but we’re having trouble. Will you help us?”