Page 51 of Summer Weddings
“I wonder if it’ll last until he reaches the pros,” Robin said, sharing a smile with him.
“You’re doing all right?” Cole asked unexpectedly.
She nodded, although it wasn’t entirely true. Now that she was with Cole, every doubt she’d struggled with all week vanished like fog under an afternoon sun. Only when they were apart was she confronted by her fears.
“After Jeff’s finished here, let’s do something together,” Cole suggested. “The three of us.”
She nodded, unable to refuse him anything.
“Come to think of it, didn’t I promise Jeff lunch? I seem to recall making a rash pledge to buy him fish and chips because we were leaving him with Heather and Kelly when we went to dinner last week.”
Robin grinned. “It seems to me you’re remembering that correctly,” she said.
They went to a cheerful little fish-and-chip restaurant down by the Wharf. The weather had been chilly all morning, but the sun was out in full force by early afternoon. Jeff was excited about his team’s latest win and attributed it to the luck brought to them by his cap.
After a leisurely lunch, the three of them strolled along the busy waterfront. Robin bought a loaf of fresh sourdough bread and a small bouquet of spring flowers. Jeff found a plastic snake he couldn’t live without and paid for it with his allowance.
“Just wait till Jimmy Wallach sees this!” he crowed.
“I’m more curious to see how Kelly Lawrence reacts,” Robin said.
“Oh, Kelly likes snakes,” Jeff told them cheerfully. “Jimmy was over one day and I thought I’d scare Kelly with a live garden snake, but Jimmy was the one who started screaming. Kelly said snakes were just another of God’s creatures and there was nothing to be afraid of. Isn’t it just like a girl to get religious about a snake?”
Jeff raced down the sidewalk while Cole and Robin stood at the end of the pier, the bread and flowers at their feet.
“You look tired,” Cole said, as his fingers gently touched her forehead.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, gazing out at the cool green waters of San Francisco Bay. But Cole was right; she hadn’t been sleeping well.
“I see so much of myself in you,” Cole said softly.
His words surprised her. “How’s that?”
“The pain mostly. How many years has Lenny been dead?”
“Ten. In some ways I’m still grieving him.” She couldn’t be less than honest with Cole.
“You’re not sure if you can love another man, are you? At least not with the same intensity that you loved Jeff’s father.”
“That’s not it at all. I… I just don’t know if I can stop loving him.”
Cole went very still. “I never intended to take Lenny away from you or Jeff. He’s part of your past, an important part. Being married to Lenny, giving birth to Jeff, contributed to making you what you are.” He paused, and they both remained silent.
“Bobby had been buried for six years before I had the courage to face the future. I hung on to my grief, carried it with me everywhere I went, dragging it like a heavy piece of luggage I couldn’t travel without.”
“I’m not that way about Lenny,” she said, ready to argue, not heatedly or vehemently, but logically, because what he was saying simply wasn’t true. She mourned her dead husband, felt his absence, but she hadn’t allowed this sense of loss to destroy her life.
“Perhaps you aren’t grieving as deeply as you once were,” Cole amended. “But I wonder if you’ve really laid your husband to rest.”
“Of course I have,” she answered with a nod of her head, not wanting to talk about Lenny.
“I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic,” Cole said, his tone compassionate. “I understand, believe me I do. Emotional pain is familiar territory for us both. It seems to me that those of us who sustain this kind of grief are afraid of what lies beyond.”
“You’re exaggerating, Cole.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “You’re a lovely woman, Robin. Witty. Intelligent. Outgoing. I’m sure one of the first questions anyone asks you is how long it’s been since your husband died.And I’ll bet when you tell them, they seem surprised.”
That was true, and Robin wondered how Cole had guessed.
