Eric smiled. “You’re very nosy today,” he remarked. “But I guess with your mother and me, it was more like friendship at first sight. The love part kind of caught us by surprise.” Very much by surprise, he recalled as he thought of that long walk home from the high school one day.
It was years ago. Several inches of snow had fallen during the afternoon. After school, he and Hope had trudged through the fresh snow, both of them loaded down with books and gym bags. Eric was carrying Hope’s clarinet case. They were cutting across the field that adjoined the property owned by Hope’s parents when Eric tripped over something in his path, falling facedown in the snow. The books flew to one side and the gym bag and clarinet case to the other as he hit the ground hard. And although the fall hurt his shoulder a little bit, nothing hurt as badly as his fourteen-year-old pride.
But Hope hadn’t laughed. She certainly could have been amused by the sight of him clumsily plunging into the white depths. But she hadn’t. “Eric!” Hope had called out his name, in a typically feminine, almost maternal, manner. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?” She dropped her belongings on the ground and knelt beside him as he sat up, slightly stunned by the incident.
Eric wiped snow from his face. “I’m okay—just embarrassed,” he replied, as Hope pulled off her red gloves and brushed more snow from his face with warm hands.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she’d responded, pushing strands of hair away from her friend’s forehead in a tender touch. Friends. That’s all they were, wasn’t it? In that moment, it didn’t feel that way to Eric. Hope knelt only inches from him in that field, with her jeans getting wet from the snow, while she looked for a long moment into the dark eyes that viewed her with new interest. “A fall like that—” she hesitated before lowering her luminous blue gaze to look away from him “—could happen…to anyone.” She stumbled through the sentence. Then, she cautiously looked back at him to find that his eyes hadn’t strayed from her face. She smiled a little, and Eric thought for the first time how beautiful she was. Awash in unfamiliar thoughts, he slowly leaned forward, his mouth brushing hers in a soft kiss that she returned, tentatively at first, then, gradually, with a little more confidence. They finally broke apart abruptly, each of them settling back into the snow and gasping for breath—
“Dad,” Cassie interrupted the private memory, “tell me about how you fell in love.”
The straight line of Eric’s mouth showed no hint of the emotion behind his memories. “It’s difficult to tell anyone about the precise moment you know you’re in love, Cass. You’ll understand that when you’re older.” But in fact, Eric knew exactly when it had been for him: that afternoon in the snow. During that warm kiss that caused him to forget about his fall, his sore shoulder and the books lying where they had dropped. After that kiss, Eric and Hope had belonged to each other.
He cleared his throat. “Did you know your mother was the only girl on the high school golf team in those days? There wasn’t a girls’ team yet, and she played well enough that she was invited to join the boys.” He laughed quietly at the memory he always had whenever he thought about her golfing days—Hope surrounded by males.
“Weren’t you jealous?” Cassie asked as she took another bite of the meal she’d been picking at. It was as though she could read his mind. “Mom being around all those other guys?”
“You bet I was. I didn’t like it at all, and I wasn’t a good enough golfer to make the team, so she was on her own.” Just like now, he thought briefly.
“What if she gets married again someday? It won’t matter to you?”
“Married? You don’t need to worry about that happening soon,” Eric remarked, wanting to bring an end to this topic. Unless Cassie knew something he didn’t. He hadn’t been around enough lately to be aware of what was going on in Hope’s life, but his daughter was usually good at telling everything she knew about a subject without being prodded. So, he waited.
Cassie coughed several times. “Well, maybe not real soon, I guess.”
“What does that mean?” Eric asked. He reached for a nearby pitcher of water and poured some of it into the plastic cup on her lunch tray.
“Nothing. It’s just that Mr. Shelton, the principal, has been talking to her about the future, and they have eaten lunch together at school. Does that count as anything?” she asked in between sips.
It counted. But Eric wouldn’t let any emotion register there in front of his daughter. Not even surprise, and that wasn’t all he was feeling.
“Dad, you didn’t answer me.”
“Lunch in a school cafeteria with dozens of other people wouldn’t be much of a date now, would it?” Eric said.
“I guess not,” she replied.
But it was enough to bother Eric. Shelton. He didn’t recall anyone by that name at Cassie’s school, and he’d been there quite a few times. “I thought you had a female principal. Mrs. White, wasn’t it?”
“That was last year, Dad. Mrs. White had a baby, and she wanted to take some time off.”
“So Mr. Shelton replaced Mrs. White?”
“Yes, and he’s a—what’s the word? His wife died, and he’s a—”
“Widower?” Eric finished.
“Yes, that’s it. He has a son and a daughter, younger than me. Grandma says he needs a wife. I heard her and Mom talking about it.”
Eric watched Cassie push her food away, only half-eaten. “Why don’t you at least eat that applesauce, Cass. You love applesauce.”
“I used to love it. Now, it tastes gross.”
Something else he hadn’t known. Suddenly, Eric felt very alone. He wasn’t around enough to keep up with the changes that were happening with his children—or with Hope, apparently. Was she really interested in this Shelton guy who supposedly “needed” a wife? Or could it possibly be some kind of potential “arrangement”? No, she would never settle for something like that. Not Hope. Not after having known how good a real marriage could be. He glanced out the window. And theirs had been good, for a very long time.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Cassie’s question drew his attention back to her, and he studied her pretty blue eyes so similar in color to her mother’s.
“Nothing, hon. What were we talking about earlier? Mom being on the golf team, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Cassie replied. “I wonder if those boys teased her about being the only girl?”
“In the beginning they did. But then she hit a three wood two hundred yards down the fairway to help them win a championship. That brought an end to the teasing.” Eric thought of the strong-willed attitude his wife often displayed. Hope wouldn’t have stopped playing on that team even if the teasing had continued. If she wanted something, she went after it. At least, she used to. Surely, life hadn’t changed her so much that she’d consider a relationship of convenience with a widower she barely knew. Had it?
“Can’t you and Mom stop being mad at each other? I know it was all because of me that you—”
“Cassie,” Eric gently interrupted her. “You know we’ve talked about this before. And your mom has talked about it with you, too. The problems between your mother and me have nothing to do with you. And we’re not really mad at each other. Not anymore.” At least, he wasn’t. But he knew it might take a little time to learn Hope’s feelings.
“Finished with your lunch?” a nurse asked as she entered the room. “How are you doin’ today, Mr. Granston?” she added when she noticed Eric sitting in the chair beside the bed.
“Fine, Trudy. Thanks,” Eric answered while watching her take away Cassie’s plate, still half-full of her noon meal. The dinner roll and the gelatin were