Chapter Twenty-Five

“Thanks. I had a great time,” said Lori as they left the courthouse. “The music did me good.”

Becky smiled at her. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Thanks for inviting me.”

Becky had given her a ride over. And she had just as much trouble getting behind the wheel with her huge belly this time as before.

“How can you even drive?”

“Because I’m too stubborn not to.” She started the car and turned toward Lori’s neighborhood. “Plus my feet are too swollen to walk.”

They drove in silence for a moment. Becky shot her a glance. Then another.

“What?” asked Lori.

“I’m just wondering . . . how are things going with John?”

Lori looked at Becky, huge as a blimp. “When are you due again?”

Becky groaned. “I still have a little over three weeks—and don’t you dare change the subject on a grouchy pregnant woman.”

“Did he ask you to do this?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not! It freaked him out that I called you. But I had to know how you feel about him.”

Lori sighed. “I’ll be leaving soon. I need to keep my distance and not get any more involved with John right now.”

“So you admit you are involved, then.”

Lori sighed again. “I like John very much.”

“Do you love him?”

Words caught in her throat. Hurt rose within her. She couldn’t go there. How could she tell Becky she loved John, but still had to leave him? “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If you love him, why don’t you allow yourself to be with him?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Oh, Lori, I can see it in your eyes. Every time you look at him, I can see it. And every time he looks at you, he glows.”

The hurt threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t know how to make Becky understand without telling her the truth—and she could never reveal her secret. “Becky, please. I can’t talk about it. It’s not an easy decision, but one I feel is my only option.”

“Okay.” It was Becky’s turn to sigh. “But if you need someone to talk to, I’m a good listener.”

~

“Now what are you doing?” asked John, feeling totally out of control. What had he started when he’d called his father earlier? The Walker family troops had been mobilized. Everyone had gone home with their assignments.

And his mother had just picked up the telephone again. Luckily there’d been no answer at Lori’s mom’s house earlier, and he was hoping his own mother had given up her silly quest.

Not that he didn’t trust her. But he didn’t trust her.

“I’m just calling a friend,” his mother reassured him, motioning for him to sit at the kitchen table.

When he did, she set a piece of his favorite homemade pie—peach—in front of him.

He looked up at her and frowned. “Mom, I’m not six years old. You can’t bribe me with pie anymore.”

“Shhh.” She placed her finger to her lips. “It’s ringing.”

If his mother was calling her best friend, Diane, then he was going to have to listen to her recite his own love-life fiasco. Diane already knew every intimate detail of the Walker family life, he was sure.

Frowning, John wondered if the symphony was over yet. What had Becky said to Lori? What had Lori said to Becky? And had Becky taken Lori home yet?

Waiting was driving him nuts. Being out of control was driving him even more nuts. His family drove him the most nuts of all.

He lifted the fork and took a bite of pie. It was pretty good, so he took another. He might as well enjoy something tonight.

“Hi,” his mother said. “My name is Irene Walker.”

John looked her way. She wouldn’t need to introduce herself to Diane. So who was she calling? Which friend would need an introduction?

“May I please speak with Evelyn Scott?”

She was calling Lori’s mother! John dropped his fork. “Mom!”

His mother ignored him. “Oh, I’m so glad I reached you. I’m John Walker’s mother. He’s been dating your daughter, Lori. . . . Yes, we’re thrilled about it, too. Lori is a delightful girl. We all adore her.”

He sat there in disbelief, listening to snippets of conversation from his mother’s end and guessing at Lori’s mother’s reactions. He realized he truly was caught in a nightmare and there seemed to be no way out.

“Oh, yes, he always got very good grades. . . . You should have seen how cute he was! . . . He went on a mission to Sweden. . . . He’s an Eagle Scout.”

He groaned. “Mother! Stick to the subject!”

Calmly, without even glancing in his direction, his mother said, “I am sticking to the subject, dear.”

Unable to listen to any more, he left the room and drifted into the family room, dropping his body into the couch next to his father. He tried to focus on the game on TV.

“Hi, son. What’s your mother doing?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

His father raised an eyebrow.

“She’s talking to Lori’s mother.”

His father laughed. “Women are very good at this romance thing. Just leave it all up to the mothers and sisters-in-law and Lori will be yours in no time.”

“Do you really believe that, Dad?”

“Not really. But it’s a fact of life that once you fall in love with a woman, you have to pretend to believe it or you’ll never have any peace.”

“Great, Dad. You’re making it sound more appealing all the time.”

