“Okay,” I said softly. I took my cookies and set them aside as I dropped my Dillard’s bag to rummage in my purse for my wallet. “When I get home, do you want me to search for a new contractor?”

“I’ll deal with it when we get back from the island,” he surprised me by saying. “Rex is set for now. He isn’t complaining. It’s working so it can wait.”

“Okay, honey.” I was still talking softly. Then I offered, “I’m at Mrs. Field’s. If you don’t have cookies handy, do you want me to buy some for medicinal purposes later?”

“Mrs. Field’s are sweet, baby, but nothin’ beats your kind of sweet.”

That was nice, very nice but I wasn’t entirely certain if he meant cookies from my bakery or a different kind of sweet that I could give him for medicinal (and other) purposes.

I decided that I’d pop by the bakery, just in case. Cover all the bases.

“Okay,” I said yet again.

Having paid for my cookies, I smiled at the clerk, shoved my wallet back in my purse, grabbed my stuff, and took off.

“All set?” he asked.

“Yep. The boys have a bevy of swim trunk selections. I’m leaving the mall now, on my way to get them from school. When we get home, I’ll supervise packing.”

“Babe, we got two days.”

“And tomorrow we have one day. We don’t want to rush. When you rush, you forget stuff. We need to be prepared. There are four of us and the boys need supervision. And I need a whole evening to sort myself out. Not to mention, I need to concoct dinner from whatever is in the kitchen so we don’t leave stuff that will spoil.”

“Tess, we’re goin’ to Aruba, not a jungle in Paraguay. We forget stuff, we buy it. We come home, stuff spoils, we throw it out.”

Hmm. This was true. Except the “we throw it out” part. Brock, Joel, and Rex would undoubtedly come home and continue to utilize the fridge as they normally did. That was, standing in its open door, staring inside like doing so could form whatever they wished to have (if it wasn’t already there), and they would ignore anything with mold on it that had gone bad. Therefore, the “we” part actually meant “you.”

Brock went on before I could remind him of this fact. “And, far’s I can tell, you can take a carry-on because all you need is a bikini.”

I continued to dodge fellow shoppers on my way to the exit as I explained, “Brock, first, I don’t wear bikinis. Second, I need more than one bathing suit for a week. That requires at least three but I’m going with four, which is how many I bought when I was out shopping with Martha, Elvira, and the girls last week.”