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the tree. It had been a perfect Christmas on a relaxed Sunday afternoon and evening as Daphne stretched out on the couch and put her head in Jeffrey's lap.
    "What's a mountain range in Peru?"
    "I give up. What is it?" He had no knack whatsoever for the crossword puzzle she tackled every Sunday, even during the festivities of Christmas. "How the hell do you do that damn thing, Daff? Christ, I went to Harvard Law School, did okay, and I still can't get three words right." She finished the whole thing every week by Tuesday, and wouldn't give up until she did. He was no help at all and yet she always asked him. "And don't ask me who Beethoven's sister was or I'll throw my hot chocolate at you."
    "That's it!" She grinned evilly and sat up. "Violence! That's the one I couldn't get on twenty-six across."
    "You drive me nuts. Come on"--he stood up and held out a hand--"let's go to bed."
    "Let's wait until the fire goes out." Their bedroom and Aimee's was upstairs in the little duplex they had acquired the summer before with his last raise, and Daphne loved the fireplace but she always worried, especially now, so near to the Christmas tree.
    "Turn your worry button off, it's almost out now."
    "Then let's wait."
    "Let's not." He pinched her behind. "I'm so horny I can hardly see straight. I think you put an aphrodisiac in my hot chocolate."
    "Bullshit." She grinned at him and stood up. "You've been a sex maniac ever since I met you. You don't need an aphrodisiac, Jeffrey Fields. You need saltpeter in your food just to keep you normal." He laughed and chased her up the stairs to their bedroom, where he threw her gently into bed and began to caress her beneath her sweater and she wondered, as she had for the past two months, If she would get pregnant this time. "Why do you think It's taking so long this time?" She looked only faintly worried. With Aimee she had gotten pregnant almost on the first try, but this time it hadn't taken yet. Jeffrey only shrugged and smiled.
    "Maybe I'm over the hill ... hell, maybe you ought to get a new model."
    Her eyes were serious as she looked at him across the bed as they undressed. "I'd never find anyone like you, Jeff. I don't give a damn if we never have another baby. Do you know how much I love you?"
    "How much?" His voice was deep and husky as he reached for her across their bed and pulled her slowly toward him.
    "More than you'll ever know, my love." Her words were swallowed by his lips as they kissed and held, and began to make love beneath the comforter she had bought for their big brass bed. The bed was a kind of joke between them. The springs squeaked, and the bed creaked outrageously when they made love, but it was an antique they had bought at an auction and they loved it. They had bought a smaller one for Aimee, and Daphne had discovered a beautiful child's quilt her grandmother had made among her mother's things.
    "Think I should check on Aimee?" She always did before they went to bed, but tonight she felt sensual and lazy as she lay sated in her husband's arms, and he felt the same, and for a prescient instant she wondered if there would be life in her womb again. Their lovemaking had had an ardor and a depth and seriousness to it that somehow seemed as though it ought to result in their longed-for second child. She was thinking of the baby they wanted, and not the one they had, as she lay sleepily in Jeffrey's arms.
    "She's all right, Daph." He always teased her because she stood so solemnly beside Aimee's bed every evening, staring down at the golden-haired little girl who looked so much like her. And If she slept too soundly, Daphne would put a finger just beneath her nose to make sure that she was breathing. 'Just stay put tonight. She's fine." Daphne smiled drowsily then, and a moment later was sound asleep curled up within Jeffrey's comfortable clasp. She lay there like that asleep for hours, until she stirred slowly in a distant dream. They were standing beside a waterfall, all