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to lie awake in their bed, thinking of their little girl, and his wife, and all that he had shared with her in two years.
    The next three years had flown past. Daphne had gone back to work at Collins when Aimee was a year old. She had stretched her leave as long as she could, and she hated to go, but as much as she loved Aimee, she wanted to work, too. She knew that she needed that for herself, to remain who she was, and Jeff knew that it was important to her to be not only mother and wife, but someone unto herself. He always understood. They had a sitter every day, a grandmotherly woman Daphne had found after the baby was born, and Jeff helped her take care of the baby at night, and on weekends they went to the park, or drove out into the country to see friends. There was a magical quality to their life, which touched everyone they knew.
    "Don't you two ever fight?" one of Jeff's friends from work teased them when they came to Connecticut one weekend. He liked them both, and envied Jeff more than he would admit.
    "Sure we fight. At least twice a week. We make appointments to fight. I kick her around a little bit, she calls me names, the neighbors call the cops, and after they leave, we watch TV." Daphne grinned at him over Aimee's head and blew him a kiss. He was as he always had been, funny and loving and solid and everything she wanted in a man. He had remained, for her, a dream come true.
    "You two make me sick." Their friend's wife had groaned as she watched them. "How can married people be so happy? Don't you two have any sense?"
    "Not a bit," Jeff had answered with an arm around Daphne's shoulders as Aimee leaped off her lap and ran off to chase the cat she had just seen. "I guess we're just too dumb to know any better." But that was the nice thing about them, they were so damn bright, so good to be with, and so much fun. "The Perfect Couple," their friends dubbed them, and sometimes it made Daphne nervous, for fear that it was too good to last just the way it was, but after five years things between them had only gotten better. They had grown into a single mold, and other than his passion for watching gory rugby matches in Central Park on Sunday afternoons, there was absolutely nothing that Daphne would have changed. It was simply a question of two people who had found precisely what suited them best, and had had the wisdom to treat it well. And the only problem that they faced was an occasional lack of funds, which never seemed to trouble either Daphne or Jeff. At thirty-two Jeffrey was making a decent salary as a lawyer. It was enough, and her money from Collins paid for the extras. They were thinking of a second child, and when Aimee was three and a half, they decided to try again, but so far nothing had happened.
    "It's fun trying though, isn't it, kid?" He teased her on a Sunday morning that was Christmas Day. "Want to try again?"
    "After last night? I'm not sure I've got the strength." After getting the tree and the presents ready for Aimee, they had made love until 3 A.M. She had grinned at him and he swatted her behind. Their sex life was even better than it had been five years before. She grew prettier as she grew older, and at twenty-four she had a more womanly air as she strode across the room and stroked a single finger across his naked belly, circling slowly around the places that pleased him the most.
    "If you do that, you're gonna get raped!" But Aimee had burst into the room, her arms filled with new toys, and he had quickly wrapped himself in a towel while Daphne went to help her dress the new doll Santa Claus had brought.
    "Sorry, sweetheart."
    "Kids!" He rolled his eyes and went off to take a shower. It was a lazy, easy day, the three of them ate turkey and cranberry jelly and dressing till they could barely move, and when at last Aimee went to bed that night, they sat in front of the fireplace in their living room, reading the last of the Sunday Times, drinking mugs of hot chocolate, and looking at