'Tommy,' she said. He nodded.
Peeling the foil off the champagne bottle, she said, 'We can't bring
him back.'
'No, but ...'
'He'd want us to be happy about this.'
'Yeah, I know. Tommy was a great guy.'
'So let's be happy.' He said nothing. Untwisting the wire cage that
restrained the cork, she said, 'We'd be idiots if we weren't.' know'
'It's a miracle, and just when we need one.' He stared at the
champagne. She said, 'It's not just our future. It's Toby's too.'
'He can keep his teeth now.' Laughing, Heather said, 'It's a wonderful
thing, Jack.' At last his smile was broad and without reservation.
'You're damn right it's a wonderful thing--now we won't have to listen
to him gumming his food.'
Removing the wire from the cork, she said, 'Even if we don't deserve so
much good fortune, Toby does.'
'We all deserve it.' He got up, went to a nearby cabinet, and removed
a clean dish towel from a drawer. 'Here, let me.' He took the bottle
from Heather, draped the cloth over it. 'Might explode.' He twisted
the cork, it popped, but the champagne did not foam out of the neck of
the bottle. She brought a couple of glasses, and he filled them. 'To
Eduardo Fernandez,' she said by way of a toast. 'To Tommy.' They
drank, standing beside the table, and then he kissed her lightly. His
quick tongue was sweet with champagne.
'My God, Heather, do you know what this meanst' They sat down again as
she said, 'When we go out to dinner the next time, it can be someplace
that serves the food on real plates instead of in paper containers.'
His eyes were shining, and she was thrilled to see him so happy. 'We
can pay the mortgage, all the bills, put money away for Toby to go to
college one day, maybe even take a vacation--and that's just from the
cash. If we sell the farm--'
'Look at the photographs,' she urged,
grabbing them, spreading them on the table in front of him. 'Very
nice,' he said. 'Better than very nice. It's gorgeous, Jack. Look at
those mountains! And look at this one--look, from this angle, standing
in front of the house, you can see forever!'
He looked up from the snapshots and met her eyes. 'What am I
hearing?'
'We don't have to sell it.'
'Live there?'
'Why not?'
'We're city people.' . n: . ^: 'And we hate it.'
'Angelenos all our lives.'
'Isn't what it once was.' She could see that the idea intrigued him,
and her own excitement grew as he began to come around to her point of
view. 'We've wanted change for a long time,' he said.
'But I was never thinking this much change.'
'Look at the photographs.'
'Okay, yeah, it's gorgeous. But what would we do there? It's a lot of
