“We didn’t argue after that. Not once. Bernie treated me like every other nurse on the ward, and within a week I was so bored I wanted to cry. Until that moment I didn’t realize how much I looked forward to sparring with him.” She smiled as she remembered. “That was when Sam invited me to have coffee with him in the cafeteria after work one day. When I sat down, the first thing he did was ask about Bernie. I said I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Sam looked surprised at that. He claimed Bernie had gotten drunk one night and stormed at him to hurry up and marry me before he—Bernie—did something stupid.”

“I can imagine Sam’s reaction to that.”

Betty grinned and continued. “Sam told him he liked me fine, but he couldn’t see the two of us ever getting married.”

“What did Bernie say to that?”

Betty rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Apparently he tried to swing on Sam. You have to understand how out of character that is for Bernie to fully appreciate him doing something like that.”

“I think I can understand,” Marjorie said. Any person who would dedicate his life to the care and well-being of his fellow man would naturally deplore violence. “How did the two of you ever manage to get together?”

“It was easy once I sorted through my feelings. I figured that since he’d come to me once, I’d have to be the one to approach him. Not right away, mind you. It took some thinking on my part. The most difficult piece was realizing I was in love with Bernie Miller and had been for weeks. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was invite him over for dinner. Funny thing, though, once we stopped arguing, we discovered how much we had in common. Within a month of our first dinner date we were engaged, and you can guess the rest of the story.”

Marjorie took a sip of her tea. “The two of you are perfect together. It’s obvious talking to either one of you that you and Bernie are in love.”

“We work on it.” Betty slapped the armrest. “Enough about me. I want to know about you.”

“There really isn’t much to tell.” A bit uneasy, Marjorie spoke in general terms about her job and her sister. The whole time she was talking, she was aware that there was nothing that made her any different than the other women Sam had dated in the past ten years.

“He’s crazy about you,” Betty commented. “You know that, don’t you?”

Marjorie could feel the other woman studying her. Sam might have been crazy for her at one time, but she had ruined that.