Page 17 of A Hero Comes Home

“Mine are. They are the size of saucers, and I call them Mookies . . . as in monster cookies.”

He chuckled.

“Don’t laugh. The most successful bakeries have something unusual, like the Apple Uglies at the Orange Blossom in Buxton.”

“I love those! So, what kind of Mookies do you make?”

“It varies. Some of them are seasonal, like Cove Candy Cane Crunch at Christmas, and Strawberry Shores in midsummer. Jello Waves all through the tourist season because of the bright colors, which the kids love, and the usual ones, too, like Chocolate Chip Coasters. Surfin’ with Ginger. Sandy Tarts. Butterscotch on the Beach. Tides of Peanut Butter. Walnut Wafer Waves. Salty Caramel Shells.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I get the picture. What I like most is how passionate you seem about all this. But I wonder, well . . .” Why hadn’t she gone back to New York when he’d “died”? Why hadn’t she resumed an aspiring career with singing? As far as he knew, the only singing she’d done since he’d brought her to Bell Cove was in the church choir, and he didn’t know if she’d even continued with that. Surely, her parents would have welcomed her back to the city, even with three kids. But these were questions best saved for another occasion.

“What?” she prodded. “What do you wonder about?”

“I wonder why you haven’t sent me any cookies this past week,” he said.

“By the time they arrived there, you’d already be here,” she pointed out.

Which was something he did not want to think about now. Not yet. Time was going by too quickly now that the decision had been made for him to go home.

So, in their nightly chats, he and Sally skirted around anything involving their personal relationship. Most guys in his situation would be engaged in tantalizing discussions of what they wanted to do with their wives when they got home, mostly related to beds and naked bodies. Once he’d teasingly said, “So, I guess we’ve been given another chance to get us a John,” based on their naming their kids after the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, which ended with that third son.

Jake’s remark had been met with silence.

Guess there won’t be any action in that regard, at least not right away. What had he expected when her last words to him when heading out for deployment three years and three or so months ago had been “You selfish bastard!” followed by a slammed door.

At first, Sally had asked questions about his captivity, but eventually gave up when she never got real answers.

Like “What did you eat, living in a cave?” As if his diet had been important during those brutal days!

“Bat wings,” he’d replied. “They taste just like chicken wings without the sauce.”

“Why do you always have to make fun of me like that? As if I don’t have the brains to understand what you do. Or that I can’t take the truth.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you. I was making fun of myself.”

“Yeah, right.”

Or, “How did your leg get injured? And your eye? Oh, Jacob! Your beautiful eyes!”

Sally had been attracted to his blue eyes from their first meeting, said they were among his best features. “I still have one left.”

“That’s not funny,” she’d said. “How did it happen . . . the eye and the leg?”

“I always was clumsy,” he’d answered.

“That doesn’t even pass the giggle test.”

Which was true. He’d never been clumsy. Just the opposite. Highly coordinated and able to spin on a dime and land on his feet.

Mostly, they talked about the boys.

“Matt considers himself the man of the family since you’ve been gone.”

“That’s quite a load for an eight-year-old.”

“Yes, but he takes it seriously. You’ll have to be careful not to step on his toes.”

“Point taken,” he said.