Linda Jones - The Husband Recipe

Not that he could get his crew to eat a vegetable, except for the household staple french fries. Maybe corn on the cob, if they were feeling adventurous.

Cole closed the website and shut down the web browser. It didn’t matter how cute his neighbor—or any other woman—might be. It wasn’t that he was still in love with Mary, five years after her death. It wasn’t as if he compared every woman he met to his late wife, or idealized her after she was gone, or pined for what they’d had. No, he simply had no time for a woman.

He had dated since Mary had died. After she’d been gone a couple of years, well-meaning friends had tried time and again to set him up with women they thought were suitable. He’d dated, leaving the kids with Janet or a babysitter for a couple of hours, but something always went wrong. He had no patience for airheads, no matter how pretty they were. Some of his friends seemed to think “hot” was enough. It wasn’t. And no matter how he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to entirely leave his home life behind. Babysitters called. Meredith called. While his dates droned on about shoes or movies or—heaven forbid—baseball, his mind had always been elsewhere.

During one memorable emergency trip home, Justin had thrown up on airhead number two. Or had it been airhead number three? During another, Hank had wiped a glob of jelly from his face with the hem of a silk dress. While his date had been wearing it. Cole had found it kind of funny. His date had not. None of the other dates had gone any better, and it hadn’t taken long for him to just give up.

Maybe when his children were grown he could take some time for himself, if he didn’t completely forget how to treat a woman, what to do with one. But for now he was all the kids had, and they deserved every bit of him that he had to give. He was already spread too thin, and having a woman in his life would probably stretch him to the breaking point. Like any woman would be satisfied with the little he had to give at this time in his life.

Even though it was going to be a real change, he was looking forward to starting work again. Teaching would be very different from the career he’d left behind, but he liked history, and he loved baseball. He was good with kids—he’d found a healthy reserve of patience in the past five years—and he’d discovered that he was much more adaptable than he’d ever thought he could be. In the past few years he’d searched for a new career he could really enjoy and worked part-time here and there, selling cars—a job he’d hated—and working in a sporting goods store—even worse—and along the way he’d managed to take enough classes to fulfill the requirements for a teaching job.

A full-time teaching job and coaching a high-school baseball team would take up much more time than any of the endeavors he’d undertaken in the past few years. Three kids and a demanding job wouldn’t leave him any time at all for a social life that extended beyond putt-putt or a movie with the kids.

Besides, they’d probably have a fit if he started dating again. And heaven forbid he should get serious about a woman! They’d lost their mother. They wouldn’t lose their dad, too, not even a small piece of him. It was bad enough that he’d finally taken on such a demanding job. The money he’d saved while he’d been playing combined with Mary’s insurance payout and his own ability to manage his investments well had allowed him to limit his time away from home until Justin was old enough to start kindergarten. Come August, the youngest Donovan would be in school. And Cole would be taking on the job of history teacher and baseball coach for the new high school. He could continue to live as they had for several more years—hell, if he was really smart with his money he might never have to work again—but he needed a real job. He needed to refocus his energies and … move on. It was time.

Cole wasn’t sure how he’d handle teaching others to play, when he still sometimes longed for the crack of the bat and the thrill of the game. But he’d manage. He’d get the job done. What choice did he have?

The Gardens was an upscale retirement village, with condos, small houses and an apartment building, all arranged like any gated community. There were lots of trees, ample parking, winding sidewalks, several green spaces and a community center. The only differences between this and other communities like it were the personnel, the nurses and administrators who were available at the push of a button, and the ages of the residents. The prices were outrageous, but Gran considered her condo here a worthwhile investment. It didn’t look like a retirement home, but it had all the advantages.

Once a week Lauren had supper with Gran and her best friend, Patsy, who lived in one of the houses in the village with her husband of nearly sixty years. They all took turns providing the food, even though they always met at Gran’s condo. This week it was Gran’s turn to cook, which thrilled Lauren. Not only did she not have to cook, or endure one of Miss Patsy’s mystery casseroles, she got to indulge in the food she’d grown up with. Fried green tomatoes; meatloaf; mashed potatoes; cornbread;

fried chicken; green beans that had been cooking all day so that they no longer actually resembled green beans at all; squash casserole—an exception to the casserole rule; pot roast that melted in your mouth and desserts that were always out of this world. She didn’t know what tonight’s menu would be, but it would be wonderful, and the smells and tastes would transport her to her childhood.

Gran’s house, a sprawling ranch she hadn’t lived in for the past three years, had always been Lauren’s inspiration. Rather, it was the vivid memory of that house that inspired her. The food, the beauty, the details that went into making a house a home … Without that influence, she’d probably be working in an office somewhere. It wasn’t that her own home had been horrible—far from it—but she was an only child and her parents had both worked full-time. Often more than full-time. Though she was a stickler for good manners and, perversely, loved to entertain, Lauren’s mother had hated cooking, laundry, anything domestic. There had been times in her life when Lauren had been positive her mother didn’t entirely warm to the idea of child-rearing, either.

Her parents now lived in Washington State, about as far from Huntsville, Alabama, as they could get. A couple of great jobs had called them there, and they loved that part of the country. Lauren talked to them at least once a month, and they usually made it to Huntsville for a yearly visit, often around the holidays. There were frequent emails. Lauren loved her parents, but it had been her grandmother who’d made her house a home, who’d offered time, hearty hugs and homemade cookies.

That hadn’t changed.

Patsy was already at Gran’s condo when Lauren arrived, and the two older women were chatting as they set the table. For these weekly dinners Gran always used her good china, cloth napkins, polished silverware and crystal glasses for the decaffeinated iced tea. Life was too short, she said, not to use the best of everything at every opportunity. The smells from the kitchen were tantalizing, and Lauren couldn’t help but smile as she walked in and called out a friendly “Hello.”

The two ladies, like the table, were at their best. Both of them were white-haired and tastefully made-up, and tonight they both wore colorful summer dresses. Miss Patsy was thinner than Gran, a couple of inches taller, and was never seen out and about without enough jewelry to outfit three women.

Gran was more of a minimalist when it came to jewelry. She still wore her wedding band, and tonight she also wore small pearl earrings. Her hair was cut very short and spiked around her head, while Miss Patsy had pulled her long hair up into a bun, as usual.