The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess (3 page)

“Thank you,” he said, “for the casserole.”

“No problem.” She loved cooking; that was why she’d probably never be able to permanently retire the Domestic Goddess tiara
no matter how tarnished it got. “I always make too much.” Considering she lived alone. Like he now did.

The dog yipped again, dancing around, eager to resume their walk, and reminding Millie that Charles wasn’t as alone as she
was. Maybe she should get a pet; she wouldn’t have to worry about how to talk to one of them. Even Kim had a cat, although
she swore she wasn’t keeping it; she’d recently inherited it from the elderly lady who had lived in the unit next to hers.

But Millie didn’t need a pet; she had Steven now. Flustered over her near-collision with Charles, she had almost forgotten.

“You don’t need to keep doing this,” Charles said, his gaze on the dog, not her. Above the beard, she noticed a slight reddish
tint to his skin.
He
had nothing to be embarrassed about.

“It’s what neighbors do,” she insisted. Especially at Hilltop. Despite the vast acreage it covered on the hill overlooking
Grand Rapids, Michigan, the condominium complex was a tight-knit community. She’d certainly gotten her share of sympathy casseroles
after Bruce had passed away. While she hadn’t always appreciated the tastes since she was a critical cook, she had always
appreciated the gesture. But it was too bad everyone hadn’t used recipes from the Red Hat Society cookbook, like she always
did.

He shrugged. “Maybe. But—”

She reached out, touching his arm much like she had Steven’s earlier. She meant it as a reassuring gesture. Instead she felt
that disturbing little electrical charge again. “It gets better,” she assured him. “It takes time, but eventually it won’t
hurt as much.”

He sighed. “It’s not as if I didn’t see it coming. Guess I just didn’t want to face up to it.”

His wife’s death?

It had happened while he and his wife were in Arizona. Although Charles was young, probably the same age as Millie, he’d already
retired, and he and his wife had split their time between condos: summer and fall in Grand Rapids and winter and spring in
Phoenix. But this year he’d come home early, in spring, and alone.

Millie hadn’t even known that his wife was sick, but then Mrs. Moelker hadn’t exactly been an easy woman
to get close to. And Millie had rarely spoken to Charles; they’d exchange hellos when they’d bumped into each other at the
community center but that was all.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Now that he had started talking, she didn’t want him to stop. Steven could wait for his briefcase.

“We weren’t married that long, you know,” he confided, with a resigned sigh. “I’ve been a bachelor most my life. I can survive
being a bachelor again.”

“That’s a good attitude,” she said.

“Just wish she would have taken the dog,” he added.

To her grave?

“But there’s nothing wrong with the dog!” Millie had
read
about some people having their pets cremated with them. There were all kinds of eccentrics in the world; apparently Charles
Moelker was one of them.

“There’s nothing wrong with Ellen’s new husband, either. I don’t believe he’s allergic to dogs.”

“What?” Millie asked. “Ellen’s new husband?”

“Yes,” he said. His brows, untouched by gray unlike his beard, arched in confusion. “Where did you think she was?”

“Dead.”

She felt like a fool the minute she admitted it. Here she’d been thinking his wife was dead and instead she’d just divorced
him. Served Millie right for listening to Mrs. Ryers, Hilltop’s grapevine.

It didn’t help Millie’s embarrassment that Charles was laughing so hard tears streamed from the blue eyes that had apparently
addled whatever sense Millie had.

“You thought she was dead,” he finally managed to
gasp. “That explains the casseroles. They were pity casseroles!”

“Sympathy casseroles,” she insisted, hating to think of them the way he had. But he’d only just dubbed them that. What had
he thought they were before?

Heat rushed to her face. Oh, no, he had probably thought she’d been trying to impress him with her culinary skills, that she’d
been hitting on him. Her stomach churned with dread. And when he’d made the bachelor comments, had he been warning her off?

She’d thought the worst thing she could have done was run over his dog; she’d just found something worse, or at the very least,
more humiliating. But she didn’t know which was more so: her thinking his wife was dead or his thinking that she’d used her
cooking skills to make a pass.

Yes, she was way too old-fashioned to even attempt flirting. After Steven returned to his family, she’d see about getting
a pet. She could always put it in a kennel when she traveled.

