Mrs. Miracle Page 0,80

to pry into his business. Nor did he have any responsibility to report his whereabouts to her. "You don't need to answer that," she added quickly, embarrassed.

"I don't?" He sat on the end of the bed and untied his shoes.

"Unless you want to, of course." Every time she opened her mouth she seemed to make it worse.

"I went to the movies."

"Oh." She would have enjoyed going with him, but it was senseless to admit as much.

"To think," he added.

"Oh." Apparently her entire vocabulary had shrunk to words of one syllable.

He twisted around to look at her. "Aren't you going to ask me what I was mulling over?"

"Do you want to tell me?" Clearly he did, or he wouldn't have prompted the question.

"I was remembering our first Christmas in San Francisco and comparing it to this year...the last one we're likely to spend together."

"I went for a walk and couldn't help wondering at what point we stopped being good to one another?"

"I wish I knew," he mumbled. His right shoe landed with a clunk onto the floor, then his left. He undressed and pulled back the covers on his side of the bed and slipped inside.

Sharon continued to read, or pretend to read. Jerry lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

"I had Chinese food for lunch."

He'd never been fond of Chinese, but it was her favorite. She had to bite her tongue to keep from reminding him that he complained every time she suggested Szechuan. It used to be - when they lived in San Francisco - that he'd take her to Chinatown. It was such a rare occasion when they could afford a meal out, and Jerry loved to treat her to a dinner he knew she'd find special. She recalled that back then they could eat dinner for two for under five dollars. How times had changed!

"Funny how a dish of chow mein can bring back the memories," Jerry added.

"We were happy then." The lump in her throat felt as large as a grapefruit.

"Yeah," Jerry agreed on a sad note.

Giving up the pretense of reading, Sharon removed her reading glasses, set them on the end table, and turned off the lamp. The room went dark. For the last several nights they'd slept side by side, each as close to the edge of the mattress as they could manage. They'd acted as though touching each other would be akin to pulling the plug on a hand grenade and tossing it into a crowd.

Sharon lay on her back now, too, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

"Remember our first real Christmas tree?" he asked unexpectedly.

"Of course." Clay had been barely two, and Neal had been a year old. Two babies within two and a half years. Living on one income, they'd had no money for luxuries like tree ornaments.

"You strung popcorn and cranberries."

Sharon laughed softly. "Which the boys promptly ate."

"We ended up putting the tree inside the playpen, remember?"

She laughed again. "Neal was so excited to open a gift, he ran around it three times and then tore into it like a Tasmanian devil."

Soon Jerry was laughing, too. "Remember the time Pamela stuffed a bead up her nose and we had to take her to the emergency room to get it out? That damn bead cost us a fortune."

"And ruined my favorite necklace."

They were silent for a while, each caught up in the rich texture of their years together.

"Remember the time in church when some poor unsuspecting elderly woman sat down in the middle of a song?"

"And I was holding Clay on my hip and somehow he got hold of the woman's wig and started shaking it like a dog with a dead rat."

"You were mortified."

"And you kept trying to put it back on the woman's head, and her hands kept getting in the way."

"Didn't we change churches shortly after that?"

"I don't remember, but I bet that woman did."

Sharon started laughing, and soon the tears ran unrestrainedly down her cheeks. For the memory, true, but mingled in with the laughter was sadness and regret.

"Are you going to tell the boys?" Jerry asked a moment later.

"I thought we should do it together."

"That would be best," he agreed.

The silence was back, but neither of them rolled onto their sides as they had previous nights.

"We had some really great years."

"Yes," she whispered, and to her horror her voice cracked.

"Sharon?"

She didn't answer, fearing she'd dissolve into tears if she did.

"Damn it, Sharon," Jerry said, tossing aside the covers as if he couldn't remove them