“It makes you wonder if it’s all connected somehow—my grandmother, your grandfather, the medals, Minnesota. Or am I just trying to tie everything up with a neat bow?”
“I don’t know.” Abby rolled the thought over in her mind. Matthew Lawson’s medal… Tom Reese leaving his family behind him… even her own father’s reticence. “That would be nice and simple, I suppose,” she said.
“Or very complicated.”
“Yes, true.”
“We don’t need to keep talking about it, though. We’ll learn what’s what soon enough.” He glanced at her. “If you’d rather talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
“Like about these amazing billboards.” Simon gestured to one they’d just passed. “Paul Bunyan’s Cook Shanty! That looks incredible. Do you think we can go there for lunch?”
“Only if you’re hungry. It’s the next exit.”
“Done.” Simon glanced in the rearview mirror as he moved into the right lane. “Fantastic. ‘Wisconsin’s Favorite Restaurant’. You must know what to recommend.”
Abby laughed. “I’ve never been there in my life.”
“What!” Simon gave her a comically shocked expression. “I can’t believe it. You don’t even know what you’ve been missing out on.”
“I guess I’ll find out.”
Abby was still smiling as they turned into the parking lot of the restaurant. Built like an enormous log cabin, with a huge statue of an axe-wielding Paul Bunyan and large signs promising all you could eat, as well as lumberjack meals—whatever they were—the restaurant looked as if it would fulfill all Simon’s expectations and more.
The interior was just as over the top, with wooden walls, checked tablecloths, and everything oversized.
“I love it,” Simon said fervently. “I absolutely love it. I feel like saying ‘howdy’. Would that be too much?”
“Definitely. Especially in a British accent.”
A smiling waitress led them to a table near the window; it was only half past eleven but there were a few diners determinedly plowing through what Abby surmised were lumberjack breakfasts—pancakes, eggs, sausages and fried ham, hash browns, and a basket of sugary donuts. Abby had never seen so much food on a single table.
“This is going to be amazing,” Simon said, and she laughed and shook her head.
“I would think most British people would find this sort of thing a bit corny,” she said. “But you love it.”
“I do,” he agreed solemnly. “Every bit of it. There is absolutely nothing like this back in the UK.” He glanced down at the menu. “Now, obviously, we are both going to have to order the lumberjack platters.”
“I was thinking of getting a salad—”
“Absolutely not.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Lumberjack lunch or bust.”
Abby looked at the description of the lumberjack platter—two kinds of meat, mashed potatoes, two vegetables, plus the shanty’s homemade lumberjack bread, whatever that was. “I’ll burst,” she told him. “But fine.”
“That’s settled, then.” Simon looked so pleased that Abby couldn’t help but laugh again. He made her so happy, she realized, just being with him. His enthusiasm was catching.
“How do you do it?” she blurted, and Simon raised his eyebrows. “How do you find pleasure in such small things? And—seem so pleased by everything? How can you be so happy?”
A veil dropped over Simon’s eyes briefly, making Abby wish she hadn’t asked, and yet she still wanted to know. “You mean, because of things that have happened before?” he asked after a moment, his tone cautiously neutral.
“Your divorce?” She hadn’t actually been thinking about that, but now that he’d mentioned it she knew she wanted to know. “Yes, I suppose that’s part of it. I just meant generally, but, yes. That, too.”
Simon looked down as he needlessly rearranged his knife and fork. Abby waited. She hadn’t meant to mention his divorce, but she wasn’t sorry they’d arrived at that point.