G
randma, I’m so glad you’re here,” Brigitte said as she opened the door and threw her arms around her. Her auburn hair tickled
Millie’s nose as she squeezed tightly, sobs shaking her slender body. Already Brigitte was much taller than Millie, but then
most people were.

She patted her granddaughter’s back. She wanted to offer words of comfort, things like, “Everything will be all right. They’ll
get back together.” But there was no
way Millie could make promises that she had no control over keeping. That wouldn’t help anyone.

“You’ll do something, right?” Brigitte asked, sounding like a little girl instead of the mature fourteen-year-old she was.
“You’ll fix this.”

“Honey, I’d love to fix things, really I would, but this is between your mom and dad. I really shouldn’t interfere,” Millie
said, her voice breaking as surely as her granddaughter’s heart was. “I’m sorry.”

Brigitte sniffled; her sadness tugged at Millie’s heart. “That’s what Mom said. That it’s between her and Dad, then she locked
herself in her bedroom. But I can still hear her crying.”

If Millie listened hard enough, she would probably be able to hear her, too. They stood in the back hall, from which the utility
room, kitchen, and the master bedroom branched. Oak wainscoting covered the bottom half of the walls, cheerful green and gold
wallpaper the top half. Millie had helped Audrey hang that wallpaper when she and Steven had first moved in ten years ago.

Millie squeezed her granddaughter’s shoulders, holding her closer. “Brigitte…”

“I want to know why, Grandma. Why did Dad have to move out? What’s going on?”

Millie shook her head, which had first begun to pound when she’d found Steven moving into her condo. Her embarrassing encounter
with Charles Moelker had compounded the pain. “I don’t know either, honey.”

Brigitte pulled away, swiping at her damp eyes and cheeks with trembling hands. “This is about me, too,
Grandma. This is
my
family.” Her dark eyes were wide with fear.

Millie nodded. “I know.”

“And yours, too. If they don’t want to tell me because they think I’m a kid or something, they should still tell you. Did
Dad?”

Millie shook her head. “No.”

“This is so stupid.”

Millie wanted to wholeheartedly agree, but she held her tongue. “Honey, I’m sure they have their reasons.” A couple wouldn’t
throw away fifteen years of marriage without a reason. She hoped.

“What reasons?” Brigitte cried. “I have a right to know what they are!”

“Maybe you already do,” Millie pointed out, not that she wanted to pump her granddaughter for information.

Brigitte shrugged slender shoulders. “I don’t. I’m gone a lot for practice… for band and cheerleading.” Her bottom lip quivered,
and guilt flashed through her dark eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Millie assured her. “Your parents are very proud of you and everything you do.”

The lip stopped quivering, tugging up into a brief, beautiful smile that quickly dimmed again. “Maybe it’s because Mom went
back to school.”

“Your dad supported her decision.”

“The decision, yeah,” Brigitte agreed. “But Mom complains that he doesn’t support anything else.”

“Your dad has a great job.”

“No, not with money. He doesn’t help her, you know. With dishes. With laundry. He doesn’t pick up after himself.
That’s the only thing I’ve ever heard them fight about.”

Millie thought about this for a moment. Audrey had lived with Steven’s messy ways for a long time. Why get sick of it now?
Unless Steven was wrong and she had met someone else.

“Please, Grandma, you have to help them get back together,” Brigitte begged, her big, dark eyes full of tears.

“Honey—”

“Come on, Grandma, you always fix everything.”

Millie wished she could.

A door creaked open, and Audrey stepped from her bedroom into the hall. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, sniffing back
tears.

“Just me,” Millie said. Despite all the years she’d known her daughter-in-law, she felt awkward, like when she met Audrey
for the first time and didn’t know what to say to this strange girl that her son loved but who Millie was afraid might break
his heart.

“I should have known he’d send you—”

“For his briefcase,” Millie broke in to explain, just in case Audrey had been about to say something ugly.

Millie had always thought of Audrey as the daughter she’d never had, the one she’d been given later in life, after the angry
adolescence, when they were able to enjoy each other. And they had. They’d shopped, baked, and had thoroughly enjoyed all
the time they’d spent together. Millie didn’t want that to end now… even if Audrey and Steven’s marriage ended.

