Once again, Dave could have skipped this month's trip to New York, except for the need to bring Shae home. Spending the time with her made it worthwhile, and he was anxious for the waiting to be over with.

For the most part, the rest of the trip could have been done over the phone or not done at all. He visited Aaron Tietelbaum, more for a face-to-face than for a document signing since they'd been calling, faxing, and e-mailing back and forth regularly. Aaron had been able to defer and spread a huge tax bite by setting up a trust fund for the boys. While it easily ascertained there would be funds for college and for a start in their own lives in the future, it made a significant cut in the amount of funds Dave would face having taxed. Even so, any kind of an investment fund would leave him on the edge of not having to work again, at least at Bradford prices. While Dave intended to stay at Duncan and Fyre for a while, he was becoming increasingly detached from the office politics and hassles -- all he really wanted to do was his work and stay above the petty stuff.

Not much came out of his meeting at the office, either. In the days before this trip to New York he'd finished up Maiden of Hvalfjiordur, thinking it was a pretty decent book. It probably wasn't going to hit anyone's best seller lists, but they weren't going to lose money on it. He left with a couple of new projects to deal with, both of which he'd known were coming, and both of which, for that matter, he'd already downloaded from the company server. The only disappointment was he was going to have to delay his meeting with Rob to discuss the online books idea for yet another month, since Rob was on vacation in the Caribbean, a place warmer than Manhattan or Bradford.

Maybe some time, he thought, probably not this winter, he and Shae might make a trip down there, spend a few days together lying on the sand, soaking up the rays, doing some clubbing, and seeing some sights. It was a perfectly satisfying vision, something he thought he might want to keep in mind for a honeymoon.

As he took the subway back to Shae's studio, where he'd left the Chevy parked, it happened to cross his mind that he had never spent much time thinking about marrying Shae -- and, for that matter, the subject had never come up between them. There was little doubt of it happening in time, possibly later this year, but they'd both been very careful about the use of the term -- "being together", or "staying together", or something like them were the terms used. Dave knew in his own mind, it was lingering respect for Julie, the desire to not be disloyal to her, to not stain her memory by rushing on to something else. From what little Shae and he had talked on their relationship, it seemed she'd understood his sensibilities and respected them.

It was fine with him. The subject would have to be raised sometime, maybe not soon. After all, these days, lots of people lived together, sometimes for years and years, without benefit of marriage, raising kids and otherwise living a normal family life. But was it fair to the boys to contemplate that kind of an arrangement? Was it an example he wanted to set for them? He didn't think it was, and his gut reaction had been, so far, to not let the boys know the extent of his relationship with Shae. To them she was still "Aunt Shae", a good friend who verged on being a surrogate mother, but not the real thing. Whatever happened, it was something he had to deal with in the near future, or he wouldn't be fair to the boys that way, either.

That night was bittersweet. He and Shae had been together for ten days in both Bradford and the city, and in many ways their relationship had become tighter throughout the period. That night wasn't one for the exuberant monkey sex they both enjoyed; it was one for much cuddling, gentle lovemaking, and long kisses.

He definitely felt down when he got on the road the next morning. It was going to be a full two weeks before they saw each other again -- picking her up from Indianapolis and bringing her back to the apartment carried with it the penalty of him being in New York a little early for his normal schedule. If it weren't for the holidays, he'd be arriving in New York today, instead of departing.

It was the usual long, dull drive back up I-80 to Bradford, and unlike previous trips Dave didn't have any compelling issue in need of dissection during the trip and he wasn't in the mood to think about his book, so it was even more boring than usual. At least there was a full set of Dayna and Sandy CDs in the car, a Christmas gift from the duo. They kept his mind busy much of the way, but after a while he grew a little tired of them and found something different to listen to for the rest of the way home.

January can be a dull month. The excitement of the holidays is over with, and there's not much to look forward to except the long, dull drag to spring. In a sense, it was a little duller than normal for Dave, for he didn't have some of the things that had diverted him in past winters. He found himself missing more than normal the interactions of the office, the constant stream of people. Other than the boys and occasionally Kayla, about the only people he saw for days at the time were the few people he said "Good morning" to at the school, and Emily or Janine when he went in to get his morning coffee.

