Chapter Fourteen

Dennis followed Cole and Audrey into the dining room. The table wasn’t set with his best dishes, but with Cole joining them, that was wise. His son was used to heavy plastic and unbreakable tumblers. Maybe Dennis should’ve weaned the boy onto pottery before now, but it was too late to undo the past. If Audrey wanted to chalk it up to Dennis’s shortcomings as a father, he would just have to prove that he was better now.

He was better now.

He had to be.

Dennis pulled out Audrey’s chair for her.

“You see what I’m doing, Cole? A gentleman seats a lady like this.” Cole watched obediently for a moment, his face a mask of bored patience.

“I don’t want to eat it here. I want to eat it over there.” Cole waved a teaspoon at the living room. “So I can watch cartoons.”

“No cartoons tonight.”

As Audrey took her seat, her braid fell over Dennis’s hand on the back of the chair. He had a brief, intense desire to lift that heavy braid and rub its tip over his lips. She hadn’t objected to staying for dinner, presumably to help him give Cole a lesson in table manners. It was a weak excuse, but it was the best he could come up with. He wanted to impress on her that he was an attentive, involved father. But mostly, he wanted to see her lovely face across the dinner table again. He gripped her chair tighter and slid it forward.

Dennis seated himself and tried to keep his legs from jiggling with a sudden attack of nerves. He planted his feet squarely under the table. There was no need to jangle. He wasn’t the undisciplined, cheeky kid he’d once been. He was a man, and he could navigate any number of business and social situations with ease. Tonight would be no exception, even if Audrey made him feel like a teenager on his first date.

He picked up his napkin. They were the linen napkins, the good ones, wedding gifts that had been hidden in a drawer for years. So many things in this apartment reminded him of Katherine, though his memory had faded over time. He’d thought staying in the apartment would keep her memory close, keep it alive for Cole’s sake. But now, he no longer knew whether he was protecting Katherine’s treasures for Cole’s sake or letting himself be haunted. Held back, even.

Would there be no end to Audrey’s ability to make him question his own judgment?

He cleared his head. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

“See, Cole,” he said. “We put our napkins in our laps. Like this.”

Dennis waited. Cole shook his napkin out like a bed sheet.

“It’s too big.” Cole draped it over his thighs and up his chest, then snaked it over his head. “Woo-oo, I’m a ghost!”

Dennis wanted to snatch Cole’s napkin down, but Audrey beat him to it with a giggle.

“Eek, a ghost!” She pulled on the napkin. “Hey, you’re not a ghost. You’re Cole!”

She had the napkin draped across Cole’s lap in an instant. Cole grinned without complaint, his feet swinging under his chair. One thing was sure. Audrey had a way with the boy. Where Dennis would have filled his ears with instructions, she played with him and led him gently to the proper result.

The dinner was flawless, but not because Dennis made it so. Mrs. Quant’s stew made Dennis’s mouth water with every bite. Cole managed to keep his face and clothes mostly free from gravy.

But Audrey was the reason the evening was perfect. She led the conversation with the grace of an accomplished hostess, sprinkling her comments with reminders to Cole to use his silverware instead of his fingers. Cole soon forgot to complain about missing his cartoons and even joined the conversation with stories about his day.

Through it all, Dennis felt somehow disconnected. This wasn’t what family dinners had been like when he was a kid. Those had been precise military drills, each of his siblings assigned to cups or napkins or a basket of bread. The Delaney kids had been a well-trained, crack platoon when their stomachs were rumbling. And a disorganized pack of noise and chaos otherwise.

But this was different. Dennis floated above it, approving. “Pass the rolls, please.”

“Cole, did you hear that? Your daddy asked so nice. He’s a gentleman.” She handed the silver wire basket of rolls to Cole, who snatched one before passing it to Dennis.

It was like being an actor in a movie about the perfect family. Pretty, graceful woman with a smile for everyone and an abundant supply of patience and good humor. Precocious child with the plump cheeks of a cherub, absorbing attention simply by being so lovable.

And him, Dennis, the patriarch. Straight back and square shoulders, unbowed by the pressures of modern life. When the meal was over, the script would doubtless call for him to watch the news or a ball game, a glass of whiskey at his elbow. Audrey would join him, dropping a kiss on his cheek before curling up close with a magazine. They would spend peaceful hours together after tucking in Cole. Perfect companions in the perfect family. And then they would go into the bedroom, and that, too, would be perfect.

It was too perfect.

It was unreal.

It was everything he wanted.

But never believed–still didn’t believe–he could have.

And if he needed any more proof that his life was not a neatly scripted movie, the meal ended. Audrey helped him clear the table and then, without even a hint of the hesitation he yearned for, said good-bye, and left Dennis alone with his son.