“I don’t know how you do it,” Janice said a few minutes later as they headed down the street, their booted feet crunching in the hard-packed snow. “A full-time job and running the boardinghouse with Johnny and always being there for your children. I wish I had your energy.”
Anna linked her arm with her friend’s. “I don’t feel very energetic tonight. I really should do a thorough cleaning in my two vacant rooms upstairs, but I don’t feel up to it.”
“Did you lose a couple of boarders?”
“I didn’t think of them as boarders really. You know my nephew, Brick Bauer, don’t you?”
“Sure, I know Brick. Didn’t he get married recently?” She’d been so self-involved lately that she hadn’t kept up with what had been happening around town, Janice realized with dismay.
Anna chuckled. “He sure did. Karen’s the police captain, which technically makes her his boss, since Brick’s a lieutenant. They each had a room with us. Their wedding was a disaster, but at least they’re finally together.” Anna looked up as they turned off Gunther Street and onto Main Street. Snow was gathered on the limbs of a bare maple tree under the street lamp, silhouetted against a dark sky. “Isn’t that pretty?”
Janice inhaled deeply. “Yes, it is.” She was so glad she’d come out tonight. She’d been cooped up entirely too long inside that house filled with memories. As they walked across the town square toward the diner, she gazed around at the familiar scene—the library and across the way, the post office. On the next corner was the Hair Affair where she should be making an appointment for a cut. “I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve walked across this square—with the kids when they were young and with Kurt.”
She was getting melancholy again, Anna decided, and rushed to divert her. “Did you get Stefanie off to Boston?”
“Yes, this morning. I’m surprised she stayed as long as she did. That girl is so in love. Every night she’d call her fiancé and they’d talk for a good hour. Then Ross would call her during the day.” Janice sighed. “Do you remember being like that, Anna? So crazy in love that all you thought about was Johnny, all you talked about was Johnny?”
Anna shrugged. “We were both eighteen, Janice. A couple of kids, really. But yes, I remember when he was my every thought and I probably bored my friends to death talking about him. In that first rush of passion, I think we all feel as if we invented love. Didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did, but it all seems so long ago. Kurt’s been gone such a short time and already sometimes I have trouble remembering how he looked, how he sounded.”
Anna squeezed her friend’s arm. “Give it time, Janice.” She stomped the snow from her boots and opened the door of Marge’s Diner, smiling as a rush of warm air fogged her glasses. “I love the way it smells in here,” she commented as she waved to Marge, who was behind the counter as usual.
The restaurant wasn’t crowded on a frosty Tuesday evening. A couple of teenagers were sipping hot chocolate across the way, and one of Joe Santori’s carpenters was finishing his dinner at the counter. Anna walked to a booth and slid onto the red vinyl seat as Janice seated herself opposite her. She shrugged out of her jacket and concentrated on polishing her glasses.
“Good to see you, Janice,” Marge said as she handed them each a menu. “You, too, Anna.”
“Don’t you ever take time off, Marge?” Anna asked as she put her glasses back on. “Seems like you’re here night and day.”
“Married to my work,” Marge commented wryly.
“I don’t have to look at your menu, Marge,” Janice said with a smile. “I want a piece of your wonderful apple pie and a cup of coffee.” It must have been the walk, for she was suddenly hungry.
“Make mine the same,” Anna said, handing back the menus.
“Coming right up.”
Janice watched Marge walk away, then leaned toward Anna, keeping her voice low. “I’ve always felt a little sorry for Marge, deserted by her husband so many years ago, then her daughter leaving. Always alone and having to work. And now I find myself in basically the same boat.”
Anna frowned. “Are you in trouble financially?” She’d always thought that Kurt made plenty of money and assumed that he’d have lots of insurance.
Janice shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’ve got to go to Kurt’s office and go over the books, check things out.” She brushed back a lock of hair. “I hate to think of all that.”
“Maybe you need some help. You could ask Judson or your father perhaps.” Seeing her friend wrinkle her nose at those suggestions, Anna grew thoughtful. “How about David Markus? I talked with him for a while at your house and he said he’s a financial adviser. He also said he’s known you for years, yet I’ve never heard you mention his name.”
“The three of us went to college together. It was a shock seeing him after all these years.” A picture of David sitting with her on her window seat came to Janice, the way he’d taken her hand, then kissed her forehead. A lot of Kurt’s friends had hugged her that day, but oddly, it was David’s touch she remembered. Feeling unaccountably guilty, she pushed the thought away.
“He’s very attractive,” Anna said as their dessert and coffee arrived. Nodding her thanks to Marge, she picked up her fork. “Is he married?”
Janice took a careful sip. “She died in a car accident twelve years ago.”
“And he’s never remarried? Hard to believe.” Anna took a bite of warm pie.
“I don’t know why we’re talking about David Markus. I’ll probably never see him again.”
Anna had had enough. She touched Janice’s hand and waited until her friend met her direct gaze. “Listen, Kurt died, you didn’t. Now, I know you’re grieving and I’m not suggesting you start dating this week. But you’re only forty-three and far too young to talk as if your life is over. I was merely suggesting you call an old college friend for some financial advice, not that you run off with him.”
But Janice wasn’t listening. “I believe some women love only one man and if something happens to him, that’s it.”
Her grief was making her melodramatic, Anna thought with a sigh. “I’m not sure I agree.”
“Tell me honestly, Anna. If something happened to Johnny, would you want to go on?”
“I would be devastated, as you are. But I would go on, because of the children and grandchildren. And for myself, because I’m not one to give up.”
“Could you love anyone after Johnny? I doubt it. Why, look at Alyssa.”
Anna took another bite of pie, wondering how she could steer this conversation to a lighter vein. “What about Alyssa?”
“We’ve talked about this before, of how Alyssa was wildly in love with Eddie Wocheck when she was young. You said you didn’t think Alyssa’s been truly happy since her father broke up that romance.”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t believe those were my exact words.”
