Kaye Dacus - Menu for Romance

She shook off the thought. Plenty of time to deal with Major later.

Cool air whooshed out the sliding front doors. Meredith started the stairs two at a time but slowed her pace halfway up when she got winded. She really needed to start exercising again.

She took two wrong turns but eventually found Beverly’s room. She knocked. And waited. Odd. She knocked again. No answer.

Returning to the lobby, she approached what looked like a concierge station. The young lady behind the high counter—whose name tag included the initials R.N. after her name—smiled up at her. “May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Beverly O’Hara, but she’s not answering her door.”

“Is she expecting you?”

Meredith nodded. “I just talked to her on the phone about ten minutes ago.”

“You’re looking for Beverly?” Another nurse approached the desk.

“Yes. I’m supposed to be having tea with her.” Saying it renewed Meredith’s amusement at how Beverly had described it.

“I think I saw her go out onto the back terrace. If you go down those stairs there”—she pointed to a door with an illuminated Exit sign over it—“you’ll come out right by the back doors.”

“Thanks.” Meredith entered the stairwell and stopped just beyond the door at the bottom to get her bearings. She was in a hallway that looked very much like the one above, except to her right was a large glass door leading onto a patio.

Two women who looked about Beverly’s age stood just inside the door. Meredith smiled at them, and they giggled, putting their heads together and whispering as she passed.

Outside, she slid her sunglasses down from the top of her head and looked around. The large flagstone paved area looked like an outdoor café, and most of the tables were filled with residents and their family members—most still dressed in their Easter Sunday finery.

But she didn’t see Beverly anywhere. She was just about to head inside when she heard someone calling, “Excuse me, excuse me, are you Mary Kate?”

“I’m—yes, I’m Mary Kate.” At least she hoped in this instance she was.

The elderly lady grinned, showing dentures that looked too big for her mouth. “Come this way. Beverly is waiting for you.”

“Oh.” Meredith released a relieved breath. “Good.”

The woman took Meredith’s hand and practically dragged her through the maze of tables and down a little path leading away from the main patio. Behind a large magnolia tree, they came upon a second patio—much smaller, covered with a wood pergola. It had only two tables, at one of which sat Beverly ... and Major.

Meredith’s heart pounded. She hadn’t seen or spoken with him since Thursday, that awful morning. She sent up one last prayer that he hadn’t really meant most of the hurtful things he’d said to her.

Beverly looked up, and a smile transformed her face from gaunt to angelic. “Mary Kate.”

* * *

Major whipped his head around. Had Ma truly lost it this time?

But instead of the fictitious Mary Kate Danaher from The Quiet Man, Meredith Guidry stood framed by the entrance to the gazebo, looking once again like an exquisite dish of chocolate and strawberries with the way her brown sweater brought out the red tones in her hair. He wished he could stand up, go to her, pull her into his arms, and beg her forgiveness for the way he’d spoken to her the other morning. But he couldn’t.

As she came around to greet his mother, Meredith touched his shoulder. Fleeting and light, the contact told him enough. She’d already forgiven him. But he still needed to say the words to her.

“I was just telling Danny yesterday how romantic I thought this place was. He was too scared to ask you to come, so I called you myself.”

Heat tweaked Major’s cheeks.

“I’m glad you did call, Beverly.”

His mother grabbed Meredith’s forearm and practically forced her into the chair next to him. “You two wait right there.” She skipped away with her friend.

Major stared after her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I haven’t heard her giggle like that in ... ever.” He summoned his courage to face Meredith again. “Since she met you, she’s been happier than I’ve seen her in more years than I care to remember.”

“I think she’s a wonderful person.”

“She is a wonderful person. And I’m...” He swallowed back years of following John Wayne’s character’s advice. “I’m sorry I never told you about her.”

“You were trying to protect her.”

“No. I was trying to protect me. I was embarrassed by her, ashamed to admit I have a mother with schizophrenia, scared to see how people reacted to that knowledge.”

“You were embarrassed?” Hope shone in Meredith’s brown eyes.

“Was. Past tense.” Rustling noises and women’s whispers and giggles caught his ear. “There’s just one more thing I need to do to make it right.”

Ma and her friend returned carrying plates, with two other women behind them holding glasses of iced tea.

“A romantic spot calls for a romantic meal.” Ma’s forehead creased. “I had to make due with what I had in my apartment.”

The plates went down in front of Major and Meredith. Tuna on wheat with a side of Cheetos and a Twinkie for dessert. He had to clear his throat a couple of times before he trusted himself to speak without bursting out laughing.

“Thanks, Ma. This is wonderful.”

“You two lovebirds enjoy this.” Ma started to leave with her friends, but Major caught her by the hand before she disappeared.

“Wait. I have something I need to say to you, something Meredith needs to hear me say.”

“But this is your romantic dinner, and I’m not supposed to be here.”