“I saw that he left it,” Audrey admitted, nodding. “Brigitte, can you get it for Grandma? I put it in the den.”

Brigitte stared hard at her mother, and Millie tensed, afraid that the girl, hurt and confused, was about to lash out at Audrey.
But then the teenager sniffled and shuffled down the hall toward Steven’s den, leaving her mother and grandmother alone.

Millie shifted uncomfortably. Despite how many times she’d been in her son and daughter-in-law’s house, she felt like a first
time visitor, as if she were a stranger selling magazines or candy bars and not entirely trusted beyond those few feet from
the back door.

Audrey looked just as uncomfortable, shifting her gaze anywhere that it wouldn’t meet Millie’s. So Millie studied her with
the same intensity her granddaughter had. Audrey’s swollen eyes were hollowed and underlined with dark bruises of exhaustion.
Always slender, she was even thinner now, so much so that she looked frail. Breakable.

Millie couldn’t hold in the concern that clenched her heart. “Audrey, why didn’t you come to me?”

“Mom, this isn’t something I felt I should talk to you about.”

“You can talk to me about anything,” Millie insisted. “But more than talking, I wish you would have let me help you.” She
cleaned Mitchell’s house. She could have cleaned theirs, too. “You’re running yourself ragged. You shouldn’t have been doing
everything by yourself.”

Audrey lifted her chin, her dark blond hair brushing her shoulders. “I know. That’s what I tried telling Steven.”

“You should have told me. I’d have been happy to help. I’ll help you now.”

Audrey reached out, her hands closing over Millie’s shoulders. “Please understand when I tell you this, that I love you, but
I don’t want
your
help.”

“You want Steven’s.” Millie nodded. “I understand, honey. And I’m not making excuses for him.” But then, helpless to act as
anything other than a mother, she did. “He works hard.”

Audrey’s hands dropped from Millie’s shoulders as she said, “So do I.”

“I know that, honey.”

“I’m not giving up school.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t expect you to.”

“But he expects
me
to do
everything.”

Shame washed over Millie because she should have realized, probably would have if she hadn’t been preoccupied with trying
to “retire.” It should have occurred to her that Audrey had too much to do.

But when she’d been Brigitte’s age, she’d helped her mother. She’d learned how to be a domestic goddess from her mother before
that goddess had died… too young. But Brigitte was busy, her school activities only added to Audrey’s responsibilities.

Audrey went on, “He expected me to be
you.”

“Me?”

“Despite my working and going to school, he expected me to clean and cook and do everything by myself… as if I have some magical
powers.” Her eyes welled with tears, her bottom lip quivering as she continued. “I don’t have any magical powers.”

“Neither do I, sweetheart.” Just that darned tarnished tiara. But if she did have magical powers, she would
have found some way to make everything right between Audrey and Steven, some way to erase all the pain and frustration they
were both feeling. “I’m so sorry.”

Audrey nodded, then turned and fled back into her bedroom. As the door shut behind her, Brigitte appeared in the hall, tears
streaming down her face.

“Grandma, please… do something.”

Millie choked back her own tears. Despite not wanting to make promises she might not be able to keep, she nodded. “I’ll think
of something.”

And if she couldn’t come up with anything on her own, she’d ask the advice of her friends.

W
here’ve you been?” Theresa asked as Millie walked into the back of the darkened recreation room at the community center. The
expansive area, with its big windows and soft carpeting, was also where they held many of their Red Hat Society chapter get-togethers.
“The movie started a while ago.”

Millie glanced at the big-screen television in front of the easy chairs they’d commandeered for the room when they’d first
started Movie Night. Leonardo DiCaprio’s youthful face filled the set. She’d never been able to see him as the heartthrob
others did. She would have felt like a cradle robber if she even tried.

“I have company,” she whispered as she slid into the chair next to Kim, who had obviously not shared anything with Theresa
yet. Not that she knew everything. But besides catching Steven moving in, Kim also knew that Millie had had to run an errand
for him; Millie had
called on her way to his house in order to cancel their dinner plans. She hadn’t been sure that she’d make it to the movie
either but had decided she should just pop in and quickly explain why she couldn’t stay. She figured it was okay to leave
Steven alone for a little while since he had his briefcase now.