She and Oliver's mother had never really become friends. Mrs. Watson had been outspoken early on and had told her only son what she thought of Sarah before they were married. She thought her a headstrong, difficult girl, who wanted her own way at any price, and she always feared that one day she might hurt Oliver badly. But so far Sarah had been a good wife to him, she admitted to her husband begrudgingly when he stood up for the girl, but Sarah always felt that the older woman was watching her, as though waiting for some slip, some faux pas, some terrible failing that would prove her right in the end. The only joy the two women shared was the two children, who delighted Mrs. Watson, and whom Sarah loved now as though she had wanted them from the first, which Mrs. Watson still remembered she hadn't. Oliver had never told her anything, but she had sensed what was going on, without being told. She was an intelligent woman with a quick eye, and she knew perfectly well that Sarah hadn't been happy to be pregnant, nor had she enjoyed Benjamin's early days, but on the other hand, she had to admit that he hadn't been an easy baby. He had unnerved her, too, with his constant colicky screaming. But all of that was forgotten now, as the children grew, and Sarah and Oliver thrived, both of them busy and happy, and doing well. And Sarah finally seemed to have given up her literary aspirations, which had always seemed a little excessive to Mrs. Watson.

“She's a good girl, Phyllis. Don't be so hard on her. She was young when they got married. And she makes Oliver very happy.” Her husband had always been more philosophical than she was.

“I know … but I always get the feeling that she wants something more, something just out of reach … something that will cost Oliver dearly.” It was an astute remark, more so than she knew. But George Watson shook his head with an indulgent smile.

“Ollie can handle her.”

“I'm not sure he wants to. I think he'd let her have anything she wants, whatever the cost to him. He's that kind of man.” She smiled gently up at the husband she had loved for almost forty years, years that were too precious to even count now. They had become bonded like one body, one soul, long since. She couldn't even remember a time without him. “He's just like his father. Too good. Sometimes that can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong woman.” She was always concerned about her son, and even after all these years, always faintly distrustful of Sarah.

But the compliment had not gone unnoticed by her husband, as he smiled down at his bride with the look that still made her tingle. “Give the girl a little credit, Phyllis. She hasn't hurt our boy, and she's given him, and us, two beautiful children.” Indeed they were, and although neither of them looked exactly like their father, they both had some of his classic good looks. Oliver was tall and graceful and athletic-looking, with thick, straight blond hair that had been the envy of every mother when he was a child, and every girl when he was in college. And although Sarah seldom acknowledged it to him, because she didn't want to bloat his ego beyond something she could cope with, more than once she had heard it said that Oliver Watson was the best-looking man in Purchase. For six months of the year, he had a deep tan, and his green eyes seemed to dance with mischief and laughter. And yet he was unaware of his good looks, which made him all the more attractive.

“Do you think they'll have more children, George?” Phyllis often wondered but would never have dared to ask her son, much less Sarah.

“I don't know, darling. I think they have a full life as it is. And these days, you can never be too sure of what's going to happen. Oliver is in an insecure business. Advertising is nothing like banking when I was a young man. You can't count on anything anymore. It's probably wiser for them not to.” George Watson had been talking that way for the past year. He had lived long enough to watch many of his investments, once so sound, begin to shrink and dwindle. The cost of living was astonishingly high, and he and Phyllis had to be careful. They had a pretty little house in Westchester they had bought fifteen years before, around the time when Oliver was in college. They knew that he'd never be coming home again for any great length of time, and it seemed foolish to continue hanging on to their rambling old house in New London. But George worried about their finances constantly now. It wasn't that they were destitute by any means, but if they both lived another twenty-five years, which at fifty-nine and sixty-two they still could, and he hoped they did, it could stretch their savings beyond their limit. He had just retired from the bank and was getting a decent pension. And he had made numerous wise investments over the years, but still … you could never be too careful. It was what he told Oliver every time he saw him. He had seen a lot in his lifetime, one big war and several small ones. He had fought in Guadalcanal, and been lucky enough to survive it. He had been twelve in the crash of '29, he knew just how brutal the Depression had been, and he had seen the economy go up and down over the years. He wanted his son to be careful. “I don't see why they'd want any more children.”

