Free Flamingo Diner by Sherryl Woods Page A

bent on praising. Worse, she felt she didn’t deserve any compassion because it was plain to her, at least, that she had let Don down in some real, meaningful way. Why else would her husband take his own life?
    “Excuse me,” she said to the mayor, when she could take it no longer. Hurrying from the room, ignoring those who spoke, she made her way to the comparative quiet of the kitchen.
    Helen, who’d rarely let Rosa out of her sight, rushed after her. “How are you holding up?” she asked.
    “Can you get these people out of here?” Rosa pleaded. “I’m not sure I can handle it if one more person tells me how wonderful Don was.”
    “He was wonderful,” Helen replied, her tone chiding Rosa for thinking otherwise even under the current circumstances.
    “I always thought so,” Rosa said, feeling the rage once again begin to build in her chest. “But wonderful people do not suddenly decide to kill themselves one day. They do not abandon their families and leave them with a million questions.”
    Helen gasped. “Rosa, what on earth are you saying? Don’s death was an accident. No one’s said otherwise.”
    “I know better,” Rosa said. “He drove into that lake on purpose. Nothing else makes sense.”
    “Stop that. Stop it right now!” Helen said. “You can’t be saying such a thing. You can’t even think it.”
    “I don’t think it. I know it,” Rosa insisted, then sighed. “But you’re right, I can’t say anything to another living soul.” She gazed at her friend. “But I have to talk to someone, Helen, or I’ll go crazy.”
    “Then you can talk to me,” Helen said decisively. “If you need to work through this, then you can say whatever you want to me and it will go no further.”
    Rosa nodded. “You knew Don. How could he do such a thing?”
    “If—and I’m not saying I believe it for a minute—if he committed suicide, then something terrible obviously drove him to it. Anyone can reach a breaking point.”
    “Of course they can,” Rosa agreed. “But what was Don’s breaking point? Can you tell me that? Was he having an affair? Did some other woman dump him or threaten to tell me what was going on? Was he sick? Was he trying to spare us months of suffering? Or was he just tired of everyday life with me and the children?”
    “I don’t know,” Helen said, looking utterly helpless. “I wish I could give you answers, but I can’t. I can’t even accept the possibility that you might be right. You may have to resign yourself to not knowing.”
    “I can’t live with that,” Rosa said angrily. She searched her friend’s face and voiced just one of her fears. “Helen, do you think he was involved with another woman? Someone at the diner, maybe?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Helen scolded. “Don would never have an affair right under your nose. He would never have an affair, period. He loved you. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s that.”
    “How do you know that?” Rosa scoffed. “I never thought he’d kill himself, either.”
    Helen obviously had no answer for that. She merely returned Rosa’s gaze, her expression distraught.
    “I know one thing,” Rosa declared. “I am not setting foot in that diner ever again, not when there could be someone there who was sleeping with my husband.”
    “Rosa, you’re talking crazy now,” Helen said impatiently. “Listen to me. There was no other woman. I am as sure of that as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. You love that diner. You’re its heart and soul. People come there for a kind word from you. They can get a decent omelette or pancakes anyplace, but they can’t see their friends or be welcomed like one of the family anyplace else in Winter Cove. Besides that, it’s your livelihood. Who’ll run it, if you don’t?”
    Rosa faltered at that. Don had always taken care of the finances. She had no idea what sort of money they had, but she doubted it was much, not with Jeff in college and Emma out only