Beyond that, life settled into a fairly strict routine. Once he got back home, he worked on the book till noon, and made pretty good progress, since he was fresh after getting the boys around and walking or on bad days, driving, them to school. The first draft was coming along slowly, and he didn't mind slow since he wanted to be careful and avoid typos and errors, but he was satisfied with his progress, usually a chapter every three or four days. At noon, he broke for a quick lunch, a sandwich and sometimes soup, then turned to work on the current project from Dunlap and Fyre, which would carry him until it was time to go pick up the boys.

He didn't work as effectively when they were home, but he usually got in another hour or two while they were playing or watching TV. He always spent time with the boys in the evenings, and might work on editing a little if they were watching TV. Then would come Shae's nightly phone call and story time; once he got the boys to bed, he'd usually just sit and read for a while until he was sure they were asleep, then call Shae back. Sometimes they'd only talk for a few minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. If he had some time left over, he'd read, edit, or just think about what he wanted to write the next day.

Shae had about as much news for him as he had for her -- she saw a lot more people around the set, of course, and there were all the rumors and office politics and everything else that made her day a little more interesting than his. She had thought perhaps the contract situation would get settled over the holidays, but reported management hadn't even raised the issue. She hadn't asked them herself, but some people around the set who had asked said they'd been told that things were "still up in the air", not that it meant anything useful. Shae was suspecting, even hoping, more and more that it meant Avalon would be canceled at the end of the season, and she'd be able to move on to something else, something she would rather do, even if she wasn't sure what it was, yet.

As the days passed, Dave and the boys were all looking forward anxiously to Shae's next visit. There was a cold going around the school, and of course the boys caught it and had to stay home for a couple days, which meant Dave caught it too, just a couple days before Shae was due to come. Then, to top it off, from the little he'd been watching the weather, he realized a bad winter storm was working their way, and it hit Bradford the night before Shae was due to leave. By morning the town was pretty well closed down, the schools were closed, and it didn't look like the snow would let up for a while.

This wasn't good. Dave usually didn't call Shae at work, but this was different; at least he caught her between setups, so they'd have a couple minutes to talk. "Have you been keeping an eye on the weather?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "It doesn't look good on TV."

"It looks a damn sight worse out the window. Shae, if you leave at noon like you planned, you're going to be driving right into the teeth of it. I hate to say it, but I think you'd better just stay in the city this weekend."

"I've been thinking the same thing," she replied. "The schedule here is loused up, too, and I wouldn't be able to leave until our normal quitting time, if then. On top of it, I've been feeling a little rocky. I'm going to miss you and the boys, but I think you're right. I think I'm going to just curl up with a good book over the weekend and call it good enough."

This was the first Dave had heard of her not feeling up to par, and he mentioned it. "Anything serious?"

"I don't think so," she said. "I sort of feel like I'm coming down with a cold, but it won't quite catch. Maybe it's just feeling sympathetic to what you and the boys are going through."

"Well, take it easy, drink plenty of fluids, take your vitamin C, get your rest, and all that other motherly stuff," he laughed.

"That's about what I planned. I'm just sorry I'm not going to see you guys this weekend. I won't be able to next weekend. I promised Eve I'd go down and stay with Sergei and Milla so she and John could get away for a couple days."

"A quick trip south?" Dave asked.

"Hell no, a conference in Minneapolis," Shae snorted. "It's one heck of a wad colder there than it is here, too."

"Well, if you can't, you can't," he shrugged. "I'd love to see you and so would the boys. But it's not worth the risk for a day and a couple evenings, especially as crappy as we're feeling on this end."

"Yeah, there's that, too. OK, gotta run, they need me on the set."

"See you next time," he told her. "Two weeks, I promise."

It turned out to be a good move. It took another day for the storm to blow through, and Dave and the boys felt pretty crummy through most of it. All of them got some extra nap time in; with the boys not in school, Dave had lost enough time on Dunlap and Fyre work through the week that he worked on it over the weekend, rather than working on his book. At least on Sunday, Emily called and asked if he'd like to pay Kayla and JJ to do his walks and driveway. He took them up on it, mostly because he didn't feel like doing it himself. The kids took the family snow blower and made quick work of it, and Dave was glad to have it done.

