“Probably. Unless you think it might have been a ghost.”
Merritt’s face stilled. “There’s no such thing.” She sounded like a child trying to prove something wrong just by saying it.
“There’s so much in this great big universe that we don’t understand. But just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Kind of like love, don’t you think? Many people never really experience it, but they still have faith that it’s out there.”
Merritt hugged her arms around her middle, something Loralee had seen people do on planes during bad turbulence.
Loralee leaned forward, feeling a bit like Dr. Phil during one of his TV shows. Except he always wore a suit and not a leopard-print peignoir. “You must miss your husband a lot.”
The look in Merritt’s eyes made Loralee sit back in a hurry. It took her a moment to recognize what she’d seen there. It was fear. But fear of what? Acknowledging how much she missed Cal? Or fear that the question would lead to another?
“Why did you say that?”
Loralee shrugged. “I’m usually pretty good at reading people and situations, but I get a lot of mixed signals from you about your husband, and to be honest, I just can’t figure it out. Was he a lot like Gibbes?”
“No,” Merritt answered without even pausing to think about it. Which meant she’d already been thinking about it a lot. “Except for their eyes and the color of their hair, they are nothing alike.”
“I’m taking that as a good thing,” Loralee said, bending forward to ease the pain in her abdomen.
“Not that it matters. Cal is gone, and Gibbes isn’t a permanent fixture in my life.”
Loralee considered her stepdaughter. “You know, if you married Gibbes, you wouldn’t have to change the monograms on any of your towels or linens.”
Merritt, whose legs had been crossed, jerked up so quickly her knee hit the underside of the table. “What are you talking about? I’m not marrying anybody—especially not Gibbes. I don’t ever want to get married again. Marriage . . . it didn’t suit me.”
“Maybe it’s because you just didn’t marry the right man. It’s pretty rare that a person gets it right on the first try. I was married once, before your daddy.”
Merritt rubbed her knee as she looked at Loralee with surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“I was still wet behind the ears—barely eighteen. We were married for about five seconds. Mama said I was making a mistake, which of course meant I had to go ahead and do it. And after the divorce I moved back in with Mama and she never once said, ‘I told you so.’ That’s when she said that life is a lot like the interstate, where every exit is an entrance someplace else.” Loralee smiled. “And she was right. My divorce made me see that I needed to make some changes, and that’s when I decided I wanted to be a flight attendant. And if that hadn’t happened, then I never would have met your daddy.
“So, see? Maybe it wasn’t that marriage didn’t suit you. Maybe you just weren’t married to the right person.”
“Are you not wearing any makeup?”
Loralee blinked at the abrupt change of subject. Robert had been that way, too—changing the subject when the current one no longer interested him. It must be a New England thing, because Southerners would talk a subject to death until it lay gasping and panting in the dust. And if it were an unpleasant one, they’d just end it with, “Bless your heart.”
“No, I’m not—well, except for my tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner. My mama taught me that the first rule to having good skin was to always take your makeup off before you went to bed at night.”
Merritt considered her for a moment. “You look pretty without it, you know. Although I think I need to change the bulbs in here—you look a little yellow. Why do you wear it?”
Loralee smiled her flight-attendant smile. “Because I like how it makes me feel—strong, powerful. Confident. It’s like a man putting on a suit and tie, I guess, but more fun. You know us Southern girls are born with a makeup brush in one hand and a lipstick in the other.”
Despite her best efforts, Merritt laughed, the sound bubbling out of her mouth.
“You should try it sometime,” Loralee said.
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin. My mother didn’t wear makeup either.”
Their eyes met in mutual surprise that Merritt’s last sentence hadn’t come out as an accusation.
Being careful not to push too much, Loralee said, “When you’re ready, I’d be happy to give you a starter course.” Her gaze dipped down to Merritt’s shirt. “What are you wearing?”
Merritt looked down as if she’d forgotten what she’d slipped over her head only a few hours ago. “It’s one of Cal’s sweatshirts.”
“Do you wear it to feel him close to you again?”
Merritt opened her mouth to speak, her lips moving as she thought about her answer.