money to even get to Paris, Texas, between the three of us.”
Tootsie leaned down and kissed Carmen on the forehead. “I’m going home now. I’ve got something I have to see about, but I’ll be back either later or tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you, Tootsie, for everything.” Carmen’s chin quivered.
“No thanks necessary, and no more tears. Any man who’d do this to his wife ain’t worth cryin’ over. Y’all girls are my family—I ain’t got blood kin left with Smokey’s passin’.” Tootsie pulled a tissue free and dabbed her eyes, and then she put the whole box in Carmen’s hands.
“Joanie, a word,” Tootsie said as she started toward the door.
Joanie followed her outside and said, “Don’t worry, Tootsie, we’ll stay with her the rest of the day and tonight. You can come back anytime.”
“That’s just what I wanted to hear. I’ll have things worked out one way or the other by morning.” Tootsie headed next door to her house without another word.
Chapter Two
Yoo-hoo, where are y’all at?” Tootsie’s soft southern voice floated through the house.
“In the living room,” Diana called out.
Carmen had finally fallen asleep on the sofa at midnight. What little sleep Diana and Joanie had gotten was in recliners, and that was in fifteen- or thirty-minute spurts. Diana had gone to pieces when she got the divorce papers five years ago, but she’d known they were coming. Gerald had told her weeks in advance about his affair, and she’d had a little time to get prepared. Poor Carmen had been hit with it out of the clear blue sky. Diana remembered thinking that she’d felt like she’d been shot in the gut with a 12-gauge shotgun when the papers arrived in the mail. Carmen probably felt like she’d swallowed a hand grenade.
Diana had gotten over her ex-husband, but it had taken lots of counseling, both the professional and the friendship variety. It had taken her a couple of weeks to go from denial to the next step, and each one of those levels had been an ordeal that she couldn’t have made it through without Carmen, Joanie, and Tootsie as her support system.
The aroma of bacon and salsa wafted across the room as Tootsie set the platter on the coffee table. “As you all know, I’m a terrible cook, but I can make a good breakfast burrito, and I know y’all didn’t eat much yesterday.”
Then from a tote bag she pulled a bowl of cantaloupe chunks and a sack of doughnuts from their favorite shop just down the street. “Now let’s eat up and talk. Things always look a little brighter after we’ve slept on them.” She put a burrito in Carmen’s hands. “One bite at a time. One minute at a time. One hour at a time. That’s the way we’re all going to get through these horrible emotional events we’re having to deal with right now.”
Diana swallowed the lump in her throat and took the first bite. She had to eat since Tootsie had been so sweet to bring them food, but it tasted like sawdust mixed with onions.
Carmen nibbled on the burrito. “Things look better than they did yesterday, and there’s always hope. When Eli gets back from this mission, I’m going to make him talk about reconciliation. We’ve just grown apart, and we can fix that.”
Tootsie gave her a quick hug before she sat down beside her. “Have you talked to Eli today?”
“No, but he loves me. I know he does, even though he has doubts, and I’ll always love him. With some counseling, we can get through this.”
“You’ve got to get through the denial before you can move on. That’s a fact, and we’re not going to argue about it. I’ve reached the guilt stage of grief since Smokey died. I keep asking myself why in the hell we didn’t go on all the trips we’d planned instead of waiting so long to get the RV. There’s motels everywhere. We should have packed our bags and gone.” She picked up a burrito. “I thought nothing could be worse than seeing our pretty girls go to the service yesterday morning. I wanted to go with y’all, but I’d have been a big old bawlin’ baby. They didn’t need that, and neither did any of you. But I want y’all to know that Smokey was so damned proud of them when they decided to serve their country. The way he went on and on to anyone who’d stand still and listen, why, you’d swear they were his