“A fast thinker, huh? Yeah. That’s something I’ll admit to being. I’m a fast thinker, but I’m sure no hero. I won’t let you pin that label on me because then you’ll expect me to live up to it. Can you just imagine what a hell on earth Superman’s life would be if he ever married Lois Lane? Her expectations would be so high!”
“Anyway,” Carol said, “even if you won’t admit it, O’Brian knows you saved his life, and that’s the important thing.”
“It is?”
“Well, I was pretty sure the adoption agency would approve us. But now there’s not the slightest doubt about it.”
“There’s always a slim chance—”
“No,” she said, interrupting him. “O’Brian’s not going to fail you after you saved his life. Not a chance. He’s going to wrap the recommendations committee around his finger.”
Paul blinked, then slowly broke into a smile. “I’ll be damned. I didn’t think of that.”
“So you’re a hero, Papa.”
“Well… maybe I am, Mama.”
“I think I prefer ‘Mom.’”
“And I prefer ‘Dad.’”
“What about ‘Pop’?”
“Pop isn’t a name. It’s a sound a champagne cork makes.”
“Are you suggesting a celebration?” she asked.
“I thought we’d put on our robes, mosey down to the kitchen, and whip up an early dinner. If you’re hungry, that is.”
“Famished.”
“You can make a mushroom salad,” he said. “I’ll whip up my famous fettuccine Alfredo. We’ve got a bottle or two of Mumm’s Extra Dry we’ve been saving for a special occasion. We’ll open that, pile our plates high with fettuccine Alfredo and mushrooms, come back up here, and have dinner in bed.”
“And watch the TV news while we eat.”
“Then pass the evening reading thrillers and sipping champagne until we can’t keep our eyes open.”
“Sounds wonderfully, sinfully lazy,” she said.
More evenings than not, he spent two hours proofreading and polishing his novel. And it was an unusual night when Carol didn’t have some paperwork to catch up on.
As they dressed in robes and bedroom slippers, Paul said, “We’ve got to learn to take most evenings off. We’ll have to spend plenty of time with the kid. We’ll owe it to him.”
“Or her.”
“Or them,” he said.
Her eyes shone. “You think they’ll let us adopt more than one?”
“Of course they will—once we’ve proven we can handle the first. After all,” he said self-mockingly, “am I not the hero who saved good old Al O’Brian’s life?”
On their way to the kitchen, halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned and hugged him. “We’re really going to have a family.”
“So it seems.”
“Oh, Paul, I don’t remember when I’ve ever been so happy. Tell me this feeling’s going to last forever.”
He held her, and it was very fine to have her in his arms. When you got right down to it, affection was even better than sex; being needed and loved was better than making love.
“Tell me nothing can go wrong,” she said.
“Nothing can go wrong, and that feeling you have will last forever, and I’m glad you’re so happy. There. How’s that?”
She kissed his chin and the corners of his mouth, and he kissed her nose.
“Now,” he said, “can we please get some fettuccine before I start chewing my tongue?”
“Such a romantic.”
“Even romantics get hungry.”
As they reached the bottom of the steps, they were startled by a sudden, loud hammering sound. It was steady but arrhythmic: Thunk, thunk, thunk-thunkthunk, thunk-thunk…
Carol said, “What the devil’s that?”
“It’s coming from outside… and above us.”
They stood on the last step, looking up and back toward the second floor.
Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk, thunk…
“Damn,” Paul said. “I’ll bet one of the shutters came loose in the wind.” They listened for a moment, and then he sighed. “I’ll have to go out and fix it,”
“Now? In the rain?”
“If I don’t do anything, the wind might tear it clean off the house. Worse yet, it might just hang there and clatter all night. We won’t get any sleep, and neither will half the neighborhood.”
She frowned. “But the lightning… Paul, after everything that’s happened, I don’t think you should risk climbing around on a ladder in the middle of a storm.”