Never Again Good-Bye by Terri Blackstock Page A

on her fork. He had a beautiful smile, Laney thought, and it looked as if he used it often. It was the kind of smile that came easily at the sight of his child, but it was also the kind of smile that made the sadness in his green eyes seem more pronounced. It must be hard to lose a spouse, she thought, looking back down at her food. It must be as bad as losing a child.
    Amy took a dainty bite, but the minute she bit down the spaghetti exploded and drooled against her face. Wes laughed aloud, and Laney couldn’t help smiling.
    “Go ahead and slurp if you have to,” he told his embarrassed daughter. “I don’t think Laney’ll change her opinion of you.”
    “Daddy, I can’t,” Amy whispered, mortified.
    “I’ll tell you what,” Laney spoke up. “We’ll all slurp. This business of having every piece of spaghetti in place is for the birds, anyway.”
    Amy watched, amazed, as Laney took a forkful of spaghetti and slurped it up. Laney dabbed her napkin over her mouth and looked at the two people gaping at her. “Well, am I going to do this by myself?”
    Appreciation lit Wes’s face, and for a moment the shadow faded from his eyes. “You heard the lady,” he told Amy. “Start slurping.”
    They giggled through dinner and made a monumental fuss over the garlic bread Amy had made. But when the plates were empty, Wes’s lightheartedness seemed to disappear as well. What would he do next? she wondered uneasily. Would he make her leave? Would he let her tell Amy who she really was? Or worse, would he leave the choice up to her, never giving his preference one way or another?
    When he sent Amy to change into her pajamas, Laney stood up and reached for Amy’s empty plate.
    “Don’t,” he said, stopping her. “I’ll clean up later.”
    “No,” she argued. “Really, I want to.”
    “Then I’ll help,” he said, taking his own plate to the kitchen.
    Laney wondered at the flock of butterflies in her stomach at the prospect of being left alone with him. Maybe he wanted to talk to her to ask her to leave quietly.
    “You really don’t have to do this.” His voice came from behind her, too close to her ear, and she turned around. “The dishwasher’s broken, and I haven’t gotten it fixed. You can leave the dishes in the sink, and I’ll do them later.”
    “I insist,” she said.
    “But you made dinner, so I should clean up. It’s a rule Patrice and I …” His voice trailed off and he picked up the dish towel. “At least let me help,” he said. “You wash, and I’ll dry.”
    Laney looked at him for a moment. So many things she wanted to say, to ask. Would he think she was stepping out of line if she asked how Patrice had died? Would he want to talk about the woman who had loved both him and her child, or was the subject still too tender? Laney turned back to the sink and turned on the water.
    When the squirt of soap transformed into a million suds, she started to wash the dishes quietly. He took the dishes from her one by one and dried them, then put them in the cabinets. An amused smile crept across his face, as if he’d thought of some private joke.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “It’s our system,” he said, chuckling. “On Sesame Street they call this ‘co-op-er-a-tion.’”
    “Cooperation?” Laney asked, not quite seeing the humor. Wes found her ignorance even funnier. “I guess you’d have to watch it.”
    “Guess so.” Inept, she told herself. Trying to prove she could be a decent mother, and here she had never even watched Sesame Street !
    Wes seemed to sober at the wistful look in her eyes, and she started to scrub harder. What would they talk about now? Would he ask her how she liked the weather? The silence was driving her mad, yet she couldn’t think of an intelligent thing to say. Finally, groping, she said, “Amy’s really smart for her age. She’s amazing.”
    “Yeah, I guess it comes with being an only child. She’s the center of attention around here. But you were