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the call. And then, when they show him the great honor of picking up, which is about one third of the time he calls, they make it plain they can’t wait to get off the phone. They treat him a little like he’s nuts. Which he guesses he was. But he’s not, anymore. He’s back.
    “Huh!” Nora says. “She said she was going to call you yesterday.”
    “Well, what is it? Is she okay? Is it something bad?”
    “No, nothing bad,” Nora says, and then she smiles. “It’s really nice news, actually.”
    “Nora. What is it?”
    “I think I should let her tell you.”
    “Is she…” Pete sits back in his chair. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she? Oh, man, is she pregnant ?!” Their twenty-seven-year-old daughter has been trying to conceive for two years. Last Pete knew, she was going to wait a couple more months and then start in with a fertility doctor.
    Again, Nora smiles, but says nothing.
    “No kidding, she’s going to have a baby! That’s great news!” But then the fact of his daughter’s pregnancy suddenly slams into his brain and he realizes that if she’s a mother, he’ll be a grandfather. Him, a grandfather! Is he ready for that? An uncle, okay, but a grandfather ? Is Nora okay with it? Is she ready to be a grandmother? Judging by her soft, pleased expression, he guesses she is. He forces himself to smile and says, “I’m going send her the biggest bouquet of flowers they can make. All… pink and blue!”
    “Wait for her to tell you,” Nora says. “I don’t want her to think I betrayed her; she asked me not to say anything. She said she would tell you, and I’m sure she will, when she’s ready.”
    Betray . He looks down at his eggs and takes another bite. “Thanks for making me breakfast, Nora. It’s really good. You know?” His throat is tight. What, now he’s going to cry ? He bites down hard on his back molars, swallows away the feeling. “Thanks for everything.” Now he looks into her face and smiles. The woman may be thirty-five years older than Sandy, but she has her own eyebrows, for Christ’s sake. And her smile is still dynamite. And the sex he just had with her was almost like it was when they first started. What a mistake he has made.
    “How are the boys?” he asks. Their older son, Pete Jr., is having problems with his wife, though he’s assured his mother he wants to work it out. He and his wife, Karen, are in therapy together. Pete himself has often said he’d never go to marriage counseling. But guess what? He’ll do it now. He’ll sit there and listen to all the bullshit and promise the moon. And deliver it.
    Their younger son, Cal, is trying yet again to start up a business: selling boats, this time, God help him. Cal doesn’t know a thing about boats. But he says he’ll learn. Cal’s a happy, wildly optimistic soul; it takes a lot to make him feel bad or discouraged about anything. His wife, Sunny, is aptly named: she’ll go along with anything Cal wants to do. And her family mints money: if worse comes to worst, they can always get a loan from them.
    “The boys are okay,” Nora says. “Pete and Karen are going to Paris.”
    “Wow. So their problems are over.” Pete imagines his son and daughter-in-law cuddled together on a nighttime flight to Paris. Business class. Pete Jr. would no doubt fall for that upgrade bullshit when the truth is that an airplane seat is hell no matter where on the plane it is. Save your money for when you get where you’re going, is what Pete would like to tell him. But Paris, that’s nice, he guesses. Very romantic place, he’s heard. He should have taken Nora there, she always used to talk about wanting to go to Paris. But then she just gave up.
    “No, their problems aren’t over,” Nora says. “They’re just trying really hard. They say they want to work it out, they want to try to stay together. It’s hard. But Cal! Cal is great ! You won’t believe it, but in the last week, he got three orders for yachts. Big