“It’ll just take a minute, Ma. Sit down, please.” He waited until she pulled over a chair from the other table and sat beside him.

“Ma, yesterday we talked about how much I love you and how sorry I am that I didn’t come home more from New York, remember.”

“Of course I remember. I’m not an idiot.”

No way was she going to get a rise out of him today. “Well, there’s more that I need to say. And that’s to ask your forgiveness, Ma. You see, all my life I’ve been embarrassed to tell anyone about you, to let them know what a wonderful mother I have.”

“Danny, I’d be embarrassed by me, too.” Ma stroked the side of his face with her dry, papery fingertips.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You are my mother, the only one I have. You’ve done the best you can to give me a wonderful life—which, I’ve recently been reminded in a very painful way, is precious to me.” He pressed his hand to his cracked ribs. “I don’t want to think about how bleak and empty my life would be without you in it. So will you forgive me for being an ungrateful son?”

Ma wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “You are my son, and I’ll take you any way I can get you. But before I forgive you, there’s something you have to do for me.”

“Name it.”

“Marry Mary Kate.”

Molten lava melted his insides. The volcanic heat flared into his face, but he took a deep breath, disentangled himself from Ma’s hug, and managed to turn his wheelchair so that he was parallel with Meredith’s chair, facing her.

“I had the perfect romantic menu planned and wanted to do this at a time when I could do it right and get down on one knee.” He took both of Meredith’s hands in his. “I haven’t even gotten you a ring yet.”

Moisture filled Meredith’s eyes, and her breath seemed shallow. But her smile was all the encouragement he needed.

“Meredith will you—”

“Can’t find it. Can’t find it. Can’t find it.” Beverly stood up, her hands flapping around her as if she were beating off bees. “Can’t find it.”

Major cringed but reminded himself that his mother couldn’t help the way she was.

Ma took off toward the building. With a sigh, Major looked at Meredith. “It’s always something.”

“Should we follow her?” Meredith’s fine brows knit together.

“Yes. Do you mind?”

Her frown disappeared into a radiant smile. “Of course not.” She pushed him back into the building and all the way to his mother’s apartment.

But he didn’t see her when they entered. “Ma?”

“Where is it? Can’t find it.” Around the side of the bed, Ma hunkered down on hands and knees, digging for something under the bed. “Ah.” She came back up with a shoe box, removed the lid, and dumped the contents in the middle of the bed.

Fascinated, Major wheeled himself closer.

Ma rummaged through thimbles, paper clips, clothing tags, pennies, and other trinkets—and Major understood. This was her collection. The little things she picked up here and there that, somehow in her mind, connected her to memories and coherency.

Finally, she picked up an item, blew on it, wiped it on her shirttail, and handed it to Major. He looked down at the object in his hand. Love unlike anything he’d felt for her before overwhelmed him.

“Thanks, Ma.” He turned the wheelchair around to face Meredith. “As I was saying. Will you—”

“Not here! You have to do it over the romantic dinner on the patio.”

Meredith laughed and wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I guess we need to go back outside then,” Major said.

Once back out on the secluded patio, Beverly instructed Meredith to resume her seat and pushed Major’s chair so he was just where she thought he’d been before.

“Can I ask now, Ma?” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“What are you waiting for?” She waved her hand then went to hide behind the pillar at the entrance.

“As I was saying before, I had this romantic dinner all planned out....”

Meredith squeezed his hand. “You should have known me long enough by now to know that I’m not one for fancy dinners or gourmet food. Tuna and Cheetos is a romantic enough menu for me.”

“Why have I wasted so much time?”

“Because you’re crazy!” Ma called.

He and Meredith laughed. “I guess I’d better get on with this before she comes over here and does it for me.” Taking her left hand, he slipped the object Ma had given him, his grandmother’s engagement ring, onto her finger. “Meredith Guidry, will you marry me?”

She never broke eye contact with him. “On one condition.”

His heart stopped. “What’s that?”

“You’ll go back to my father and tell him you’ve changed your mind about the restaurant deal.”

“How did you—?”

She pressed her free hand to his lips. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m pretty sure your mother is the reason you turned him down. And if I agree to marry you, she’s going to be my mother, too, which means I can share in the responsibility of taking care of her while you work at the restaurant.”

“But what about your job and your hours?”

“I’m promoting Corie into a new planner position to take some of the pressure off me so that maybe I can go back to just a fifty- or sixty-hour work week.” She grinned. “So will you?”

He would never deserve her. “Will you agree to keep the puppy and name him Duke?”

“You’ll help out with training?”

“Naturally.”

“Then, yes, I’ll keep the puppy.”

“Good. Now, you haven’t answered my other question. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, she will.” Beverly’s whisper carried to them.

Meredith laughed then leaned forward and kissed him. “Yes, Chef. I’ll marry you.”

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