The Perfect Recipe for Love and Friendship Read online

  Nora lifted her gaze. “Really?”

  Bridget fished under the dishtowel and pulled out the letter she’d received the day before. The page was still folded in threes because all the words she had needed to see were in the first line. “Jim’s life insurance policy was canceled six months ago. He hadn’t been making the payments.”

  Nora unfolded the letter, scanned it, and handed it back to Bridget. “So there’s…nothing?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been afraid to look. I’ve just been letting all the bills pile up instead of dealing with them. Jim handled all of that. It was just…easier.” When had that happened? Before she got married, Bridget had paid her own way, managing her checking account and maintaining a decent savings. She’d more or less stuck to a budget, except for the occasional splurge on sweaters or boots. Then after she and Jim had come home from their weeklong honeymoon in Aruba, Jim had offered to take over the bills while she was writing the thank-you cards.

  It’s easier for one person to keep track of the budget, he’d said, and I have the mind for it. I’ll just set aside a sum for you every week and then you never have to worry.

  “He made it sound like he was doing me a favor. And I thought he was.” Bridget glanced over at the pile. The few inches of bills seemed to tower over her, so many envelopes to open, decisions to make, money to shell out. Jim’s last paycheck had hit the bank three days ago. Which meant going forward, there was no more cushion of a second income. And now, no life insurance. Just the funeral alone had set her back fifteen grand, all on a payment plan with the funeral home. Then there was the mortgage, the light bill, the car insurance—

  “I’m not surprised Jim took over all the bills and told you it was for your own good,” Nora said softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Nora picked at the macaroni and cheese but didn’t eat any.

  “What do you mean, Nora?”

  Nora’s nose twitched left, right. Like Samantha in Bewitched, except the movement signaled some kind of internal debate. “Never mind. I shouldn’t say anything. He’s gone now and…”

  “He was my husband, and it’s some kind of unwritten code that you never speak ill of the dead,” Bridget finished. God, she was so sick of dancing around words and sentences like they were hot coals. She’d done that all her life. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the stress, or maybe it was the shock of Jim’s death, but something had started to tear down a barrier inside Bridget that day, and instead of shuffling the conversation into the everything’s fine pile, she pushed a little more. “Nora, it’s okay. Tell me what you wanted to say.”

  Because every day that went by after Jim’s death, Bridget began to face the truth she’d been trying to bandage with a baby. At some point, she’d dropped a stitch in the fabric of her marriage. Somewhere along the way, the threads that had bound them together for three years frayed and Bridget had been too busy pretending everything was fine to notice the unraveling. Even before the primroses had taken root, she’d known.

  Nora took a sip of wine, folded her hands, and let out a long breath. “Okay, don’t be mad, but I think Jim was a bit of a control freak. He made every decision in your life. Including the one to…” Nora shook her head. Her nose twitched again. “Forget it. I should probably go. I left the bakery in Dani’s hands and she’s only twenty-two and sometimes panics if we have a bunch of customers at once.”

  Bridget could fill in the blank herself. Jim had been the one who urged her to leave the bakery. You don’t need them, Bridge. All they do is hurt you.

  She’d left the bakery and left her sister and mother to pick up the slack, right in the middle of their busiest year ever. A one-paragraph mention in the Globe had put Charmed by Dessert on people’s radar, and business had exploded overnight. Bridget had been working twelve-, fourteen-, sometimes sixteen-hour days. She’d climb into bed, exhausted and covered with flour, and curl into Jim’s arms.

  I missed you, baby. This is no way to start our marriage.

  She’d told him it was only temporary, until they hired some more staff. But the hiring didn’t happen, and the hours stretched on, and Jim’s words shifted from I missed you to They don’t appreciate you. In the dark of their bedroom, with Jim’s lips pressed to her temples, the words made sense.

  “Jim wasn’t a control freak, Nora,” Bridget said. “All he was doing was watching out for me. Protecting me.”

