Smoke in Mirrors

word meaning, for sure.”
    “I know what it means, I just wondered how you could be so certain that Deke and Cassie are in bed.”
    “Something about the way they were looking at each other during that last dance, I think.”
    “Mesmerized by each other.”
    “Yeah.” He sipped brandy and lowered the glass. “Mesmerized.”
    She rested her head against the high cushion behind her and looked at his feet stacked one on top of the other on the low table. They looked very large next to her own. She felt a little mesmerized herself, she thought. She closed her eyes.
    “I owe you,” Thomas said after a while. “For a lot of things. For coming here to Wing Cove. For working with Deke and me to get the answers we all needed. For helping Cassie seduce Deke. For—”

    “Don’t say it.” She did not open her eyes.
    “Don’t say what?” he asked.
    “Don’t say that you owe me for sleeping with you or I will never, ever forgive you.”
    “I wasn’t going to say that.”
    She opened her eyes and saw that he was gazing thoughtfully at her toes.
    “What were you going to say?” she asked.
    “I believe that I was about to thank you for agreeing to stay on here in Wing Cove for a while.”
    “Oh, that.”
    “Yeah, that.” He took another swallow of brandy. “I need to ask you something.”
    “Ummm?”
    “What you said earlier tonight. About me being a good father. You really think so?”
    “Yes.” She waited. When he said nothing more, she risked a quick glance at his hard profile. “Why?”
    “Just wondered what made you say it.”
    “You know how to make a commitment and stick with it. That’s the most important element of fatherhood, as far as I’m concerned.”
    “You don’t think maybe I’m a little old for fatherhood?”
    “No.”
    He took the brandy glass out of her hand and set it beside his own on the table. He eased her down onto the sofa and lowered himself gently along the length of her. He was warm and heavy and unmistakably aroused.
    She caught the trailing ends of his tie in her hands. “I love you, Thomas.”
    “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.”
    “Impossible.” She wrinkled her nose. “You thought I was a liar and a thief.”

    “Didn’t change the situation.” He framed her face between his hands. “Just made me worry about things for a while.”
    He kissed her, long and deep.

    They were sitting in her living room looking out into the gardens. She had poured a shot of the fancy orange-flavored liqueur Leonora had given her on Mother’s Day for both of them. The television was still on but she had turned down the sound an hour ago.
    She and Herb had both seen the late-night movie when it first aired forty years earlier. It was a romantic comedy. They knew how it ended. Neither of them had lived lives that had even remotely resembled the Hollywood version, but that was okay.
    The older you got, Gloria figured, the more you understood that reality and fiction didn’t have to match up. They were mirror images, not exact duplicates. They each had a place. Both were important. But they were not the same. A smart person didn’t try to make one into the other. That way lay disaster.
    She checked her ankles and was pleased. They were hardly swollen at all tonight. In fact, they looked pretty good, if she did say so herself.
    She glanced at Herb. He looked pretty good tonight, too. Relaxed. A little younger, maybe. More energetic, at any rate. She was feeling rather lively herself.
    “What do you think?” she said. “Are they in bed yet?”
    Herb checked his watch. “Damn well better be. If they aren’t, you can’t hold me responsible. An advice columnist can only do so much. After that, it’s up to the advisees to take action.”
    She thought about the humming excitement she hadheard in Leonora’s voice that afternoon when they had discussed what her friends would wear to the reception.
    “I think she’s in love, Herb. For real this time. Not trying to fake it the way she did with Kyle Delling just because it looks right on the surface.”
    Herb raised his glass in a small salute. “To love.”
    They both drank to that.
    Herb checked his watch again. “Speaking of getting to bed, we’d better get a move on. I took that little blue pill forty minutes ago. The effects don’t last forever you know.”
    “Nothing lasts forever, Herb. That’s why you’ve got to reach out and grab life when it comes along.”
    “I know. What do you say we go