Chapter 29

"I thought a love letter would make her happy. She's been in the living room crying for the last hour."

Jeanie glared at her husband when she said to him, "If you say something like that to her, you'll find yourself sleeping out with the dogs for the next two weeks. Understand?"

"What? I just meant..."

"When was the last time you sent a card ... or better, roses ... to Jeanie?" Theresa asked.

"Don't you start on that."

"What my dear sister is trying to suggest to you is that a woman has feelings. And when a man does something touching, it is bound to bring tears."

"Woman? We're talking about Jessica."

"One more word, Buster..." Jeanie said.

The conversation halted when Jessica appeared in the kitchen. She walked over and sat down on her mom's lap.

"Did Dad ever write to you?"

"No. We were never apart. We saw each other in school and then..." Theresa answered.

"You knew Dad in school? What grade?" Jessica persisted.

"Jessica..."

"Fourth," Jeanie said with a gleam in her eye. "This lug here never wrote me a love letter either."

"Hey!"

Jessica giggled, then said, "Bet you didn't need to, did you? Big strong man taking Jeanie out on Friday nights."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"So what did he say?" Jeanie asked.

"He couldn't tell me where he was, but he said it was no fun."

"Because you weren't there," Jeanie added.

Jessica blushed.

"Maybe I should look at that letter," Theresa said.

"Mom!"

"I do remember a diary..." Jeanie reminisced.

"You knew about ... Wait," Theresa's face started to blush. "You didn't read it, did you?"

"Mom, you had a diary?"

Jeanie answered with a sly smile on her face, "Jessica, all girls had diaries back then."

"You had one, too?"

"Yes, she did. She hid hers under the top drawer of her dresser."

"How did you know? You snoop!" Jeanie accused.

"Mom found it, if you must know. I happened to be in the room when she pulled the drawer out by accident. We both saw it there. Mom just put the drawer back in place and picked up the clothes that had fallen to the floor. I never knew if Mom went back in while I wasn't there, and read any of it," Theresa explained.

Jeanie seemed a bit flustered at that news and wanted to turn the conversation back to Jessica.

"What else did he say?"

"That he'd try and write me every couple of days."

"That's it?" Theresa asked.

"Well," Jessica said as her face turned red, "no."

"You asked," Jeanie taunted her sister.

"Ok, I did." Theresa groaned. "Now what's this about having a big dinner I hear you talked Jeanie into having?"

"You're going to teach me grandma's recipes."

"Not all of them, I hope you know. That would take more than one meal," Theresa said.

"Then we can start having big meals again, so you can teach me all of them," Jessica replied.

"Haven't you learned, yet?" Jeanie said with amusement.

Theresa looked at her sister and replied, "I guess we will have to have a lot of those meals, and since we don't have the room for those big gatherings, we'll need to have them here. By the way, Jessica, did you invite someone over?"

Jessica looked over to her Aunt and guiltily said, "Yes, two. I hope that's ok."

"I think that's fine," Theresa answered her daughter, for her Aunt. "Because, on such short notice, I don't know who I could invite."

"What about Jackie?" Jeanie asked.

"She is in a bowling league and they are having a party Friday night. It'd have to be my funeral, or something like that, to pull her away from her league," Theresa replied.

"Are you sure, Mom?" Jessica asked.

"It'll be fine. We can cook up a storm. That will be fun enough for me."

Agent Barnes had been out for the last hour. She was pretty steamed about the practical joke that she hadn't felt was so funny. Special Agent Downs had gotten down to the end of the hallway when he saw the maid's cart. He got the maid to call, pretending to be room service. I only heard from inside the bathroom, but it didn't sound like things were going well. At least she didn't shoot him, I had thought. After she had gone, he told me that it was something agents did to each other from time to time. I could see her reaction had upset him and it had nothing to do with her readiness. Now she was back and everything seemed back to normal.