By Monday, things were getting back to normal. School was open again, and the boys were about as happy to be going to school as Dave was glad to be taking them. While he loved his kids to no end, several days cooped up with them in the house with everyone more or less sick had not been fun. He was happy to stop by the Spee-D-Mart for his coffee and a few words with Janine -- Emily being at the Courier, helping Lloyd get the paper out, as had become normal on Mondays and Tuesdays -- and then head home and get back to work on the book. Several things had been cogitating in his mind for days, and the writing went better than usual, even though he was in the phase of his cold where he felt like he was drowning in snot and had to blow his nose every thirty seconds.

In the days after the head cold worked its way out, he fell back to his normal routine. Emily was back at the Spee-D-Mart on Wednesday, full of stories of what had happened with people during the storm, and a few new tidbits about classmates. He spent enough time standing around talking with her for the sake of new conversation that he had to get a second cup of coffee to take with him, but made up for it on Thursday when she was quite busy, so he didn't hang around.

But when he went in Friday morning, it was easy to see that she was very down, to the point where she was holding back tears. "Emily," he asked, "Is something the matter?"

"Yes," she said sadly. "Sharon Van Tyle was just in; she owns the store. She's sold it, and it's going to be closed and torn down."

"What?" Dave replied, astonished. The Spee-D-Mart, with Emily behind the counter, was about as close to a permanent fixture as a thing could be in Bradford.

"Yes," she sighed. "The grocery store wants to expand, and they want to move and rebuild. This place will make the parking lot larger." She shook her head and continued, "We've been hearing on council that they've been talking about expanding, but I never thought it would come this far. We haven't seen a site plan or details, even unofficially. They want to tear out the gas tanks and do an environmental assessment, and then it's a year before the grocery store can build. So, it looks like come spring I'm out of a job."

"That's a bummer," Dave said understandingly. "I know she has a chain of other stores. Can't you work in one of them?"

"No, she's selling the rest of the chain to F&P Food Marts; they'll want to bring in their own people. Besides, I don't want to work outside of Bradford, anyway."

Dave shook his head. "That really leaves you hanging, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, afraid so," she said. "The hell of it is we figured this place was about as stable as anything could be, so it was part of the planning for the knife shop. Vicky and Jason have his retirement income to fall back on, and Kevin and I figured this would be our fallback position. Fortunately the knife shop is going pretty well, or else we'd really be in trouble." She let out a long sigh. "I guess I fucked up," she continued. "I've worked here since ninth grade; I've never really done anything else. I mean, I could have gone to college or something, but all I wanted to do was to marry Kevin and have kids. Now, I don't know anything else."

"You're just down and looking at the downside," Dave said. "Believe me, I know how it works, I've done it enough in the past few months. Emily, you're not without options. How about your job with Lloyd at the Courier? Could that be expanded a little?"

"Maybe," she nodded. "I haven't had a chance to talk with Lloyd about it yet, but maybe I could get another few hours. He wants to slow down a little, anyway. His wife would like to be in Florida right now."

"Considering the weather, I can't blame her," Dave smiled. "Emily, it may not be the whole answer but it might be a piece of the answer. No matter how your life seems to be set in stone, things can happen, and you don't have to look any further than me to see that. Maybe this means you're supposed to be moving on, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe it's time you took a step up in your life. All I can say is, while I've always known you liked this job, I've always thought somehow you're a better person than it takes to spend your life as the manager of a small-town convenience store. Christ, you're the mayor of this town, and from what I hear people say, you're pretty good at it. That proves you have something on the ball."

"Yeah, but Dave," she said. "This is about all I ever wanted to do. It helps provide for my family, I like it, I get to meet and talk with a lot of people."

"Emily," he sighed, "A year ago being a book editor at Dunlap and Fyre and spending my life with Julie and the boys was all I ever dreamed of doing. Now, I find myself moving beyond it. I didn't want to; I was forced to by a bunch of Muslim maniacs. All the pieces aren't in place yet, but I'm beginning to think that when everything settles out I'll be better off than I was before." He realized that he was getting pretty close to spilling the beans about Shae, so shook his head and continued, "I didn't do it by myself. It took a lot of friends who helped and had faith in me, with you and Eve and Shae at the head of the pack. Emily, take this lemon and make lemonade."

She smiled back at him a little wanly. "Thanks, Dave," she said. "I guess I needed the pep talk."

"You've given me enough over the last few months; it's time to return the favor. I'm going to tell you what you've told me any number of times: if there's anything I can do to help, all you have to do is ask."

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