  “Yeah, of course. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

  But Bridget’s mind whispered doubts around her words. If Jim had truly been protecting her, then where was the life insurance? Why hadn’t he told her he had let it lapse?

  Just an oversight, she told herself. Something that could have happened to anyone. Either way, he was gone now, and she refused to think of him as anything other than the man she had loved. Even letting any of those other thoughts into her head ran a knife edge along her heart.

  “You know there’s always a job for you at Charmed by Dessert. I don’t want to pressure you, but you said you needed a job, and there’s one that you already know.” Nora started to get to her feet. “Damn it. I promised myself when I came over here that I wouldn’t start in on you again about that. I’m sorry.”

  Bridget reached for her sister’s hand. For a second, it felt like she was reaching for a lifeline. Maybe she was. Her fingers curled around Nora’s, and Nora’s pressed back. Still there, still her sister.

  “Wait, please.” Bridget glanced at the pile under the dishtowel again. None of it was going away, and there weren’t any fairies coming to leave money under her pillow. Somehow, she was going to have to get herself out of this mess. “I was thinking that maybe…maybe I could work there on a temporary basis. Just a few hours. Until I find something else.”

  The light in Nora’s eyes brightened, and she dropped back onto the seat, clear relief filling her face. How bad were things at the bakery?

  “Really?” Nora said. “That would be great. It hasn’t been the same without you. Having you back there every day would be wonderful.”

  The last thing Bridget wanted to do was promise forever to Nora or anyone else. Hell, she was having trouble figuring out tomorrow, never mind next week or next year. Right now, her mind could only stretch a few hours into the future.

  “I’m just thinking about it, Nora,” Bridget cautioned again. “No promises. No decisions yet. If that’s okay.”

  “That’s more than okay. The bakery is crazy busy with orders.” Nora bounced forward on the stool, making her long brown ponytail swing. Nora wore her hair back so often that none of them could remember what she looked like before. “And you’re already experienced, and know how we do things—”

  Bridget put up a hand. “Except, if I come back to work, I’ll be around Ma more often. And after that family dinner…”

  “It’s going to be just a tad tense at the bakery.” Nora shrugged. “But honestly, Bridge, when hasn’t it been tense with Ma?”

  “This was different.” She’d embarrassed her mother in front of the priest. Talked back, drank wine, and stormed out in the middle of the meal. Each a cardinal sin on its own, but put together—

  Tense definitely wasn’t the right word.

  Nora ate another bite of macaroni. “Still, it wasn’t as bad as your wedding. Now that was a scene.”

  “Scene? That was World War Three, O’Bannon style.” Bridget sighed.

  As one new family had formed, another family had shattered, the sisters scattering to the winds for years. It was ironic that it had taken a death, an ending, to start bringing them together again.

  All but one. All but Abby.

  The scene on the church steps, when Abby had tried to talk Bridget out of marrying Jim, had only been the preview for the main show that had come at the reception. The bomb that Abby had dropped in Bridget’s lap, the secret she had begged her sister to shoulder.

  Abby, the most honest and forthright of them all, not afraid to tell anyone of
f or share her opinion. But terrified of her family finding out why she had bolted from the room.

  After that crazy moment with Ned the orthopedist, Bridget had done as her mother told her and gone after Abby. Abby had crawled into her old twin bed in the bedroom the girls used to share, her knees to her chest, facing the baby-blue wall. The posters of Matthew McConaughey and Bradley Cooper had long ago been taken down, but pushpin holes remained in a constellation. A white shelf above the headboard held Abby’s softball trophies, her debate team award, a small collection of Beanie Babies, all coated with years of dusty forgetfulness.

  The bed yielded with a creak as Bridget sat down and laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Ma means well, Abby. And Ned’s a nice guy.”

  “I don’t care if he’s a saint. I’m not interested in him, and no matter how hard I try to get Ma to see that, she doesn’t understand,” Abby said, and then her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t…I don’t want a husband. Ever.”

