“How about onion burger? They used onions to bulk out the meat during the Great Depression and their attempts at economizing led to the most delicious burger.”
“That sounds better than catfish.”
“I’ll order catfish and you can try it. You should try everything once.”
“That’s what I thought about marriage and look how that turned out.”
“You’re also driving Route 66 for the first time and that’s turning out okay, isn’t it?”
Kathleen saw Martha smile at him.
After the drama of the night before, they’d developed an easy camaraderie. It seemed that her funny turn had forced them together in a way she’d failed to manage with her heavy-handed attempts at matchmaking.
Oh how well she remembered those days of flirtatious looks, the air heavy with sexual tension and anticipation.
It cheered her to think that although her own life might be a tangled mess, at least Martha’s was looking hopeful.
She focused on that, in the hope of calming the emotional turmoil churning inside her.
“How are you feeling, Kathleen?” Martha glanced in the mirror, asking the same question she’d asked at least ten times since leaving the motel.
“I’m alive,” Kathleen said. “I took my pulse to confirm it. You may continue, reassured.”
Martha grinned. “You sound like you again. Don’t you think so, Josh?”
“Yes.” He turned. “If you need to stop—”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Dear boy. Although “boy” was hardly the right description. Josh was a man, and a fine specimen at that.
Like Martha, she was relieved he’d opted to travel with them a little longer, and not only because she hoped it might culminate in a little romance for Martha. Josh had proved himself to be steady and capable.
In some ways he reminded her a little of Brian, although Josh appeared to have a drive and ambition that her husband had lacked.
It hadn’t bothered her. She’d had drive and ambition enough for both of them.
After Adam, she’d never let herself become too close to anyone, and her job had facilitated that approach. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d chosen that line of work. Even before The Summer Seekers, she’d traveled around the country as part of her work.
And here she was, doing it again. Dwelling on the past.
Maybe it was a feature of age, that the past seemed more relevant than the future.
They stopped for lunch at a roadside diner, and Kathleen found she wasn’t hungry.
And of course Martha noticed.
“You’re not eating. You need to eat.”
“I ate a large breakfast.”
“You eat a large breakfast every day and it has never interfered with your lunch before. Can we order you something else?” Martha was obviously poised to fuss over her and Kathleen gave her what she hoped was a quelling look.
“If I feel the need for something else, I can order it myself.”
“I know.” Martha, never easily quelled, beamed at her. “But I thought I’d save you the bother.”
To avoid an argument, Kathleen nibbled a few pieces of salad.
Josh excused himself to go to the restroom and Martha leaned forward.
“I’ve been thinking—”
“Should that admission make me nervous?”
“You could ask Liza to open the letters. That way you’d know what was in them.”
It was unsettling to know that Martha’s mind had been moving in the same direction as her own. “And she would also then know what was in them.”
“What’s wrong with that? Why not let her share it with you? You’ve said you’re not close. Sounds as if you’d like to be. She might like the fact you’re involving her. It might bring you closer.”
Or it might have the opposite effect.
“If I’d wanted to open the letters, I would have opened them.”
“You didn’t want to open them before—I get that. You must have been so mad with Ruth. Trying to move on. But things change, don’t they? I mean, if you asked me now if I wanted to marry Steven I’d say definitely no way, but there was a point where I wanted to, obviously, or I wouldn’t have done it. People are allowed to change their minds.”
That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it, at all.
Kathleen felt something flutter inside her.
Martha had no idea.
She didn’t understand that the reason she hadn’t opened those letters wasn’t out of some childish wish for revenge, or even a wish to keep the past in the past. It was because she’d been afraid of what they’d say.
She was still afraid.
Martha thought she should read the letters, but Martha knew only a tiny sliver of the story. That was all Kathleen had shared.
“I appreciate your concern.”
“But you want me to stop talking now.” Martha gave a good-natured smile. “I don’t want you worrying, that’s all. And I know you are worrying, even though you won’t admit it.”
“I don’t know why you would think that.”
“You’re quiet. And you’ve stopped actively trying to fix me up with Josh.”
“I consider my work in that area to be complete. If you can’t see what a perfect rebound experience he would provide, then I’m at a loss to know what more I can do to convince you.”
“I’m not going to have a rebound experience, Kathleen.” Martha finished her fries. “But I admit it’s good having him with us.”
Yesterday Martha had given Josh the silent treatment. Today she’d been chatting away, very much back to her usual self.
Sometimes it took a while to get used to an idea, Kathleen thought. You had to plant a seed, water it and let it grow.
Josh returned to the table and he and Martha promptly started arguing about dessert.
Adorable, Kathleen thought.
She tried to push thoughts of Ruth to the back of her mind, but her old friend hovered like a dark cloud on an otherwise bright day, her presence threatening change.
She could ignore those letters, Kathleen reminded herself. She didn’t have to read them.
But then Liza might read them.
Oh if only she knew what they said, she would know whether she needed to read them or not.
The ridiculousness of that thought made her laugh.