Hmm, is this photo here because I'm hungry? It's probably because I've been reading the past few chapters. Maybe I'll share this recipe later. In the meantime, read chapter 43 --after you grab a snack, if necessary...
Secrets at Midnight
Leona Palmer Haag
Chapter 43
Matt had pushed away
dismal thoughts a thousand times that day, but now they settled in—a gloom he
couldn't shake. They might not survive. Alone, he knew he could hike out, but
not with a woman and baby—a very thin
woman without an ounce of fat who had lost her spunk. Without conviction, he
told himself Jenn was tough. She stumbled, leaning heavily against him,
contradicting his hopes. When he spoke it wasn't about living or dying. “You
remember my sister, Allyson, don't you?”
When Jenn barely
acknowledged him, he began telling her about Allyson’s husband and kids. When
the one-sided conversation lagged he coached himself: Keep her moving. Keep her
thinking. Keep her mind off our situation. He spoke of his other brothers and
sisters, then his words ground to a halt and they trudged on in silence.
“Why did you marry
Monica?” Jenn asked, surprising him.
He'd asked himself the
question a hundred times and the answer always came out the same. “I fell in
love—again.”
Jenn barely nodded,
accepting his answer.
“She's easy to love.”
“If you say so.”
“She asked me to.” He
glanced at Jenn and thought he detected a smile. “We met back when I was
working in Miami. We’ve always been friends. She's an incredible woman. After
she came to Dallas we started spending time together and one day she said we
ought to get married, so that afternoon we did.”
“Just like that?”
“Basically.”
“What about having the
family you always wanted? Remember when you’d say you wanted six kids? I can't
picture Monica ever having kids.”
He remained silent.
“For some reason, I
look at you and Monica and I can't see the old you. I see some guy wearing
fancy clothes and trying to do fancy things to keep up with a fancy wife.”
He’d entertained those
exact thoughts a few times.
“Why Monica?” she
pressed.
He glanced at the
petite woman stumbled along beside him. “Monica has two kids. Her son lives in
Washington state. He's a CFO for a software company. He's married and has a
kid.”
Jenn gasped.
He laughed. “Her
daughter will graduate from medical school next year.”
“Monica is a grandma?
How old is she? She never told me any of that.”
“Did you ask?” He
laughed, and finally Jenn did too.
“She first married
when she was sixteen and pregnant. She never graduated from high school. After
two kids she found herself alone. In a lot of ways she grew up like us—on the
wrong side of town in poverty. She got her GED, then a degree in criminal
justice. She moved on from there. She's as plain-Jane as they come, except
she's also an exotic flower.”
“Wow—you do love her.”
“She's a rose. She has
her thorns, but she's also an incredible person. I love her, I admire her, I
can't get enough of her, and sometimes wish I had half her ambition and drive.
Every once in a while she drives me nuts because she can't cook and she hates
to clean and leaves it to me, but she has fixed an electrical problem in our
bathroom, and she has a dead-eye aim.”
“She fixed your
wiring—or did she secretly call an electrician?”
“I witnessed her fix
it. It meant she could soak in the whirlpool.”
“Oh, I get it—the
desire for instant gratification produced miracles.”
“Yeah, that and
jiggling a wire. If I'd tackled the thing I would have torn the whole motor
apart and ended up fixing it on accident.”
“How old is she?”
After being evasive
and teasing her and making Jenn beg, he finally said, “You do the math. I'm
five years older than you, she had Justin when she was sixteen, she's older
than me by a century minus a few decades and then some, and...”
“How old is Grandma Monica?!”
“Forty-seven.” He
laughed when Jenn gasped.
“She's ten years older
than you? You married an old grandma?
A cougar?”
“Sure did.
Speechless?”
“Shocked, actually.”
Matt chuckled. Maybe
Jenn wouldn't sit down and die now—not if she had something to think about. But
even though he had laughed with her, his heart ached. He had no idea where
Monica was. Had his rose become ashes?
End Chapter 43
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