“Uh huh.”
“Why?”
“This is sort of embarrassing,” I said, working it shamelessly, “but Mildred thinks I’m cute. She wanted to forward a picture of us to her girlfriend in Seattle, so she could pretend she had a hot date with a younger man.”
“Gimme the phone,” Kathleen said. “I want to see the picture of you and the babe.”
I clicked through some images on my phone and passed it to her.
“Here you go,” I said.
When Kathleen saw the photo her face lit up.
“Aww,” she said. “Mildred’s
“You’re cuter,” I said, just to prove there was no depth to which I wouldn’t sink.
“Look at that smile,” she said. “You can tell she’s having a ball. Aww, you’re a good sport, honey.”
“Thank you.”
“Is that the seafood tower in the background?”
“It is. I should have gotten a close up for you.”
Before giving me the camera back she clicked the advance button to see if there were any additional pictures. There weren’t.
Then she clicked back one, to check the previous picture, which happened to be a shot of her and Addie playing during the in-home visit with the adoption lady, Patty Feldson.
“I didn’t know you took this picture,” Kathleen said.
“I couldn’t help myself,” I said. “It was a great moment for us.”
She smiled the most wonderful smile and said, “I love the way you said that: Us.”
Kathleen looked sad for a moment.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought maybe you’d been cheating on me.”
“With Mildred?”
“No, honey. With some hot babe from Vegas. And all the time you were just being a nice guy. Can you believe I wouldn’t trust you? How crazy is that?” she said.
“So,” I said, looking at the door that led to her bedroom. “You think maybe we could…”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I’m worried you might be thinking of Mildred while making love to me.”
“What?”
She burst into laughter and dragged me to bed.
At the most appropriate point thereafter, I murmured “Mildred,
