Mrs. Miracle Page 0,34

but someone must."

"Perhaps we could talk later."

"If I don't say this now, I might never have the courage again." Harriett planted her hand over her heart, as if speaking the words pained her. "It has to do with - "

Ruth Darling's name never left her lips. Just then, with impeccable timing, the church door opened and the very woman herself strolled inside.

Harriett almost swallowed her tongue.

Ruth hesitated, then smiled and nodded. "Hello, Harriett."

"Ruth." The name fell stiffly from her lips.

"Perhaps we could talk another time," Pastor Lovelace suggested, directing the comment to Harriett.

"Of course," she murmured, and turned away, but not before she saw Ruth enter Pastor Lovelace's study. Whatever the other woman had come to discuss required an appointment. The subject was plainly serious.

Harriett had seen it coming. The Darling marriage, after forty years or longer, was in deep trouble. Rightly so, with Ruth making goo-goo eyes at Lyle Fawcett.

Chapter 14

A successful marriage isn't finding the right person, it's being the right person.

- Mrs. Miracle

Humming to herself, Sharon Palmer read over the recipe and assembled the necessary ingredients. She was tired of tossing and turning the night away in the guest bedroom, tired of pretending she enjoyed sleeping apart from her husband.

The chocolate-chip cookies, his favorite, were a peace offering, a subtle one. A means of telling him she was sorry. That she regretted this whole business and wanted it to end.

Jerry had left earlier that morning to play a round of golf with his friends, other retirees. The way Sharon figured, the cookies would be warm from the oven by the time he returned. Warm and gooey, just the way he liked them best.

Then perhaps they could sit down and talk. Really talk. They hadn't communicated in months. Not the way they should for a couple married close to forty years.

As she added the chocolate chips and walnuts to the dough, she smiled, pleased with this recent decision to work out the bumps in her marriage. They were both strong-willed and stubborn. Both old fools.

Jerry wanted to take a trip through the Panama Canal. There would be other cruises, other vacations, and next time she could choose when and where. It was silly for them both to be so unreasonable with one another.

Perhaps if she gave in on this, Jerry would see his way clear to flying to Seattle with her to visit the grandkids over Christmas. If she showed her willingness to compromise, he would, too. Jerry was a fair man. She hadn't been married to him all these years without knowing that.

The first sheet of cookies were cooling when her husband walked in the door. If he noticed the scent of freshly baked cookies, he said nothing. It'd been a good long while since she'd last baked. This was a rare treat.

He ignored her and opened the refrigerator door, glaring inside as if seeking buried treasure.

"Do you want a cookie?" she asked, playing it cool.

The last few days the tension between them had been as thick as glue.

"Did you put nuts in them?" he asked.

She nodded. "Walnuts." His favorite.

"I don't like walnuts," he said, bringing out a bowl of leftover spaghetti.

"Since when?" she demanded. He'd been eating her chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts for years and never said a word before now.

"Since I was a kid." He set the spaghetti on the counter and reached for a plate.

"You always ate walnuts before."

"Yeah, and I didn't like it."

Sharon planted her mitt-covered hand on her hip. "Do you mean to tell me that it took you forty years to tell me you don't like walnuts?" She didn't believe it, not for a moment. He was being deliberately argumentative, deliberately unappreciative.

"It took me forty years longer than it should have," he snapped. He slapped a glob of spaghetti on the plate and stuck it inside the microwave. He punched a few buttons and glared back at her.

The sound of the microwave in process whirled through the kitchen as it warmed his lunch. Sharon had purposely waited to eat so that she could sit down and join him, but her appetite had vanished, replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Is there anything else you don't like that you haven't mentioned?" she asked without emotion.

"Plenty. I prefer spaghetti with meatballs instead of the meat all crumbled in with the sauce."

Sharon had made her spaghetti from the same recipe all these years, and not once had he said one word about preferring meatballs.

He must have seen the