home and sleeping in his own bed was such a delight that Jack needed to
make no effort to sustain optimism. Sitting in his favorite armchair,
eating meals whenever he wanted rather than when a rigid institutional
schedule said he must, helping Heather to cook dinner, reading to Toby
before bedtime, watching television after ten o'clock in the evening
without having to wear headphones--these things were more satisfying to
him than all the luxuries and pleasures to which a Saudi Arabian prince
might be entitled. He remained concerned about family finances, but he
had hope on that front too. He expected to be back at work in some
capacity by August, at last earning a paycheck again.
Before he could return to duty on the street, however, he would be
required to pass a rigorous department physical and a psychological
evaluation to determine if he had been traumatized in any way that
would affect his performance, consequently, for a number of weeks, he
would have to serve at a desk. As the recession dragged on with few
signs of a recovery, as every initiative by the government seemed
devised solely to destroy more jobs, Heather stopped waiting for her
widely seeded applications to bear fruit. While Jack had been in the
rehab hospital, Heather had become an entrepreneur--'Howard Hughes
without the insanity,' she joked--doing business as Mcgarvey
Associates. Ten years with IBM as a software designer gave her
credibility. By the time Jack came home, Heather had signed a contract
to design custom inventory-control and bookkeeping programs for the
owner of a chain of eight taverns, one of the few enterprises thriving
in the current economy was selling booze and a companionable atmosphere
in which to drink it, and her client had lost the ability to monitor
his increasingly busy saloons. Profit from her first contract wouldn't
come close to replacing the salary she had stopped receiving the
previous October. However, she seemed confident that good word of
mouth would bring her more work if she did a first-rate job for the
tavern owner. Jack was pleased to see her contentedly at work, her
computers set up on a pair of large folding tables in the spare
bedroom, where the mattress and springs of the bed now stood on end
against one wall. She had always been happiest when busy, and his
respect for her intelligence and industriousness was such that he
wouldn't have been surprised to see the humble office of Mcgarvey
Associates grow, in time, to rival the corporate headquarters of
Microsoft. On his fourth day at home, when he told her as much, she
leaned back in her office chair and puffed out her chest as if swelling
with pride. 'Yep, that's me. Bill Gates without the nerd
reputation.'
Leaning against the doorway, already using only one cane, he said, 'I
prefer to think of you as Bill Gates with terrific legs.'
'Sexist.'
'Guilty.'
'Besides, how do you know Bill Gates doesn't have better legs than
mine? Have you seen his?'
'Okay, I take back everything. I should have said, As far as I'm
concerned, you are every bit as much of a nerd as people think Bill
