The Secret Ingredient for a Happy Marriage

by Shirley Jump

  “Don’t tell me what I should do, Roger. My business is my own.” She shoved the bills into the night deposit bag and grabbed her keys. “I have no desire to have some man boss me around. I’ve been doing just fine on my own for more than two decades.”

  He scoffed. “You really don’t want to let anybody in, do you? Not me, not Iris—”

  “That girl stole from me.”

  “Did she admit it? Did you catch her?”

  “She tried to blame it on someone else. Typical thief behavior.” Colleen shook her head. “Besides, her running out of here should be evidence enough. Someone who was honest would have stayed.”

  “Maybe she ran because she was hurt that you accused her. She was crying, Colleen. That doesn’t scream guilty to me.” Roger crossed to the window and stared out at the quiet street. “Do you always judge people so harshly?”

  “I’m doing no such thing. There’s two hundred dollars missing—”

  “And there are a hundred other explanations besides Iris.” Roger turned and put his back to the window. “I thought I knew you, Colleen O’Bannon. I thought all this”—he waved his hand in a circle around her—“prickliness was a cover for a soft heart. I guess I was wrong.”

  The shop door opened and closed again. This time, leaving Colleen alone in the bakery with her anger and her principles.

  Nora sat in her car, staring at the big white and red sign staked in her front yard, the letters bold and public and ugly. In three days, a bunch of strangers would stand on this very lawn and bid on the house she loved.

  She had tried calling the bank and gotten nowhere. She’d then contacted a very patient lawyer who offered her two hours of sympathetic and free advice. In short, there was nothing she could do, not unless she could walk in with a three-hundred-thousand-dollar check and set the mortgage to rights.

  She pulled away from the curb, turning her back on things that were lost causes, and headed to work. Tonight she’d grab some boxes and pack up what she could. She needed to book a U-Haul truck and a storage unit, which would mean she could keep most of the things from the house. She’d texted Ben several times, trying to nail him down about division of property and when they would move everything. Ever since the family dinner, Ben had gone mostly silent. He took the kids once and other than that, rarely answered her.

  She told herself to stop being disappointed. She’d known this was coming and hoping otherwise was foolish. Ben had let her down. Again.

  For almost two weeks, she’d been making excuses for him with the kids, doing her level best to preserve the status quo. Sarah had started talking to Anna again, and her grades were inching up. The last thing Nora wanted to do was send all that forward momentum in the opposite direction.

  The raise Ma had given her was a big help and would be enough to pay for the moving expenses and the storage unit—assuming Nora could hire some neighborhood kids to do the heavy lifting—but Nora had procrastinated on making a plan. Her sisters had offered a hundred times to help her out, but old habits died hard, and Nora brushed off their suggestions or changed the subject.

  She’d always been the one to get things done. Make a to-do list, check off the items one at a time, and go to bed happy to have accomplished each task. But in the last two weeks, getting out of bed and getting to work was pretty much the sum total of her accomplishments for the day. What was it about those stages of grief? She’d aced denial, made a mess out of anger, failed at bargaining, but boy, did she get a gold star for depression.

  She ducked in the back door of the bakery, called out a hello to Abby and Bridget, then skirted around her mother and grabbed an apron off the hook. “Hi, Ma.”

  “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks. Good morning to you too.” She slipped the apron over her head and threw her hair into a ponytail. “I need to get to work.”

  “Will you let me loan you some money, Nora? Maybe I can help—”

  Her mother had been trying to help Nora ever since the family dinner. For once, Ma hadn’t criticized Nora or talked to her about her life choices. She’d merely come up to her, said I’ve decided you deserve a raise, and let the subject drop. Nora didn’t know why, and she wasn’t about to poke that hornet’s nest.

  “Ma, it’s too late. And Ben and I have it under control.” Ever since she’d told her sisters the truth, they’d been hovering over her as if she was going to fall apart at any second. So she went back to pretending everything was just fine because that was better than being treated like Humpty Dumpty. Her mother needed the money she had for her retirement, not to bail out her adult daughter. The raise would be enough; Nora would make sure of it. “Besides, Ben and I created this mess, Ma. It’s on us to clean it up.”

