1105 Yakima Street - Debbie Macomber [71]
Rachel didn’t say anything at first. “Did he talk about what happened last Saturday?” she finally asked.
“A little. But he also said he’s been seeing the counselor—and Jolene agreed to go.”
Rachel’s head jerked up. “She did?”
“Well…for one time, anyway.”
Rachel nodded, but she didn’t seem too encouraged. “I wonder what Bruce had to promise to get her to do that.”
“He didn’t promise her anything.” He hadn’t really said, but Teri got the impression that Jolene hadn’t been given a choice.
“Trust me, Bruce must have bribed her.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
A baby’s cry came from down the hall, soon followed by a second and a third. Teri sighed.
“Where’s Christie?” Rachel asked.
Now that James and Christie were married, her sister lived in the apartment above the garage with her husband.
“She’s with James. You remember how it is when you’re first married. They’re constantly together.”
“I do remember,” Rachel whispered. “Unfortunately, the honeymoon for Bruce and me didn’t last nearly long enough.”
Rachel counted the money. Five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. She put them back on the counter. “Please return it to him for me. Okay?”
“You don’t need it?”
She shook her head and Teri knew instinctively that she was lying.
“Rachel, don’t be unnecessarily stubborn. Bruce wants you to have this.”
“No,” she insisted. “Tell him to spend it on the counselor for him and Jolene.”
Twenty-Two
“You can put that box in the master bedroom,” Lori Wyse told her brother-in-law, pointing the way, which was silly. Mack owned the duplex and knew exactly where the master bedroom was.
He disappeared down the hallway as she started to unpack the dishes, setting them in a cupboard in the compact kitchen. The duplex was smaller than their apartment had been. Nevertheless, it would serve their needs nicely.
“I think that’s it,” Mack said, hands in his back hip pockets.
“Can you go with me to turn in the rental truck?” Linc asked.
“Sure thing.”
Linc kissed Lori on the cheek as he walked out the door. “I shouldn’t be long. Don’t work too hard.”
“I won’t,” she promised, although she was determined to get as much unpacked as she could.
“Need any help?” Mary Jo asked, joining her, the baby in her arms. She set Noelle on the kitchen floor, where she was content to play with a large toy rabbit.
“That would be great.” Lori wasn’t about to decline such a generous offer. She dragged over the box of pots and pans and showed her sister-in-law where she wanted them placed.
They worked in silence for a while, with the radio playing softly in the background. “Linc and I are so grateful to get out from under my father’s thumb,” Lori said. “I don’t know what we would’ve done if it wasn’t for you and Mack.” Moving to Seattle was one of their few options, and they were both grateful not to be living in Linc’s family home with his two younger brothers.
“This helps me and Mack, too.”
Lori didn’t know Mary Jo well yet, but she felt they’d already become friends. Mary Jo sat on the kitchen floor and reached for a second box. “Do you want these bowls down here or in the cupboard above the dishwasher?”
“Above the dishwasher,” Lori told her.
Noelle threw her rabbit aside and yawned loudly.
“Looks like it’s nap time,” Lori said. Come to think of it, she was tired, too. Linc had left the apartment to pick up the truck before six that morning. But they’d been awake since four, finishing the last of the packing and cleaning.
“Come on, baby girl,” Mary Jo said, scooping up the toy, then bending to retrieve her daughter. “Let me change your diaper and put you down for a couple of hours.”
“She sleeps that long?”
“Almost every afternoon. She still takes a morning nap, too, but she’ll outgrow those pretty soon.”
Lori knew she had a lot to learn about babies. She and Linc had talked about starting a family and had decided to wait a couple of years. As newlyweds, they were still getting used to living with each other and to the demands and compromises of married life. They’d weathered a couple of challenges in the past year, thanks largely