I still remember the first time I walked into this living room—though it hardly feels like the same room. The tragic floral couch went the way of the dodo last winter, making way for a pillowy red loveseat and chair: far more inviting. The trash-filled knitting basket’s now a toy-filled playpen. Only Percy’s dog bed remains unchanged, right down to Percy himself, sulking in the middle...with a pair of big blue angry eyebrows. Okay, so that’s new .

“Didn’t come off, huh ?”

James pokes his head up from behind the couch. Jack pulls himself up, too, trying to peer over the cushions. Another couple of months, he’ll be tall enough to manage it .

“Uh, depends what you mean by ‘come off’.” James grins. “For example, if you mean ‘leave blue stains all over the bathroom,’ why, yes—it came off just fine.” He holds up mottled hands. “So, in case you’re keeping track, the dog still has eyebrows, our towels are a nice shade of chartreuse, and I got me a set of blueberry fingers .”

“Nice.” I skirt round the couch and pick up Jack. He babbles and tries to snatch my earring. “He have a good day, apart from that ?”

“Oh, yeah. Said his first word, ran laps around the playpen. Too bad you missed it !”

“Jerk.”

“You gotta stop calling me names, or that’ll be his first word. Instead of Da-da, it’ll be ‘Jerk! Jerk! Jerk!’, round the clock .”

Jack flaps his little hands. “Eck! Eck !”

“See? Happening already !”

Uh-huh. Since I apparently can’t say these things any more, I look over Jack’s little head, and mouth “I hate you .”

“Love you, too.” James steals a kiss. “What about you, though—first day back? Huh ?”

“Well, it was....” I try to keep the suspense going, but my smile won’t be stifled. “Incredible! Thought I’d be playing catchup for months, trying to remember everything from my first three years, but it was like I never—Ow! Ow! Jack! Let go !”

James helps me disengage the baby from my earring. Think it’s time to retire these long, dangly ones. I take them off and drop them into my purse .

“You get all your textbooks and everything ?”

“Textbooks, notepads, calculator, pencils, slide rule—oh, and a Brock Badgers onesie for Grabby, here.” Jack scoots off in pursuit of his giraffe, and I lean back against the couch. It was a great day, but it’s nice to be off my feet. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t sat down in ten months .

“What do you want to do for his birthday ?”

Can’t believe that’s only two months away. “Bird Kingdom? We could do his birthday and our anniversary in one, and use our actual anniversary to — “

“—sleep?”

Yes. Great minds think alike .

We’re certainly going to need our strength, with James going back to work full-time just as I’m hitting the books. On paper, our new schedule runs like clockwork, neat little alternating blocks of work time, school time, and baby time, but life rarely works out that way. I’m predicting absolute chaos by Christmas .

“Oh! Almost forgot—I got something!” James digs in his pocket, flips me a phone in a Ziploc bag .

“An old phone ?”

“You don’t recognize it ?”

I tip it out of the bag. It’s just a regular old—“Wait. No way. This is...my phone? From the fashion show? Someone actually turned it in ?”

He picks up the bag and turns it over. There’s something printed on it, something I can’t quite make out. “Not exactly. My lawyer got the judge to release it, after, ah.... After last month .”

Tom’s sentencing. He doesn’t like to talk about the fallout from Dovecote—Can’t say I blame him. There ended up being seven defendants and three separate trials, each of which required his testimony. Those were some long, bleak, boring days. He’d come home, sometimes, sink into the couch for hours, staring at the TV without seeing it. Didn’t even bother turning it on half the time .

I shake off the memory. Those days are over. And I’m curious. “So, what? You’re saying Tom had it, the whole time ?”

“One of mine, too, and my old computer—the one I thought got a virus.” He crumples up the bag. “Anyway. Screw him. This, though—this was worth petitioning the court for. ‘Cause it’s still got—“ He takes the phone from me, keys in the passcode, and opens the camera app .

“Our honeymoon pictures !”

“There’s you, with that hat.” He swipes past several shots of me in a ridiculous pillbox hat, pressed on me by an insistent shop owner, ninety years old if she was a day—Oh! And there she is, posing next to me .

“Gimme that.” I scroll through till I find what I’m looking for: James on a windswept hilltop, looking out over a lonely olive grove. “You look like one of those old portraits of aristocrats. Like, ‘James Ashby, Ninth Duke of Wherever.’ All you need’s a fancy dog. One of those hunting hounds .”

“And a musket .”

It’s good to see him laughing again. Looking forward to the start of his next clinical trial. For a while there, it seemed like all he could do to get out of bed in the morning. Even with the plot exposed, his credibility took a real hit. Add to that the publication delay, while the new research team did its job, and Dovecote was in real danger of folding. If his results hadn’t been as good as they were—well, I’d rather not think about it. All I know is, I never want to see James like that again, dragging himself in for the sake of appearances every day, knowing there was nothing he could do .

Jack crawls up in my lap, wanting to investigate the photo. I tilt it so he can see. “Yeah? Daddy look handsome? That was us on our honeymoon.” With an angelic smile, he bats the phone out of my hand. “Oh, well. Everyone’s a critic .”

“Think he’s just hungry. We kind of forgot about lunch, what with Percy needing a hosing and all.” James brightens. “Oh! Speaking of lunch—Guess what Dr. Greenleaf brought today ?”

“Raw asparagus .”

“Wha...? That’s not even a food. No !”

I feel kind of bad making fun of Dr. Greenleaf. He’s pretty much taken over Nasmith’s old job, in addition to being a godsend in the lab. And yet.... “Okay... A Nutella and parsnip sandwich ?”

“Close: an ancient, stale PB&J—stiff as a board—that he carried around in his pocket all morning .”

“Gross!” I dance Jack up and down on my knee. “That’s pretty gross, isn’t it? Stale PB&J—eww .”

He pokes me on the nose. “Eww .”

“That’s right: ewwwwwww . ”

We wander through to the kitchen. Looks completely different in here, too: no dust bunnies, no grubby old coffee machine. I plunk Jack into his high chair while James gets out the chicken tenders. Thought the kid was too little to be picky, but every week, lately, we’ve had to rediscover the one thing he’ll deign to eat—usually through a lengthy process of elimination. Last week, it was soft-boiled eggs. Before that, broccoli. Oh, well. At least it’s not junk .

“We should go on a date soon, ourselves .”

“Mm?” I look up from tying on Jack’s bib .

“Just saying, it’s been a while .”

I open my mouth .

“And charity events don’t count .”

“Wasn’t going to say that!” I kind of was. I mess up Jack’s hair. “He looks just like you... By which I mean he needs a haircut .”

James slides his arms around my waist. “Way to change the subject. So, about that date ....”

He’s right—it has been a while. Just over ten months, to be precise. Might’ve got a little paranoid about the idea of letting Jack out of our sight. “Well, he is sleeping through the night. We could get a sitter ....”

“And a room at the Embassy. And room service .”

“And sleep ?”

He laughs. “Eventually.” His arms tighten around my waist. “Might be a few things we could try first ....”

He really is excited about life again. I turn around and kiss him. Even Jack choosing this moment to yell “Ewwww! ” again doesn’t sour the mood .

Wish you could bottle days like these, save them up for the tough times .

After what we’ve been through, of course, I can’t picture the tough time that’d get the best of us. We’re going to run with this dream, make it last forever .