bag of chips from the cabinet and headed back to her room. “See y’all at noon. I figure we should be close to Nocona about that time. The Dairy Queen there makes amazing burgers, and their nachos are fabulous, plus they’ve got lots of parking for big-ass motor homes.”
Carmen was so lost in her own thoughts about how she would react to a cold, empty house when they got back to Sugar Run that she forgot to turn the pages of her book. But I’ll be busy helping Joanie get packed and ready to move, and then I’ll have a job, she told herself.
Diana touched her on the shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“It’s still a little scary. Facing the house and a new job,” she admitted. “I just have to remind myself of all I have to be thankful for and not worry about tomorrow.”
“Those are words of wisdom,” Joanie said. “But it’s a tall order.”
“Oh, yeah, it is,” Diana agreed, and went back to putting in codes and numbers, but her mind strayed to the changes that would be made in their comfortable routine back in Sugar Run. Joanie would be gone soon, and Eli and Carmen were divorced, so now there wouldn’t be anyone on the block who put up WELCOME HOME banners for their army husbands coming back from wherever the hell they’d been sent.
Once an army wife, always an army wife—she’d heard that for years, but it wasn’t necessarily true anymore, not even for Tootsie. Even after Diana’s divorce, she’d been happy for her two friends when they made a short-time calendar and crossed off the days to when their husbands would come home.
Change was supposed to be good for the soul, and turmoil created patience, but sometimes accepting either wasn’t easy. The serenity prayer that Tootsie insisted they end their meetings with came to mind, and she repeated it silently twice.
Dolly jumped up on her lap, and Diana hugged her close to her chest. “Nala is going to grow up to be a big girl like you real soon.”
Joanie laid her book aside and reached over to pet her. “Never seen such a sweet-natured cat in my whole life. If she wasn’t a female, I’d think maybe Smokey had been reincarnated and came back to give Tootsie some company.”
“That’s Simba’s job,” Luke called out.
“Maybe Smokey just decided that all of us needed a little extra love.” All three kittens tried to follow their mother up on the booth seat, but no matter how high they jumped, they couldn’t make it.
Joanie reached down and grabbed each of them by the scruff of the neck, one by one, handing off Sugar to Carmen and keeping the other two in her lap. They were content for a little while, but then they started to squirm, and she put them back on the floor. They bit each other’s ears and tails and wrestled until they were tired enough to drop right where they stood. In seconds they were nothing more than a pile of fur, all tangled up together and sleeping.
“They remind me of us.” Joanie pointed. “We might argue and bicker, but at heart we’re as close as siblings.”
“Is bickering kind of like biting each other’s ears?” Carmen asked with a smile.
“Got to have a few bad times to balance out the good ones,” Luke said.
Kind of like this adoption thing that still hangs between us, Diana thought, but she didn’t say the words.
“Okay, I’m changing the subject before y’all get me all weepy again,” Carmen said. “How much farther is it to Wichita Falls, Luke?”
“We’re on the outskirts of Nocona now, and I can almost smell those burgers Aunt Tootsie was talking about. After we eat, it’s about an hour’s drive to the mall. And there’s a hotel that’s accessible from the parking lot,” he said. “I checked, and there’s places to plug into electricity for a small fee, so I thought we’d just set up camp there. I’ve made a reservation to stay in the hotel. That way you ladies can have the motor home to yourselves.”
“Thank you, Luke,” Joanie said. “We’ve only got two more nights for just us girls, and that means a lot to us.”
“You are very welcome,” Luke answered.
Dolly hopped off Diana’s lap and curled up around her kittens. Luke hadn’t mentioned that he was getting a room before now. What if he asked her to join him? She made up her mind that she was staying in the motor home even if