A few minutes later, his mother came in, smiling. “It’s all arranged. Lori’s mother is in.”

“What did she say?” John practically growled.

“Don’t worry, dear. It’s all taken care of.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to tell me anything?”

“No, I’m not. Now run along home. I’ll need to talk to Becky when she gets back and I don’t want you around.”

With another growl, another eye roll, and a shake of his head, he got up. “I can’t take any more of this dating by proxy. I’m outta here.”

~

That night, as Lori snuggled into her bed under just a sheet—it was still too warm for blankets—she couldn’t get her conversation with Becky out of her mind. John liked her, wanted to be with her, still loved her.

She’d done everything she could to distract herself. She’d played Solitaire—with real cards, even—on the kitchen table. She’d watched an old favorite, Casablanca, on television, but this time the ending was too sad, too similar to the plane she’d be boarding soon, not with a husband, but with her tattered dreams of a happy life.

Now she was trying to lose herself in a good novel. Only she couldn’t get past the first five pages, though she’d been reading for nearly an hour.

When her phone rang and she saw it was her mother, she was glad for the distraction. “Hi, Mom. How are things in New York?”

Lori relaxed as her mother brought her up-to-date on her latest escapades as Relief Society president, the ward gossip, and Greg’s dating life.

“Lori, honey.” Her mother paused. “It’s time for you to get on with your own future.”

“That certainly came out of the blue. What are you talking about, Mom?”

“About you and your young man there in Utah.”

“John? What about him?”

“I want to know how you feel about John Wayne Walker.”

“I’m—” Lori stopped, not sure how much to share.

“Tell me the truth, Lori Elaine Scott. Are you in love with him?”

Lori hesitated for a second, but the need to have her mother soothe her pain overcame her need to keep silent. “Yes.”

“Why, that’s wonderful.”

“It would be, except he wants children.” Lori sighed. “Six of them.”

“Oh, dear.” Lori could hear the excitement fade from her mother’s voice. “That does present a problem.”

“Exactly.”

“But nothing that can’t be worked out.” It had apparently only been a momentary lull in optimism. “People who can’t have children get married all the time, Lori. Just tell him the truth. He’ll understand. Maybe you could adopt.”

“He wants his own children, not someone else’s.” She wished she was numb to the sensation of her heart being shredded.

“Have you asked him?”

“Of course I haven’t. I don’t need to.”

“Honey, you need to give him the chance to make his own choice. You can’t give up on love based on an assumption. What if you’re wrong? What if he’s an even better man than you think?”

“I can’t tell him, Mom. And I can’t adopt.”

“Why not? Adoption is a perfectly viable option.”

But adoption wouldn’t give John a daughter who looked just like her. “He’s made it crystal clear what he wants.”

“Listen, honey. There’s more to a marriage than the children you bring into it. And there’s more to your cold feet than just your infertility. I think you’re too scared to trust a man because of your father.”

“Oh, please, not Dad again.” Why did everyone keep bringing him up? She just wanted to forget him. But even as she had the thought, she wondered if there was some truth to her mother’s words. Was she still—like Agatha’s Spade and Hope Garden Club friend—stuck in the first phase of grieving? Did she have cold feet because of the hurt caused by her father?

“Please forgive him so you can get on with your own life, your own happiness. Your father has repented and paid the price. It was hard for him; he was out of the Church for several years.”

“He replaced me with three other kids.”

“Oh, honey. He never replaced you. He loves you with all his heart. He calls me all the time asking how he can reconnect.”

“Sure he does. To soothe his guilty conscience.”

“Give him a break, Lori. He may have made the first mistake and started this rift, but you’ve made it bigger over the years. Not all men can be trusted, but there are trustworthy men out there who can be. Your father let us down, but your Grandpa Scott never did. Not ever. Not even once.”

“No, he didn’t,” Lori admitted, tears stinging her eyes as she fingered the necklace he’d given her so many years before.

“Your father made your teenage years hard, but now you’re choosing to let him make the rest of your life hard. You’re a smart girl, Lori. Make a smart choice.”

“What about the Hideous H’s?”

Her mother chuckled. “You mean like . . . healing? Happiness? Heaven on earth? Hardly hideous.”

It was no use arguing with her mother. Still fingering the necklace, remembering the calm feeling Grandpa Scott had always carried with him, her heart softened. “How did you keep from getting bitter, Mom?”