  In that moment, with her veil pinned in her hair and her wedding dress spreading around her like frosting, Bridget was still wrapped in that bliss of hearing Jim say I do. She had pictured their life together since that first date, when he’d swept her off her feet with a picnic along the Charles River. She couldn’t imagine wanting to spend her life without a man by her side. And being with Jim just seemed to make things…easier. Why wouldn’t Abby want the same?

  “That’s okay,” Bridget said, tabling the argument for a time when Abby wasn’t so upset. “Aunt Mary never got married, and she’s perfectly happy.”

  “I mean…” Abby’s gaze held Bridget’s. A second passed. Another. “I don’t want a man. At all. Ever. I’m not…I’m…”

  Abby’s green eyes shimmered with tears. Her brown hair, curled and piled in a loose bun on top of her head for the wedding, was slowly coming undone.

  Under Bridget’s touch, her sister trembled. “You’re not what?”

  “Not…” Abby propped herself on one elbow and drew in a deep breath. Something shifted inside her, and when she expelled the breath, her eyes cleared and her shoulders squared. “I’m not like that.”

  “Not like what?”

  “Not…straight.”

  For one crazy second, Bridget wanted to say, Of course you’re not—your hair is curly, because she was still wrapped up in her two-by-two, man-and-woman world. Then, like a machine whirring to life, the parts and pieces of the last few years slid into place.

  Abby skipping school dances, bowing out of prom. Dating guys no more than once or twice and then saying it didn’t work out for vague reasons. Spending her weekend nights with her girlfriends at the beach or practicing for the upcoming softball game, instead of joining everyone else on double dates at the movies.

  Abby never mentioning a first kiss. A first crush. A first anything.

  “You’re gay,” Bridget said, and wondered if that was the right thing to say. “I mean, that’s cool.”

  Abby blinked. “Do you mean that?”

  Bridget let the information settle over her for a moment. “Yeah. I do. I don’t care.” Then she stumbled to add, “I mean, I care about you, but I don’t care who you fall in love with. That’s your life, not mine. All I want is for you to be happy.”

  “But Ma and Nora and everyone else…” Her eyes shimmered again. “It’s an abomination, Ma told me once. A one-way ticket to hell.”

  “Ma says a lot of things,” Bridget said. “But it’s you, Abby, her daughter. She won’t feel that way about you.”

  Abby shook her head, and the rest of the curls tumbled free from the bobby pins. “She will. I asked her once, when we were watching this episode of Gilmore Girls, what would you think if one of your daughters was gay, and she said, without even pausing for a breath, that she would disown them. Because it was against the church and God and everything she believed in.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.” But even as Bridget said the words, she knew they weren’t true. Ma had stopped talking to Aunt Mary five years ago. Over what, no one could remember. But no one spoke Aunt Mary’s name or mentioned the wall between them. When Ma had a grudge, she held it like it was glued to her heart. But maybe with her daughter, Ma would be different. “It’ll all be fine, Abby. Just give it time.”

  Abby shoved off the bed. “You and your Pollyanna view of the world. Geez, Bridget, get a clue. You think everything is all perfect in little two-by-two lines but it’s not. You’re so blind. Hell, you rushed into that marriage with Jim and it was—” Abby shook her head. “I gotta go.”

  She rushed out of the room, with Bridget on her heels. “It was what? A mistake? Isn’t that what you said back in the church?”

  “I was hot and tired, and I shouldn’t have said anything.” Abby waved off the words. “Besides, this isn’t the time or place. Just let it go. You’re already married. It’s too fucking late.”

  “Too late for what?” Bridget grabbed her sister’s arm.

  Abby shook her head. “Do you really want to know what I was going to tell you this morning? What you refused to hear before you put that damned ring on your finger?”

  Bridget’s stomach flipped. Her throat threatened to close. “Yes.” No.

  “I went to the deli for lunch a week ago, you know the one across town? And I saw Jim leaving with another woman, this tall blonde. He kissed her on the cheek, and I ran after him and confronted him.”

