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Upper West Side where their daughter, Amelia, had an apartment that she subleased so cheap she didn’t mind taking the subway five or six days a week down to NYU, where she was a senior in prelaw.
    Amelia was a slender girl with her mother’s fine features, luminous smile, and thick blond hair. She was proud of her golden hair and wore it combed back and in a long braid that hung to her waist. Today she was twenty-one, and celebrating with her family and best friends. Besides Repetto and Lora, there were Mar, older and grayer than when she and her partner Mel had healed and raised a teenage Repetto; Dal; and a girl named Peggy that Amelia knew from college. A small group, but close.
    “We’re going to sing,” Dal said, after Lora had finished lighting the candles on a cake brought by Mar.
    Amelia shot her great smile and shook her head, but the singing had already begun.
    Repetto had a voice like a cracked foghorn, so he kept his volume down. He didn’t like the way Peggy was looking at Dal, who seemed to be paying no attention to her. Good. Maybe someday Dal and Amelia would see each other differently. Less like brother and sister. So Repetto and Lora hoped. But some things you couldn’t force. Repetto told himself to grow up at his late age. If Dal happened to prefer somebody like Peggy, who was a beautiful young brunette, then so be it. Some things were beyond a father’s control.
    “What are you thinking, Dad?”
    Repetto realized “Happy Birthday” was over. “Thinking you should make a wish.”
    Amelia did, closing her eyes briefly, then pursing her lips and emitting two gusts of breath before all twenty-one candles were extinguished. Lora and Repetto exchanged a look, knowing they were both making their own wish. Mar saw them, grinned, and shook her head. Dal didn’t notice. Peggy appeared momentarily mystified.
    “So what was the wish?” Dal asked.
    “That she’d make it through law school,” Peggy said, giving Amelia’s long braid a playful tug.
    While everyone was laughing, Mar made her way over to Repetto. She was in her eighties now, whipcord lean and wizened, but with carefully permed white hair and alert brown eyes. She looked like one of those people who might live forever. Repetto wished she could.
    “You okay, Vin?” she asked. “You look sort of pensive.”
    “A lot to think about, I guess.”
    “Yeah, you always did think too much to be completely happy.”
    “Is there such a thing as complete happiness?”
    “Naw.” She patted his arm and moved away.
    Dal came up to Repetto as the cake was being cut and drew him aside, until they were standing a few feet inside the kitchen.
    “I can’t believe Mar came all the way from Philadelphia by train for this, at her age,” Dal said. “She’s a helluva lady.”
    “You’ll never know.”
    “Michaels tells me I should test up for lieutenant,” Dal said. “I’d be doing Street Narcotics Enforcement.”
    “Running a unit?”
    “Before long.”
    “Not a bad career move.”
    “I want the shortest route to make detective, like you are.”
    “Were,” Repetto corrected.
    Dal grinned. “Word’s around you’re getting the call to go after the Night Sniper.”
    Repetto sighed. “The NYPD leaks like the Titanic. Got an underwater budget, too.”
    “You considering it?”
    “We’re opening gifts,” Lora called from the living room.
    “The beer’s not in the fridge, you two,” Amelia shouted. “It’s out here in a cooler.”
    Repetto and Dal laughed. “She’s got us figured,” Dal said.
    “Always has,” Repetto said. “We’ll finish this talk tomorrow morning.”
     
     
    Repetto hooked up with Dal Bricker the next morning where they often met, away from the apartment. Dal would leave the unmarked he was driving parked off Fourteenth Street, and they would stroll.
    It was a clear morning, with the sun glancing warm off the buildings. The kind of morning Repetto liked most in New York. Night had been chased away. The