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shallow drawer beneath the cherry wood top runs the length of the desk. Lena tips the lamp base, removes the key hidden
     underneath, and turns it in the brass lock. Inside an open cardboard box sits embossed letterhead and business cards.
Lena Harrison Spencer, Photographer
is printed in an elegant and simple type. The spiral-bound booklet beside the box opens easily to the first page:
The Lena Harrison Spencer Gallery, A Business Plan, May 15, 1999.
Her plan was written in hopes of bank approval on her father’s birthday—fifteen, her good luck number. The table of contents
     summarizes financial requirements, an implementation schedule and darkroom costs, possible mentors, and clientele from her
     former job at Oakland’s Public Information Office—contacts she wanted to make before they forgot what a capable director she
     was.
    Randall came home early that showery April day four years ago, excitement written all over his face. Lena stood at the bedroom
     window hoping the rain would stop so that she could get in a short run before dinner. The sound of his voice, from all the
     way downstairs, preceded his arrival. “We did it, Lena!” Once in the room, Randall swept her off her feet and spun her around
     until they were both dizzy. Camille and Kendrick ran into the bedroom, energized by the joyful commotion. Randall grabbed
     Camille; Lena grabbed Kendrick. Laughing and spinning, spinning and laughing.
    The four of them were infected with Randall’s news: they were in the presence of TIDA’s new executive vice president, worldwide
     operations, six-figure bonus, IPO options, possibilities of golden parachutes. Kendrick and Camille jumped around the room
     and chanted “IPO, IPO” like they understood what it meant.
    Before this promotion, when the dot-com building boom filled Silicon Valley, TIDA’s board of directors broke the mold and
     expanded northward from San Francisco to Novato. Randall spearheaded the Novato operations, putting him another step closer
     to running TIDA; neither he nor Lena felt he could turn down the offer, though the daily, almost eighty-mile roundtrip commute
     from Oakland would be wearing.
    For all of the talk and plans beforehand, Lena underestimated the impact of Randall’s worldwide operations appointment. In
     the beginning, for every day he was out of town, Randall called home. Five-minute conversations where business took a backseat
     to the ordinary details of their lives; enough time for “I love you” to all three of them and “I wish you were here” to Lena.
     No coaching Kendrick’s soccer team or boisterous applause in the middle of Camille’s solemn ballet recitals or input at teacher
     conferences; no banter, no repartee crisscrossing their dinner table, no middle-of-the-week dates. He couldn’t back Lena up
     when she disciplined Camille or control Kendrick’s defiance.
    Randall’s responsibilities increased. He worked. Hard. The bonus was that he returned to work in San Francisco, but in any
     given month, he stayed at least two nights in the corporate apartment in Novato. He traveled to their twelve national and
     international locations. He assembled a new staff, analyzed, brainstormed, strategized new company directions. He dabbled
     in golf; started smoking cigars and let himself be cajoled into joining the 95 percent white, male-only club on San Francisco’s
     Nob Hill—all to expand his connections, to expose him to the business powers that be. At TIDA, there were introductions to
     the board and other key players. Lena entertained executives in their home, gave dinner parties, and assured that Randall
     sat next to those who could further his career.
    “Teamwork is what got us here and what will keep us here,” became their motto, their mantra. Randall practiced his speeches;
     Lena corrected, edited, offered feedback that he made his own. She hobnobbed with executives’ wives—picked their brains for
     insight into what their husbands thought