“Are you kidding? He left me for another woman. Of course I was bitter. And angry. But I finally had to look at some hard truths and learn some tough lessons. I had to see that I was part of the problem we were having. And I realized I had to get on with my life, and the only way I could do that was to forgive your father. And Fiona Bennett. I had to repent for harboring bitterness and hatred against both of them.” Her voice grew husky with emotion. “And I had to repent for helping plant that same bitterness in my daughter’s heart, something I’ve regretted for a long, long time.”

“If you’re over it, if you’ve forgiven Dad, why haven’t you ever remarried?”

Her mother laughed. “Because I’ve never met the right man. If I ever do, I won’t hesitate at the chance to love again. I advise you not to lose any opportunities, either.”

“You come home straight after work. How are you supposed to meet a new guy?”

“Greg told me he can place an ad for me on eHarmony. I may just take him up on his offer.”

Lori laughed and wiped away a tear. “Be sure to mention that they’ll never win an argument with you. Ever.”

“I don’t plan on arguing with the next guy. One of the things I learned.”

~

“That ought to do it,” said Serena, hands on her hips and a smile on her face.

Lori surveyed the stand they’d crudely constructed out of pieces of lumber given to them by Serena’s father. It was little more than a square table with a place for a sign on the front and a place for a large box of zucchini on top. They pulled several full boxes onto the grass next to the stand. “It won’t win any awards.”

“But it’s good enough. And now—for the sign.” Serena pulled out five permanent markers and wrote the word “FREE,” in elegant calligraphy on a large poster board which she nailed to the front. She added a sketch of a zucchini.

“Hey, you’re a good artist.”

“I like to draw.” Serena shrugged. “And I’m majoring in art at the university.”

“I can’t even draw a straight line.”

Serena laughed. “Do you see any straight lines on this thing? That skill is not a prerequisite for an art degree.”

“Now for the zucchini.” Lori kicked the edge of one of the full boxes. “Okay, here’s the moment of truth. Will this thing hold?”

“If not, we’ll have created a big mess.”

Laughing, they hefted the heavy box onto the top of the stand—and waited. The stand wobbled, but held.

“All right. Looks like you’re in business.” Serena tossed the markers into her large “I’m a Purple Person” bag.

“I forgot to ask—how’s it going with the salsa guy?”

Serena smiled and batted her eyelashes. “He is totally within my power.”

“I have no doubt of that. I just hope you’re using your power for good, and not for evil,” Lori teased.

“We’re going out Friday. You and John want to join us?”

Lori hadn’t told Serena about the new developments in her relationship, but it was time. “Actually, John and I aren’t seeing much of each other anymore. We’re back to just being friends.”

“Ha. I’d like to see anyone go from romance back to just friends. I don’t think it can be done.”

“Well, we’re doing it.”

“Sure you are. And I’m a Chihuahua.” She gave Lori a hug. “I’ve got to leave to get ready for my cousin’s quinceañera.”

“Quin-see-what?”

“Quinceañera. It’s a Mexican thing. We have a fancy, dress-up party when girls turn fifteen. There’ll be lots of food and dancing.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Both with salsa, of course.”

“Of course.” Lori smiled. “Have fun.”

As Serena climbed into her car, Lori opened an umbrella and stuck it into the box of zucchini to keep the vegetables from wilting. The mid-September sun was still hot in the afternoon, though the evenings were beginning to cool.

The vegetables would probably do okay, but she was getting more sunburnt here than she’d ever gotten in New York. There was something about the sun here in Utah that seemed hotter.

Lori carried her hammer into the house. In the kitchen, she poured herself a cold glass of water and pressed it against her warm forehead. Out on the patio, she turned on the fan and sat under the breeze.

Ah. That felt better already.

Charles’s yard was very relaxing. The garden was still in its last bloom, and she was enjoying being a part of the harvest, though she would never have suspected it when she first moved here.

Nearly every last bit of harvested zucchini was now in the front yard. If Serena was right, it would be gone soon. There were more on the vines, but she’d given up keeping pace with them.

Picking up the romance novel Serena had lent her, she read until the breeze from the ceiling fan cooled too much for comfort—about a hundred pages. Standing and stretching, she turned off the fan and went back inside.

Feeling good about having dealt with the zucchini problem, she looked out the living room window to check the stand.

The stand was gone.

Someone had taken it! Stolen it! Swiped it!

She yanked open the front door just in time to see two other disturbing things.

John Wayne Walker’s truck was pulling into her driveway.

And there were two more boxes of zucchini on her lawn than what she’d started with. Someone had stolen her stand—and left their zucchini for her!