  “Nora, I think this is a mess too big for two to handle.”

  She gave her mother a quick hug. “It’ll be fine.”

  Ma gave Nora a disbelieving arched brow. “The offer stands, so let me know if you need me. And I expect to see you both at Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Nora nodded. She wasn’t sure that she and Ben would even be together then, but that wasn’t an argument she wanted to have with her mother right now.

  “And if you think it’ll be all right with the rest of the girls,” Ma said, “I’d like to invite Roger to our table.”

  Nora grinned. “Roger, huh? Well, Ma, I think that is a great idea.”

  “Don’t look at me like that. The man has no family in Boston, and it’s a holiday for joining with other people.” Ma grabbed a sponge and began wiping the counter, but she was blushing, and the mere mention of Roger’s name had made Ma’s eyes dance. “It doesn’t mean anything except that he likes my turkey.”

  “I think he likes a lot more than that,” Nora muttered.

  “Nora Jean! More working and less talking.”

  “Yes, Ma.” Nora laughed at the consternation on Ma’s face. Seeing Colleen O’Bannon ruffled was as rare as spotting an antelope on Boston Common.

  Bridget finished her conversation with a customer, hung up the phone, and slipped a new order under the top ones on the clipboard. “Guys, that was the mayor’s office. They want to order the chocolate peanut butter cake that got written up in Boston magazine. There’s some big networking event the mayor is hosting with a whole bunch of businesses looking to expand in Boston. Supposed to be a lot of press there, which should be great publicity for us.”

  The surge of publicity they’d had from the write-up last year had been great for the bakery. They’d ridden that wave most of the year, and this next boost would be just the thing Charmed by Dessert needed going into the holiday season. Business was already up thirty percent from last Thanksgiving, and if early orders were any indication, Christmas would be the same.

  “That’s awesome,” Abby said. “I knew that cake was going to put us on the map. It’s seriously one of the best cakes I’ve ever eaten.”

  “We should come up with some kind of promotion to run at the same time,” Bridget said. “You’re the master at that, Nora. What do you think?”

  Nora’s mind had already drifted away, circling like a vulture around the auction sign and the divorce. “About what?”

  “What we were just talking about five seconds ago.” Bridget put a hand on Nora’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay? You totally zoned out there.”

  “I’m good. Just…planning the weekend.” She sighed and then looked at her sisters and her mother. They wanted to help, and she needed to get better at asking for and accepting that. She couldn’t do it all alone, and frankly, she didn’t want to anymore. “I need to move this weekend. If you guys—”

  “Of course we’ll help you, silly.” Abby put an arm around Nora’s shoulders. “O’Bannon teamwork. I think that’s our family superpower.”

  Nora swiped away the tears brimming in her eyes. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.” She sucked up the moment of emotions and grabbed the clipboard for the day’s orders. She glanced around the kitchen and noticed one station open. “Hey, whe
re’s Iris today?”

  “She will not be returning,” Ma said.

  “What? Why not?” Bridget hefted a ten-pound bag of confectioners’ sugar into her arms and then dumped it into the stand mixer. “She was a huge help, and she was just starting to remember the recipes.”

  “She…won’t be back. And neither, apparently, will my two hundred dollars.”

  “Iris stole the money?” Nora asked. “Wow. I never would have expected that from her.”

  “Me neither.” Ma pursed her lips and went back to studying the purchase orders. Nora and Bridget exchanged a glance. Then they let it go.

  Ma went to make a phone call, the oven timer dinged, and Abby switched out the bread loaves while Nora leafed through the clipboard of orders. Back to normal.

  Nora pulled the top sheet off the clipboard. She read the work order, and her heart stilled. For a split second, she was twelve years younger, surrounded by her family with Ben right by her side. She glanced up at Bridget. “Who placed this order?”

  Bridget shrugged. “I don’t know. It was in the mail slot this morning. Paid in cash.”

