She spotted the bookcase he had in the kitchen for his cookbooks and got up to study them. “These are all yours?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes.” He started pulling items from the refrigerator. Ham. Tomatoes. Green peppers. Cheese.
He watched as she randomly selected one of the cookbooks from the bookcase and opened it. “Why are the page corners turned down?” she asked.
“A favorite recipe,” he replied. As the eggs cooked and he chopped the ham and tomatoes and green peppers, he reviewed the dishes he liked to cook, pointing out different cookbooks and which recipes were uniquely good in each one. It was a comfortable conversation. He liked to talk about his hobby, and she was more than casually interested. It was a comfortable conversation that continued as they ate. They split a western omelet between them and a half dozen warm, homemade blueberry muffins. It was not until they finished breakfast that the conversation turned back to personal subjects.
“How did Jerry die?” Scott asked quietly as he sat watching her drink her second cup of coffee. He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know.
She looked out the large window and out over the lake. “He’d gone to the gym to play racquetball with my brother when he collapsed. He died of a massive heart attack.”
How old would he have been? Thirty? Thirty-five? “It was unexpected,” Scott said, stating the obvious.
“Very.”
He looked at the wedding ring she wore. He had noticed it ten days ago, a small heart of diamonds, and it looked like it belonged. “Was there any warning? High blood pressure? A history in his family?”
She shook her head. “No. He had passed a complete physical not more than six months before.”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer.” It was such an inadequate response. Her life had been torn apart, and all he could convey was words. She would have felt the loss like a knife cutting into her, especially if they had been a close couple. “You loved him a great deal.” Scott made the observation, more to himself than her, but she answered him, anyway.
“I still do,” she replied calmly.
He heard her answer and was envious that love could be so enduring. Not many couples had that kind of closeness. No wonder the anniversary of his death had been so painful for her.
She set down her cup of coffee and changed the subject abruptly. “I’ve decided to end the series of books.”
Scott didn’t know what to think, both of the abrupt change of subject and the statement she had just made. She couldn’t be serious. She had been writing the series for almost ten years. She wanted to end it? “Thomas Bradford is going to get killed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not the same without Jerry.”
“You wrote the books with your husband?”
She nodded.
Scott didn’t say anything for some time. It wasn’t wise to make such dramatic life changes when you were grieving. But the books had to be a continual reminder to her of what she had lost. “You’ve been writing the series for years. Are you sure, Jennifer?” he finally asked.
“I’m sure. I’ve known for months it’s something I needed to do.”
“What are you going to do once the series is finished?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
He frowned, not liking one possibility that had come to mind. “You are still going to write, aren’t you?”
“It is the only profession I know.”
He leaned back in his chair, thinking, studying her. He had never known a writer before, and it was hard to make any sort of intelligent judgment about the decision she had to make. The sadness he saw in her expression made him frown. She needed some help. She needed to recover. She needed someone to ensure she ate. He forced himself not to follow that line of thinking any further.
“Do you know when you start how the book is going to end?” He had always wondered that. He assumed that knowing in advance would be helpful as far as clues and situations were concerned, but on the other hand, knowing the ending would make writing the book less interesting. Like seeing a movie for the second time.
Jennifer couldn’t stop the memory from returning—
“Jerry, you can’t kill the gardener. He’s the man who stole the will to protect Nicole’s inheritance. Kill the gardener and the will disappears forever.” Jennifer didn’t like the twist Jerry had added to the well constructed story. They had spent two months hammering out the details of a tight story plot and Jerry was changing the game plan a hundred pages into the book. They were out in the backyard, Jerry reclining in his hammock watching the 49ers and Rams game on his portable TV, Jennifer having come outside to find him. She dropped into the lawn chair beside him, retrieving the two pillows on the ground to use as a headrest. She was distracted momentarily as she realized she had missed the start of the game.
“Who said the gardener was dead?” Jerry asked, handing her a diet soda from the cooler beside him.
“Thanks,” Jennifer said, accepting the cold drink. She flipped open the dog-eared manuscript. “Page ninety-six, and I quote, ‘The bullet entered the man’s chest and did not exit. He fell forward into the cold waters of the lake without anyone seeing his departure from among the living.’” She dropped the script on his chest. “That sounds like dead to me.”
The 49ers threw a deep pass which was caught inside the twenty. The discussion paused while they both watched the replay.
“Did I ever say the man in the boat was the gardener?”
Jennifer thought about it carefully. “No. The killer assumed the man in the boat was the gardener.”
Jerry grinned. “Exactly.”
“Okay Jerry, what are you planning?”
“I don’t know,” he replied seriously.
Jennifer tossed one of the pillows at him. “Why do you always insist on adding wrinkles to our nicely planned books?” she demanded, amused.
Jerry smiled. “I have to keep you guessing somehow, don’t I?”
Scott watched as Jennifer struggled to come back from somewhere in the past and answer the question he had asked. It was not the first time he had seen memories cross her eyes, and he wondered what memory had just made her smile. “Every book we wrote had at least one major change in the plot by the time we finished writing the story. We would construct an outline for the book, then take turns writing chapters. Invariably Jerry would create a few extra twists in the story.”
Jennifer rested her hands loosely around the coffee mug and was amazed at how easy it was to talk to Scott about the past. Normally sharing about her life with Jerry brought back the pain, but not today. They were memories of good times, and she had thought they were gone forever.
She had been so embarrassed
