Suddenly a Bride by Kasey Michaels

bribe to Dan, then I drop you at the mall and we plan to meet somewhere in about two hours—after Sid has done his thing.”
    “Oh, I don’t—”
    “It’s a guy thing, Elizabeth. A man thing.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment, actually believing she could see Mikey and Danny smiling and waving as they flew away from her, flapping the little wings on their backs, going off into the big bad world without her.
    “A man thing. I understand.” She looked up at Will’s open, smiling face. “And you’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”
    “Only a little. It’s just hair, Elizabeth. They aren’t running off to join the circus or anything.”
    “And Sid? Is he good?”
    “I still have both my ears, don’t I?”
    “Oh, I give up,” Elizabeth said at last, handing him the keys to her SUV. “I’m just going to go with the flow.”
    “Sometimes that’s the only way to travel,” Will said, opening the driver’s side door, leaving her to walkaround the front of the SUV and help herself into the passenger seat. Which wasn’t very romantic of him.
    Then she wondered why that bothered her.
     
    They met at the food court three hours later. A very long three hours later, although Elizabeth felt they had been hours well spent. Will had called her cell phone from the parking lot, and she had immediately ordered vegetable pizzas, two lemonades and two iced teas. Her haul was already on the table in front of her, waiting for the others to arrive; her small mound of packages sat at her nervously tapping feet as she tried to sit quietly, pretending she wasn’t a nervous wreck.
    She’d bought a new dress, a sleeveless cotton sheath that was on sale—half off—which didn’t make it any more lovely than it already was. The lower price just seemed to make its hot pink color more reasonable, considering she felt the need to buy accessories to go with it: a small shoulder purse of baby-soft ivory leather, a drop necklace of pink and lime-green stones that matched her new lime-green strappy heels. She’d even visited the cosmetics counter to splurge on new lipstick and blusher to complete the outfit, which really hadn’t been complete until she’d also purchased a new plunge bra and some bikini underwear that promised not to show panty lines.
    She liked thinking about the new dress, the jewelry, shoes and cosmetics. She’d consider the bra an impulse buy and tried not to think about it at all.
    Then she bought each of the boys new talking racecars they’d asked for when the race cars she’d bought them for Christmas became obsolete thanks to the just released talking versions. Toys, she’d long ago decided, were like cereal and laundry products. The manufacturers were always bringing out new and improved versions to get you to buy them again.
    With her stomach rumbling as the aroma of the pizza escaped the closed box, she stood up beside the table she’d chosen, scanning the shoppers for her first sight of her newly shorn sons. When she saw them coming toward her, she sat down again all at once, her knees having lost the ability to keep her upright.
    Was it their haircuts? Was it the now darkly blond slicked-down hair so neatly parted on the left, just the way Jamie had worn his before the chemo took it all away, so that they showed their resemblance to their father in a way she had never noticed before this moment? Was it how handsome they both looked, how happy they both looked…how grown up they both looked?
    Or was it the easy way they walked hand in hand with Will, chattering up at him, not even bothering to look for her, so happy to be with him. What had Will said? Oh, yes. How could she forget: “It’s a man thing.”
    And it was true, it probably was. And one the twins had no experience with, or at least no memory of, poor things. A male figure in their lives. A father figure in their lives.
    “Oh, God…”
    Elizabeth got to her feet again as she tried to collectherself and then called out as brightly as