  “That’s weird.” Maybe she was feeling nostalgic or maybe it was seeing the sign in her yard, the finality of those block letters, but as Nora mixed up the batter for the sponge cake base of the Torta del Cielo, her throat got thick, and her vision blurred.

  She whipped egg whites with salt and set it aside. Next she mixed the yolks, some sugar, and vanilla together. She added ground almonds, flour, baking powder, a little nutmeg, and a pinch of almond extract. The sweet, nutty scent of almonds filled the air as Nora folded in the beaten egg whites. The cake layers for the torta were light and airy, like almond clouds that embraced the creamy filling and sat below the meringue crown.

  Nora’s hands moved in delicate strokes, swooping up some batter, sliding it lightly over the egg whites. Pivot the bowl, repeat, pivot, repeat, the movements practiced and automatic. Which was a damned good thing because the tears she’d held at bay had begun to spill by the time she was pouring the batter into the springform pans.

  As she was pouring the ingredients for the almond cream into the mixer, she heard the ding of the bell that hung over the shop door. When her grandmother had died, she used to think every ring of that bell was a whisper from Gramma in heaven. Now Nora wondered what her Gramma would think of the granddaughter who could bake anything but had made a total disaster out of her life.

  Sarah came into the kitchen and slung her backpack on the counter. Nora stopped the mixer. “What are you doing here?”

  “Daddy got me at school. I didn’t feel good.” Sarah dropped into one of the chairs. Nora crossed to her daughter and put the back of her hand on Sarah’s forehead. Her skin was cool and dry to the touch.

  “You don’t have a fever. Is your belly upset?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I guess so.”

  Ben came into the kitchen, wearing a white T-shirt and scuffed jeans and his dark brown work boots that had weathered into a soft tan. He looked handsome as hell, and her traitorous heart skipped a beat. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure. Uh, let’s go outside. Sarah, why don’t you get started on some homework? Aunt Bridget can get you some crackers for your tummy.”

  “I will,” Bridget said. She bent down in front of her niece. “We’ll keep each other company for a while, won’t we, Sarah?”

  Nora pushed on the handle of the back door, and she and Ben stepped out into the parking lot. She cleared her throat and turned to face her husband. “Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” she said, all business, no emotion. “We need to make a plan for moving out this weekend. Did you look over the furniture inventory I sent you last week?”

  “Sorry. I haven’t had a chance, Nora.”

  Again and again, he kept letting her down. Letting their family down. “For God’s sake, Ben, they are going to lock us out in three days! We have to do this now, not a month from now, not a year from now.”

  He put up his hands and took a step closer. “Hey, truce, okay? I didn’t come here to fight or just to drop Sarah off, though I hope it’s okay that she stays with you the rest of the day.”

  Nora nodded. “Then why did you come?”

  “I would like to ask you for a favor.”

  She scoffed. “You want a favor from me? Ben, I’ve been trying to ask you simple questions for the last two weeks, and you can’t even be bothered to return a text message. Give me one good reason why I should do you a favor now.”

  “Because you used to love me once.”

  The words stopped her argument cold. She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, and faced him again. She had loved him once, and God help her, just seeing him now had her wondering why she’d stopped. “What do you need?”

  “Could you drop the kids off at your mom’s after school today—I already asked her to babysit and she said okay—then meet me at the house?”

  Finally. He was going to face reality and talk about the division of property. “Fine. I’ll bring my list.”

  A wry grin crossed his face. “I wouldn’t expect you to show up with anything less.” Then his gaze softened and held hers for a moment. She took in a breath, wanting him to stay as much as she wanted him to leave.

  “Ben, we need to be realistic about—”

  Before Nora could finish her sentence, Sarah burst through the back door, followed by Bridget. “Sorry, sorry!” Bridget said. “Sarah said she had to talk to you two, and she ran off before I could stop her.”

  “It’s okay.” There wasn’t much more she had to say to Ben anyway. And a part of Nora was glad for the distraction, heading off another argument, another discussion she didn’t want to have. All this talk about lists and property division had left Nora depressed as hell.