  “Another…woman?” Not Jim, Bridget thought. He’d always been so attentive, so in love with her. She would have known. Would have sensed something, she was sure of it.

  “He said it was nothing, but I think he was lying, Bridget. He told me he’d tell you about it, just so you wouldn’t worry. But he didn’t, did he?” Abby snorted. “You know, he’s always been kind of a jerk, but you give him a pass every frigging time.”

  Bridget shook her head. She’d heard all this before from Abby, the only one of her sisters not to warm to Jim. “You’ve always said you don’t like him. Is it because of Ned? Or Ma? Or are you just…” Bridget leaned in, angry at Abby for spoiling the day, for dampening her joy, “jealous?”

  “What would I be jealous about?”

  “That you’re never going to have this.” She waved a hand down her front. “That you’re not going to get the big wedding and the dress and all that.”

  Abby scoffed. “You think I give a shit about a dress? That’s not what this is about.”

  “Maybe not, or maybe you’re just trying to ruin my day because you’re so unhappy with your life. Your secret life.”

  The barb had cut to the quick, and almost as soon as she said it, Bridget wanted to take the words back.

  “You are such a bitch.” Abby spun away and headed for the living room.

  “A bitch? Me?” Bridget said, her anger back to red-hot now. “Where do you get off telling me who the right man is for me, Abby? You, of all people. You don’t even know what you’re talking about because you are—”

  Abby spun around. “Shut up, Bridget. Just shut up.”

  “I won’t shut up. This is my wedding day, Abby. You’re the one who should shut the hell up and keep your problems to yourself. At least let me have this one day.”

  Their shouts had stopped the conversation among the guests, but Bridget didn’t care. All she saw was betrayal. Abby, undermining the happiness Bridget had worked so hard to find, and then expecting Bridget to hold Abby’s secret tight.

  “You only see what you want to,” Abby said. “You’ve always been like that, Bridget. You live in this bubble, and you think that man is so perfect. He’s not. And marrying him was the stupidest thing you could have done. You think you’re going to have some fairy-tale life. You’re not. He’s—”

  Ma stepped in, trying to referee. But the fight continued until the wedding cake had ended up on the wall, the guests standing around in shocked silence. In the end, Jim had taken Bridget’s hand and pulled her out of the house without a word, leaving their reception, and her family, behind the
m.

  They hurt you, babe, he’d whispered as he helped her into the car. It’s just you and me now. And we’ll be happy, I promise.

  But had they been? Or had she just convinced herself she was happy because it was easier than fixing all that had gone wrong? Easier than admitting maybe, just maybe, her sister had been right, and easier than facing that little doubt that had lingered even after Jim had explained that woman had been a work friend and Abby had exaggerated the entire thing. And now Nora was echoing Abby’s words.

  No. Her husband was gone. Tarnishing his memory wouldn’t do anyone any good at all.

  In Bridget’s sunny kitchen, Nora finished eating, got to her feet, and covered the empty Tupperware container. She put a hand on Bridget’s shoulder. “I know you’re worried about working with me and Ma again. But it’s been three years, Bridge. A lot has changed.”

  Enough that they could start over? She glanced at the baking powder on the counter. Could it be as easy as adding a missing ingredient?

  Bridget leaned into Nora’s touch. Even though Bridget was the oldest, it had always been Nora who had stood strong in any storm, quiet and calm, the one who never panicked, which washed tranquility over the other girls. At their father’s funeral, Nora had gone up to Magpie, the most devastated of the four girls, and held her hand, tight and sure. Then she’d reached for Bridget’s hand and drawn her into their circle. All three of them had gathered Abby up, and the four O’Bannon girls had stood on the mauve carpet in the funeral home by a giant ring of red roses and pooled their strength.

  Tears burned in Bridget’s eyes now. She needed this. Needed her sisters. Needed that circle again. “If it’s okay with you,” she said, feeling the words out one at a time, settling the commitment in her heart, “I’ll come back to the shop. I’ll start tomorrow and stay for as long as you need me.”