“If you don’t know for sure, then my guess is you wear it because you always have. Does it make you feel good? Or sexy? Or even like a girl?”
Merritt frowned. “It’s something to sleep in. I don’t need to feel anything but tired when I put it on.”
It was Loralee’s turn to look surprised. “Do you mean to say that after being married for seven years, it never occurred to you that what you wear to bed should make you feel something?”
Merritt squirmed in her seat. “Cal was away a lot at the firehouse, and it gets pretty cold in Maine. I needed to be warm, and this worked.”
“It’s not cold here.” Loralee looked pointedly at her.
Merritt shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to sleep in—well, except for a football jersey. Besides, I roll the sleeves up so I’m not too warm.”
“Well, we can certainly fix that,” Loralee said, her mind racing in all sorts of directions, and she was happy to follow it down any one because then she didn’t have to think about how bad she felt.
She stood and went to the freezer and yanked it open. Ice coated the surface like the fur on a winter hat. “Make sure your next freezer is self-defrosting. I’ve already taken an ice pick to this, but it doesn’t seem to help.”
Reaching in, she pulled out a gallon of ice cream and then retrieved the fudge sauce from the refrigerator. “And you need a microwave.” She pulled out a small saucepan from one of the lower cabinets and placed it on top of the stove.
“What are you doing?” Merritt asked.
“I’m making you a chocolate sundae. Isn’t that why you came down here?”
Merritt’s face was exactly like Owen’s when she caught him sneaking cookies from the cookie jar. She turned to tell Robert to look, forgetting once more that her husband wasn’t there anymore to share parts of their day, to call attention to the funny things Owen did and said. He was gone, and she’d accepted it and had even learned to live with it. But that didn’t mean she’d ever stop looking for him.
Merritt opened her mouth to deny it, but Loralee cut her off with a wave of the ice-cream scoop. “Owen has a sweet tooth the size of Texas, and it had to come from somewhere, because it didn’t come from me.” She placed three large scoops of ice cream in a bowl. As she poured a good amount of chocolate syrup into the saucepan, she said, “I’m a salty kind of person—I love chips and French fries and pretty much anything fried. Robert loved his desserts, that’s for sure. He couldn’t get enough of my red velvet cake—and Owen, too. I should make one for you. And if half of it is missing when I come down in the morning, I’ll know I was right about you.”
She adjusted the burner under the pan. “Only one burner works on this stove.”
“Loralee?”
“Not that I’m trying to rush you into anything, but a kitchen is the heart of any home. I think once you get the kitchen exactly as you want it, you’ll feel more at home here.”
“Loralee?” Merritt’s voice was insistent enough to make Loralee stop talking and turn to her stepdaughter.
“Yes?”
“Are you sure you’re all right? It looks like you’re crying.”
Loralee touched her face and her fingers came away damp. “It’s the allergies,” she said, but didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears.
“Come sit down, all right? I can make my own sundae.”
Too tired to argue, Loralee switched places with Merritt, watching as she turned off the burner and poured the chocolate over the ice cream. “Do we have any candied cherries or caramel pecans?”
Loralee dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “No, but I’ll add them to the grocery list. Maybe some peanut-butter chips, too?”
“Oh, yes,” Merritt said as she brought her sundae to the table and placed two spoons between them.
“No, thank you,” Loralee said, her stomach already protesting at the sickly sweet smell of it. “And what’s a ‘pee-can’?”
Merritt paused with a brimming spoonful of ice cream and fudge sauce suspended in front of her mouth. “It’s a nut. You know, like in pee-can pie. You’re from the South—I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”
“I know what a ‘puh-cahn’ is. That’s a nut that you eat. A pee-can is something a soldier takes on maneuvers. If you’re going to be living in the South, you need to know the difference.”
Merritt smiled as she swallowed her first bite. “Well, no matter what you call them, they taste great with caramel sauce and poured on ice cream.”
They sat in a comfortable silence while Merritt ate and Loralee studied her face for future makeup lessons. When Merritt was finished, she washed and dried her bowl and spoon, then put them away before pouring herself a tall glass of water to take upstairs.
“Aren’t you coming up?” she asked as she stood by the doorway.