  She bent down to Sarah’s level. Her daughter’s eyes were red, lashes wet with tears. “What’s the matter, honey? Are you feeling sicker?”

  Sarah fished in the pocket of her jeans and tugged out a thick pile of twenty-dollar bills. “I want you and Daddy to stop fighting and stop getting divorced.”

  Money. The one thing that had been a source of hundreds of arguments between them. Whispered fights late at night that they thought the kids couldn’t overhear. Tight sentences shot at each other while passing in the kitchen, muttered comments spoken while the TV played. All this time, she’d thought her daughter and son hadn’t noticed, but they had heard and paid attention.

  Nora glanced up at Ben, who looked as pained as she felt. She brought her attention back to Sarah. “Where did you get this money, honey?”

  “I…” She thrust the crumpled wad of twenties toward her mother. “If you have enough money, you can buy the house, and we can stay with Daddy.”

  Nora took the cash from Sarah’s hands and flipped through it. Ten twenty-dollar bills. Two hundred dollars. Her stomach dropped. “Sarah, did you take this money from Grandma?”

  Sarah toed a circle on the tar. “Yeah, but there was a lot of money in there. I only took some.”

  Nora and Bridget exchanged a look over the top of Sarah’s head. The money that had been missing. The money Ma thought Iris took. “That money wasn’t yours to take, Sarah,” Nora said. “It belonged to Grandma, and the bakery.”

  “You can’t just take money, Sarah,” Ben said. “It’s wrong. You know that.”

  Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes. “But…but you’re gonna get divorced, and we have to live somewhere else, and I don’t wanna move. And if you have enough money, we don’t have to do any of that.” Sarah lifted her gaze to her parents. Her eyes shimmered with hope that this was the answer, the way to straighten out the whole mess. “Right, Mommy?”

  Nora didn’t have anything to say. There was no way to ease this wound, to cushion the truth that these changes were coming whether any of them wanted them or not. She couldn’t turn back time, couldn’t hit the lottery, and couldn’t spare her children from any of it.

  “Sarah, I know you don’t want any of those things to happ
en,” Ben said. He dropped to one knee before his daughter, his tall frame casting hers in a shadow. “I wouldn’t either. But sometimes we have to change our direction to get to where we really want to be.”

  “I just want to be with you and Mommy. In our house.”

  “The house isn’t important, Sarah Bear. I know it seems like it is right now, but in the end, what’s really important is your family. And you’re not losing that.” He brushed her bangs off her forehead with a sweet, tender move and gave her a lopsided smile. “No matter what, you’re always going to have me and Mommy.”

  “Together?”

  One word, asking a hundred questions about the future. Ben glanced up at Nora. Their gazes held, and as much as she wanted to give him a smile, a promise, she couldn’t. Neither of them had any idea where they would be tomorrow, next week, next year.

  “Even if we aren’t together,” Ben said to Sarah, “we’ll both always be there for you. I promise.”

  It was the best answer to give. And it was apparently enough for Sarah, who reached out and gave her father a hug. “I’m sorry I took the money, Daddy. I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  “It’s okay.” Nora ruffled Sarah’s hair. As much as she wanted to be angry, she couldn’t. The last thing any kid wanted was their predictable life uprooted. “But I think you need to go inside and give it back to Grandma. And tell her that you’re sorry.”

  “Am I gonna get in trouble?” Sarah’s face crumpled. “I don’t want Grandma to be mad at me.”

  “Don’t worry, kiddo.” Bridget put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder and steered her toward the door. “I’ll be a character witness for you.”

  “What’s a character witness?” Sarah asked as they went back inside. The door shut behind them, leaving Nora and Ben alone.

  “I can’t believe she did that.” Ben ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath. “I hate seeing her upset like that.”

  “It’ll get easier. Once the kids are settled.” She told herself that, even if she didn’t believe it.

  “Maybe we can talk to both of them tonight. After you come to the house.”