Lightning

'What way is that, Shane? Are you talking about some kinky new position? You're heading toward middle age, Shane; you'll be forty before too many moons, so isn't it time you reformed your libidinous ways?'

'You're incorrigible.'

'I try to be.'

'How about you, Thelma? Are you happy?'

Thelma patted her large belly. She was seven months pregnant.

'Very happy, Shane. Did I tell you — maybe twins?'

'You told me.'

'Twins,' Thelma said, as if the prospect awed her. 'Think how pleased Ruthie would be for me.'

Twins.

Destiny struggles to reassert the pattern that was meant to be, Laura thought. And sometimes, happily, it succeeds.

They sat for a while in companionable silence, breathing the healthful sea air, listening to the wind sough softly in the Monterey pines and cypress.

After a while Thelma said, 'Remember that day I came to your house in the mountains, and you were taking target practice in the backyard?'

'I remember.'

'Blasting away at those human silhouettes. Snarling, daring the world to tackle you, guns hidden everywhere. That day you told me you'd spent your life enduring what fate threw at you, but you were not just going to endure any more — you were going to fight to protect your own. You were very angry that day, Shane, and very bitter.'

'Yes.'

'Now, I know you're still an endurer. And I know you're still a fighter. The world is still full of death and tragedy. In spite of all that, somehow you just aren't bitter any more.'

'No.'

'Share the secret?'

'I've learned the third great lesson, that's all. As a kid I learned to endure. After Danny was killed, I learned to fight. Now I'm still an endurer and a fighter — but I've also learned to accept. Fate is.'

'Sounds very Eastern-mystic-transcendental-bullshit, Shane. Jeez. 'Fate is.' Next you'll be telling me to chant a mantra and contemplate my navel.'

'Stuffed with twins, as you are,' Laura said, 'you can't even see your navel.'

'Oh, yes, I can — with just the right arrangement of mirrors.'

Laura laughed. 'I love you, Thelma.'

'I love you, Sis.'

They rocked and rocked.

Down on the shore, the tide was coming in.