Mrs. Miracle 01 - Mrs. Miracle(15)

“I wish you hadn’t said anything about Christmas,” Jerry said, his words stiff and tight with anger.

“Why? It’s time to make the flight arrangements. Past time, really.”

“I told you that I didn’t think it was a good idea to visit the kids.”

“And I disagree. I miss them. They’re as much a part of me as my own children.” She stopped short of reminding him that Judd and Jason felt as much like her own children as the ones she’d borne herself. Surely he could understand that.

“I want you to call Seth back and tell him—”

“I most certainly will not!” Sharon cried, too outraged even to let him finish. With her housecoat flowing behind her like the train of a wedding dress, she swept out of the bedroom.

She stood in the kitchen and looked around her, eyes narrowing at the sight. Jerry had cooked his own breakfast all right, and he’d used every frying pan in the house to do it. Her spotlessly clean kitchen resembled a construction site. The travel brochures for the Panama cruise littered the round oak table.

Jerry followed her, his face red and his eyes hot. She rarely went against her husband, but she was standing her ground now. He walked toward the phone.

“Who are you phoning?”

“Seth.” He lifted the receiver from the hook.

“If you call Seth, I’ll refuse to take that ridiculous cruise with you.”

Jerry’s eyes widened with shock. “Ridiculous cruise?”

“It was never my idea to sail through the Panama Canal. I wanted to go to Hong Kong, remember?”

He cringed as though the very idea were repugnant to him. They glared at each other, each waiting for the other to capitulate. Slowly Jerry hung up the phone. “Maybe I should take that cruise by myself, then,” he muttered.

She stiffened. “Maybe you should.”

His gaze narrowed as he filled his coffee cup and stalked out of the kitchen. At first Sharon was tempted to call after him, explain how much it meant for her to visit the grandchildren; but she said nothing. Jerry didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t understand. Or care to.

She sagged onto a kitchen chair. It was difficult to know when their relationship had gone wrong. She loved her husband, but she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life with him. Not with things the way they currently were. She couldn’t believe this was happening. It would take a miracle to heal her marriage.





Chapter 7


Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, and faith looks up.

—Mrs. Miracle





Seth’s hand lingered on the telephone. Something was wrong with Sharon. He knew his mother-in-law, could sense her uneasiness, her unhappiness. He heard it in the telltale inflection in her voice, the hesitation, the weariness. He wished he knew what he could do to help, or if that were even possible. He felt close to his in-laws. Close and grateful, as well he should.

During his most recent visit to California, when he’d driven down to move the twins back with him, he’d noticed something then. Sharon had laughed a little too loudly, sounded a shade too enthusiastic. Not about the twins leaving; that had been difficult on everyone. But about life in general. It wasn’t like her.

His father-in-law, however, had grown quiet, introspective. Noncommunicative. He’d seemed prone to hide his face in a book. There’d been some talk about the Palmers taking a cruise, but since then he hadn’t heard anything more about this long-awaited vacation.

Seth had attributed their odd behavior to the stress of his taking the children. But whatever the reason, it didn’t seem to have gone away. The tension was as thick as tar.

Not until he was puttering around inside the garage while the twins helped Mrs. Merkle with dinner did he realize that he hadn’t spoken to Jerry, and neither had the twins. His father-in-law generally made a practice of speaking briefly with the twins each week. Seth understood that the kids’ grandfather didn’t like talking on a phone, but he got a kick out of chatting with his two grandchildren. Not so this Sunday.

Seth reached for the toaster. It had stopped working a month or so earlier, when Mrs. Hamilton had ruled the roost. He’d promised to take a look at it, but this was the first chance he’d had. Not that he held out much hope of repairing it. It would probably save a lot of time and effort if he were to pop into the car and buy a new one. And he might have, if fixing it hadn’t afforded him the opportunity to piddle around the garage and enjoy the solitude.

In another hour the Seahawk football game would be televised, and the kids would be crawling all over him. The toaster offered him the perfect excuse to spend a few peaceful moments alone.

For a long time, Seth had avoided opportunities to think. Then, just when he’d felt it was no longer necessary to restrain his thoughts from dwelling on his dead wife, the children had returned. Every now and again one of the twins would glance up at him and it was like looking into Pamela’s eyes, seeing his wife smile again. He might as well have been hit from behind. The pain was back, ever-present. Ever reminding him of all that he’d lost.

He sought his own company this afternoon for another reason, however. He’d seen her in church that morning.

Her.

He didn’t know her name. A face. A friendly, pretty face, with wide, hauntingly beautiful eyes that seemed to reach out and touch him. She’d been sitting toward the back of the church, hidden behind a marble column, looking as fresh and lovely as a bouquet of springtime flowers.