Free Dorothy Garlock by More Than Memory

have managed otherwise.”
    “You’d have managed,” he responded matter-of-factly. “Thanks for the supper. Or, I guess the upper crust in Chicago say ‘dinner.’” At the door he turned and looked at her.
    She stood at the table, her hands clutching the top of the ladder-backed chair.
    “I saw your picture in a magazine after you’d decorated the club rooms in some fancy hotel. You looked like one of those high-society dames. I never thought to see you here, living in an old farmhouse, hanging clothes on the line. What are you trying to prove, Nelda?”
    She felt as if he had kicked her in the stomach. She could only stare blankly. Inside, she was hollow, unable to think. Then rising anger helped her find her voice.
    “Why should I be trying to prove anything? I told you once my reasons for coming here and I don’t need to explain them futher.”
He thinks I have some ulterior motive for coming here,
she reflected.
He believes that I’ll pack up and leave if the going gets rough
. Mentally straightening her spine, she reminded herself that the only person she needed to prove anything to was herself.
    If he noticed the anger in her reply, Lute showed no evidence of it. His lack of response infuriated her even more.
    “I’ll get my bike and be off,” he said tersely as he crossed the porch to the screened door.
    Nelda went to the porch and watched him. The yard light was still on. He turned back and looked at her, lifted his arm briefly in salute, and disappeared around the corner of the house. She stood at the door until distance ate up the sound of the motorcycle.
    Lute’s sudden antagonism had banished some of her hopes for a reconciliation, but not all; for, as she
quickly reminded herself, he had not remarried, and he was still wearing his wedding ring.
    • • •
    When the phone rang the next morning as Nelda was drinking coffee and listening to the news on the radio, she groaned thinking that it might be Aldus Falerri. The call was from Rhetta, the veterinarian’s wife. She wanted to know if it would be convenient for her to stop by that morning.
    Nelda was pleased she was going to have a real visitor. Though Ervin Olsen came by often, he seldom stayed more than five minutes, and she had to admit that she longed for a little chitchat.
    Right on time, a small yellow Volkswagen came up the lane and a tall, large-boned woman got out. She had thick, wheat-colored hair tied at the nape of her neck, a suntanned face, and friendly brown eyes. Nelda met her at the back door.
    “Hello. I’m Rhetta.” The smiling woman extended a hand in greeting.
    “I’m Nelda, obviously. Do come in.”
    “Gary told me to get myself over here and welcome you to our metropolis. How’s your dog doing?”
    In ten minutes they were chatting as if they had known each other for years.
    “I swear to goodness, Nelda, if I take on any more projects, Gary will raffle me off at the next veterinary convention. I had decided that I was absolutely not going to be the next president of the Women’s Club even if they got down on their knees and begged me, and what did I do? I sat there like I was dead from the neck up, and they elected me!
Now I’ve got the membership drive, the charity ball, the drive to expand the library, et cetera, et cetera.”
    “It sounds to me as if you have your hands full. What about your children? Did you say they were twelve and fourteen?”
    “Our boys are so self-sufficient they scare me! The only thing they’ll ever need a woman for is sex. They cook, do their own laundry, clean their rooms, manage their own money. They both think the sun rises and sets with their father. The other hero in their lives is Lute. He’s taught them gun safety, how to drive a tractor—he even took them to the north woods in Minnesota and taught them what to do if they should ever be stranded up there on one of the many fishing trips they make with Lute and Gary.”
    In order to hide her elation on hearing these