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special board of directors meeting going on up at the church right now. I’ve asked them to advance me the money. Jeff told me last night that he needs it right away. Today, if possible. I didn’t know what else to do.”
    Jeff and Marianne, almost thirty and childless not by choice, had been on several potential adoption lists for years. Andy Brady’s sudden death the previous fall had infused a whole new urgency into the process. When the possibility of adopting a little girl from China had presented itself, they had jumped at the chance.
    Having both of them fly across the Pacific to pick up the baby had turned out to be prohibitively expensive, so they had opted for Jeff to go on his own. That somewhat unorthodox behavior—the idea of having an adoptive father show tip to collect the baby rather than an adoptive mother—had proved to be a real stumbling block. What had seemed like a perfectly sensible idea to Jeff and Marianne—having the primary caregiver pick up the baby—seemed somehow suspect in the eyes of officials in the Chinese orphanage. For weeks now, they had been throwing up one obstacle after another.
    “Do you think it would help if you were there?” Joanna asked.
    Marianne shrugged. “Probably not,” she said. “Besides, having me there would make it far more expensive. It would only complicate things that much more. We’d be having to worry about my schedule and about finding someone to substitute for me while I was gone. At least this way, Jeff’s time is totally his own.”
    With a disconsolate Marianne staring into her almost empty coffee cup, Joanna tried to offer some words of encouragement.
    “Come on,” she said. “Jeff Daniels may seem like the most mild-mannered guy on earth, but that’s only on the surface. Once he gets his back up, you know as well as I do that he’ll shrivel up into a little old man before he’ll come back home empty-handed.”
    Acknowledging Joanna’s support with a wan smile, Marianne changed the subject. “Speaking of world travelers,” she said, “what do you hear from your mother?”
    Joanna glanced at her watch. “Her plane’s due into Tucson International around four. She was bound and determined to be back in time for the women’s club luncheon tomorrow. That’s when the Historical Committee presents the framed picture of me to hang in the lobby out at the department.”
    Marianne smiled. “I know,” she said. “I’m on the committee.”
    Joanna continued. “Since today is a workday, I told Eleanor I wouldn’t he able to come hick her up. Jim Bob and Eva Lou offered to go get her, but Mother insisted on having her friend, Margaret Turnbull, meet her instead. They’ll have an early dinner in Tucson and then be home around nine or so.”
    “Has she had fun?” Marianne asked.
    Joanna nodded. “It sounds like it. Marcie and Bob must have seen to it that they’ve hit every tourist attraction and museum for miles around. I’m sure my mother has been in seventh heaven.”
    The previous Thanksgiving, Joanna’s long-lost brother had resurfaced. As a baby, he had been given up for adoption prior to Joanna’s parents’ wedding. Joanna had grown up without ever knowing that her mother and father, Eleanor and Big Hank Lathrop, had an out-of-wedlock child that Eleanor’s parents had insisted they not keep. After the death of both his adoptive parents, forty-four-year-old Bob Brundage had come searching for his biological mother. Eleanor Lathrop had welcomed him with open arms. The feeling was evidently mutual. For Christmas, Bob and his wife, Marcie, had invited Eleanor to come visit them in Washington, D.C., for two weeks.
    “She’s never had a chance to do anything like that before, has she?” Marianne asked.
    “Never,” Joanna said. “She was widowed young and had a snotty teenager to deal with, sort of like yours truly and a certain hot-tempered nine-year-old.”
    “Well then,” Marianne said, “I’d say she’s earned the