And Sarah completely agreed with him. It was one of the few subjects on which she and George Watson were in total agreement. Whenever the subject came up with Oliver, once in a while in bed late at night, or on a quiet walk in the woods in a remote corner of Purchase, she always told him she thought it was silly to even consider it. “Why would we want more kids now, Ollie? Melissa and Benjamin are growing up. They're easy, they have their own lives. In a few years we'll be able to do anything we want. Why tie ourselves down with all those headaches again?” Even the thought of it made her shudder.

“It wouldn't be the same this time. We could afford someone to help us. I don't know … I just think it would be nice. One day we might regret not having more children.” He looked at her tenderly with the eyes that almost made women swoon at the PTA, but Sarah pretended not to notice.

“The kids wouldn't even like the idea by now. Benjamin's seven, and Melissa's five. A baby would seem like an intrusion to them. You have to think of that. We owe something to them too.” She sounded so definite, so sure, and he smiled and took her hand as they walked back to where they had parked the ear. He had just bought his first Mercedes. And she didn't know it yet, but he was going to give her a fur coat for Christmas. He had just picked it out at Bergdorf Goodman, and it was being monogrammed with her initials.

“You certainly sound sure.” As always, he sounded disappointed.

“I am sure.” And she was. There was no way he was going to talk her into having another baby. She was thirty-one years old, and she liked her life just fine the way it was. She was swamped with committee work all day long, she spent half her life running car pools, and the rest of it going to Cub Scouts and Melissa's ballet class. Enough was enough. He had tamed her as far as she was willing to be tamed. They had the picket fence, and the two kids, and the house in the country, and they had even bought an Irish setter the year before. More than that she could not give, even for Ollie.

“What do you say we take the kids skiing after Christmas?” he asked as they got in the car. He liked to stay close to home for the actual holidays, because he thought it was more fun to be at home, and he thought it was nicer for his parents. Sarah's parents had her sister and her kids, and they went to Chicago every Christmas from Grosse Pointe, but his parents had only him. And Sarah had no burning desire to go home for the holidays anyway. They had done it once, and she had complained about it for three years. Her sister annoyed her, and Sarah and her mother had never gotten along either, so the arrangement they had was perfect.

“That would be fun. Where? Vermont?”

“What about something a little racier this year? What about Aspen?”

“Are you serious? That must have been one hell of a bonus you got last week.” He had brought in the agency's biggest client ever. He still hadn't told her how big the bonus was, and they had both been so busy in the last week, she hadn't pressed him.

“Big enough to splurge a little if you'd like to. Or we could stay around here, and then go away just the two of us after the kids are back in school, if you want to. My mom would come and stay with them.” She had before, and now that they were a little older, it worked better, “What do you think?”

“I think it sounds terrific!” She gave him a hug, and they ended up necking in the new car, which smelled of men's cologne and new leather.

And in the end, they did both. They went to Aspen with the kids for the week between Christmas and New Year, and a month later, he took Sarah away for a romantic week in Jamaica at Round Hill, in their own villa, overlooking Montego Bay. They laughed about their honeymoon in Bermuda, about how they had never left their room, and barely managed to stay in the dining room long enough to have dinner. This vacation was no different. They played tennis and swam and lay on the beach every morning, but by late afternoon, they were making passionate love in the privacy of the villa. And four nights out of six they made special arrangements for room service. It was the most romantic trip they had ever taken, and they both felt reborn when they left Jamaica. Sarah was always amazed to realize how passionately she still loved him. She had known him for twelve years, been married to him for eight, and yet she felt as though their romance was still fresh, and it was obvious that Oliver felt the same about Sarah. He devoured her with the energy of an eighteen-year-old, and more than that, he loved to talk to her for hours. The sex they shared had always been great, but with the years came new vistas, new ideas, new horizons, and their ideas were no longer as diverse or as sharply polarized as they once had been. With the years, they had grown slowly together, and he teased her about becoming more conservative, while he had slowly become a little more liberal. But he felt as though they had slowly become one person, with one mind, one heart, and one direction.