“He’s showing off,” Tootsie teased. “But ain’t a one of us going to complain, are we, girls?”

“No, ma’am,” they all answered in unison.

“I’m not showing off. It’s just that some mornings are better than others, and this is one of them,” Luke declared.

“Did y’all talk or something?” Tootsie whispered to Diana.

“We did, and it’s all worked out. We will be dating when we get home, but we’re taking it very slow,” Diana answered.

“Good,” Tootsie said. “I was damn tired of the tension around here. I can take you girls bickering, because that’s just joking around with each other, and sisters oftentimes argue. But I didn’t like that you and Luke were uncomfortable with each other.”

“Me, either,” Diana said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Everything settled into a new routine by Friday. Late at night, Diana would sneak out of the house and spend a few hours with Luke, then make it back to her room before daybreak. She’d forgotten it was even her birthday until she came out of her morning shower to the smell of cinnamon floating up the stairs.

“Would you hurry up?” Tootsie yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “Luke is putting the icing on the cinnamon rolls, and they’re best when they’re right out of the oven.”

Diana couldn’t have wiped the smile off her face if she’d sucked all the juice from a lemon. She’d mentioned to Luke that she loved cinnamon rolls night before last. “I smell them, and I’m on my way.”

“Happy birthday!” All four of the women pointed to the table where Luke was busy lighting a candle that he’d placed right in the middle of a pan of iced cinnamon rolls.

“Blow it out and make a wish,” Tootsie said.

Diana whipped her hair to one side, leaned down and closed her eyes, and blew out the candle. “I thought I would be blowing out candles on my cake later on today.”

“You will.” Luke cut sections, put one on each plate, and passed them out to everyone. “This is just the first of two or three birthday wishes you get to make today.”

Carmen forked a bite into her mouth. “Delicious. Now, Diana, we want to know what you wished for.”

“Not until she takes a bite, or it won’t come true,” Tootsie said as she dipped her first bite in her coffee.

Diana cut off a bite, dipped it in coffee, and quickly got it into her mouth before it fell off the fork. “You should forget techie stuff and invest in a café, Luke.”

“Your wish?” Joanie asked.

“I wished that someday we could bring our daughters here for a vacation,” Diana answered.

Tootsie wiped her mouth with a paper napkin with HAPPY BIRTHDAY printed on it. “That can be arranged anytime they all got leave. One or all three can come here with y’all or with all of us. It’s open to whoever wants to use it at any time.”

“Thank you,” Diana said. “Tell us about your honeymoon here. Weren’t your folks still living then?”

“Sure they were. Granny and Grandpa had moved into Clarksville to be near her sister, and they gave the place to my folks. I was born right here in this house. Then when me and Smokey got married, Mama and Daddy went on down to Granny’s house for a week so we could have our honeymoon alone.” Tootsie got a faraway look in her eyes as she talked about it.

“What happened at the end of the week?” Carmen asked.

“They came home in time to see us off to Smokey’s first duty station in Georgia. Mama cried when I left. I cried all the way across Louisiana. Smokey didn’t know what to do with me. Then we stopped for gas, and I went to the bathroom. The ladies’ room had an old cracked mirror above the sink, and I stared at my reflection a long time.” Tootsie took the time to eat a few more bites before she continued. “I decided that I loved Smokey more than my folks, my friends, and anything else in the world. So I dried my tears and bought a Coca-Cola in a bottle. That’s the only way they came in those days, and I got myself a candy bar to go with it. I promised myself that when I got done with those two things, I was going to make the best of my new life in Georgia. And that if Smokey had to go to Siberia, I’d go with him with a smile on my face.”

“And you did, right?” Joanie asked.

“Never had to go to Siberia, but the two winters we spent in the German mountains, I thought I might freeze plumb to death,” Tootsie giggled. “But enough about me. Tell me about your best birthday and your worst one ever, Diana.”

“Worst was the year that Rebecca was born. She was six weeks old, and Gerald had to leave again two days before my birthday. Looking back, I probably had postpartum depression. Strangely enough, my best birthday was the same one. Carmen and Joanie had both just moved into base housing, one on either side of me. They each had a baby, too, and their husbands were on the newly formed team with Gerald, and our husbands had left on the same mission. They came over that evening with a casserole and their daughters, and we spent half the night talking about everything,” Diana said.

Carmen reached for a third cinnamon roll. “We’ve sure been through a lot since that evening. I felt like I was about to drown, and meeting y’all was a lifeboat.”

Before she’d taken the first bite, her phone rang. She recognized the number as being the lawyer she’d talked to a couple of times about the divorce. “Hello, this is Carmen Walker.”

“Miz Walker, this is Lester Thomas. I’ve got the revised divorce papers in my hands. Tootsie said it was all right if I called your husband’s lawyer and talked to him. This looks much better than that first one, but you are still entitled to alimony if you’d like to pursue that,” he said.

“Eli told me about the revision, and I’ve decided to sign it. If you could mail it to me, that would be great,” she said.

“I’ll drop it in the post office this afternoon. If you are sure about this, just sign it, and mail it back to me. I’ll take care of the rest of it,” he said.

“We don’t have to go to court or see each other?” she asked.

“Not if you agree on everything. His lawyer and I will meet with the judge in chambers. I’ll file it and then send you a final copy. Maybe you should think about it for a while. Once it’s signed, you can’t go back and ask for alimony. It appears the house you have is the only shared property, and it still has about seven years left on the mortgage. Are you willing to take that on with no job and no alimony? You could at least ask that he make the payments for the first year so you can get your feet under you,” Mr. Thomas said.