Mrs. Miracle 01 - Mrs. Miracle(30)

As she added the chocolate chips and walnuts to the dough, she smiled, pleased with this recent decision to work out the bumps in her marriage. They were both strong-willed and stubborn. Both old fools.

Jerry wanted to take a trip through the Panama Canal. There would be other cruises, other vacations, and next time she could choose when and where. It was silly for them both to be so unreasonable with one another.

Perhaps if she gave in on this, Jerry would see his way clear to flying to Seattle with her to visit the grandkids over Christmas. If she showed her willingness to compromise, he would, too. Jerry was a fair man. She hadn’t been married to him all these years without knowing that.

The first sheet of cookies were cooling when her husband walked in the door. If he noticed the scent of freshly baked cookies, he said nothing. It’d been a good long while since she’d last baked. This was a rare treat.

He ignored her and opened the refrigerator door, glaring inside as if seeking buried treasure.

“Do you want a cookie?” she asked, playing it cool.

The last few days the tension between them had been as thick as glue.

“Did you put nuts in them?” he asked.

She nodded. “Walnuts.” His favorite.

“I don’t like walnuts,” he said, bringing out a bowl of leftover spaghetti.

“Since when?” she demanded. He’d been eating her chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts for years and never said a word before now.

“Since I was a kid.” He set the spaghetti on the counter and reached for a plate.

“You always ate walnuts before.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t like it.”

Sharon planted her mitt-covered hand on her hip. “Do you mean to tell me that it took you forty years to tell me you don’t like walnuts?” She didn’t believe it, not for a moment. He was being deliberately argumentative, deliberately unappreciative.

“It took me forty years longer than it should have,” he snapped. He slapped a glob of spaghetti on the plate and stuck it inside the microwave. He punched a few buttons and glared back at her.

The sound of the microwave in process whirled through the kitchen as it warmed his lunch. Sharon had purposely waited to eat so that she could sit down and join him, but her appetite had vanished, replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Is there anything else you don’t like that you haven’t mentioned?” she asked without emotion.

“Plenty. I prefer spaghetti with meatballs instead of the meat all crumbled in with the sauce.”

Sharon had made her spaghetti from the same recipe all these years, and not once had he said one word about preferring meatballs.

He must have seen the stricken look on her face because he added, “You asked, didn’t you?”

The oven timer beeped.

Sharon had no defense, and rather than answer him, she removed the last cookie sheet from the oven. She stared at the perfectly shaped cookies, with the chocolate chips bright and melting. After only a moment’s hesitation she dumped them straight into the garbage.

“What’d you do that for?” Jerry demanded, irritation raising his voice half an octave.

“You don’t like walnuts,” she reminded him, doing her best to keep the hurt out of her voice. “I’d hate to force you to eat something not to your liking.”

The microwave beeped, and Jerry grabbed the plate before she had a chance to take that away from him as well.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded. His gaze narrowed as he studied her intently. “Did you take your hormones this morning?”

“Forty years, and not once did you tell me you don’t like walnuts.” The words were an accusation of all that was wrong with their marriage.

“I don’t hate them,” he argued. He walked over to the kitchen cabinet where she kept her medication, removed the bottle, and shook it before putting it back. “Maybe that’s what the problem is.”

“The only problem I have is you, Jerry Palmer.”

His eyes rounded as he slapped his hand over his heart. “You think I’m your problem? Sweetheart, you’d better take a look in the mirror. If there’s problems in this family, I’m not the one—”

“If you don’t like the way I cook, maybe you should do your own cooking,” she challenged.

“Maybe I should,” Jerry countered. “I’ve cooked my own breakfast all week.”

“Great, now you can try your hand at lunch and dinner as well.”

“No problem.”

Sharon slammed the mitt down on the counter. “I’m sure it won’t be.” She stalked past him and made her way into the guest bedroom. Sitting at the end of the twin mattress, she intertwined her fingers in an attempt to still the trembling in her hands.

She wasn’t a woman who often succumbed to tears, but they blurred her eyes now. Tilting her head back, she blinked furiously, refusing to let them fall, refusing to allow her pain to roll free.

She was the emotionally strong one in the family. Not until Pamela’s death did she realize how strong. When they’d heard the terrible news, Jerry had withdrawn behind a brick wall of pain, unwilling and perhaps afraid to reveal his anguish. Seth had been in shock, blinded by grief and fear of what would happen to him and the children without Pamela.