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Katie King stretched herself out on the lounger by the pool, patting the flatness of her stomach. Across the table from her Mary worked industriously at the keyboard of the word processor, following Aunt Grace’s dictation. The young girl looked fresh and happy, her foot almost corrected, as she nibbled her lip and touched the keys. When Aunt Grace came to the end of her reading they all dropped back in their chairs, laughing.

‘Katie,’ the girl cried, 'I'll never be able to thank you for this wonderful training.’

‘Don’t thank me, Mary. Thank Harry. Remember what Oz said. You need the information
and
the diploma!’

‘Just what did Harry do, dear?’ Aunt Grace asked. ‘By the time I heard about it I was too confused to think straight.’

Katie laughed so loudly that a small wail of disgust came from the little cradle beside her. She rocked it with her foot. ‘Mary really needed a college degree,’ she explained. ‘So Harry organised and incorporated Bald Mountain Business College. Harry is the Dean, I’m the instructor, and Mary is the only pupil. I suspect that before anyone comes around to question we will have graduated our entire class. Lord, that man has gall!’

‘Looks like he’s got more than gall,’ Aunt Grace said proudly. ‘Look at him. He’s got what we used to call a self-satisfied smirk on his face!’

Katie twisted in her chair to watch her husband amble across the grass towards them. Even after a year and a half, she caught her breath at the sight of him. Like a big ambling red-headed cuddly bear, she told herself, and giggled at her own temerity. My lord and master. I ought to kiss his foot! Suiting words to actions, she darted up from the chair, took the few steps towards him, and dropped to the ground. He came to a rumbling halt, eyes sparkling with glee as she dropped a kiss on the toe showing through his open sandals.

‘Now that’s the way a man ought to be greeted,’ he declared, as he pulled her up to her feet.

‘I would have done it sooner, but I couldn’t bend over,’ she laughed.

‘Are you taking notes, Mary,’ he called. ‘Humble. Submissive, obedient. That’s the way to hold a man.’

‘Wait, I'll get you in bed tonight,’ Katie threatened in his ear. ‘We’ll see how fast I can cut Superman down to the mortal ranks.’

‘None of that,’ he remonstrated. ‘There are minors present.’

‘I don’t care what you say,’ Mary chimed in. ‘She’s got the powers. And that’s what I’m fixing to study.
That's
the way to hold a man!’

Harry set Katie down on her lounger, and walked around so he could see his sleeping son right side up. He stood fixed in position, as if a move would wake the child. His teeth were nibbling at his lower lip. He had the look of—reverence—on his face. He sat down on the bottom half of Katie’s chair. ‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I got a letter from Eloise. She’s expecting.’

‘Somebody slipped up there,’ Aunt Grace chuckled. ‘C’mon, Mary, help me back to the house. Your mother and I are going to make jelly this afternoon.’

Katie leaned back in the chair and watched them go.

‘She’s slowing down,’ she remarked. ‘But her arthritis doesn’t seem to bother her any more.’

‘Come off it,’ Harry laughed. ‘You know darn well she never had arthritis. It was all part of a plot to trap me.’

‘Poor boy,’ she commiserated. ‘Trapped by women’s wiles!’ She stretched out, so that her foot rested in his lap. He put one hand over it, and began to draw circles on the bare flesh. A languid feeling came over Katie, and her eyes focused on far distant things.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘The wedding. How we got to Humbersville still in all those wet rumpled clothes. And I barely had time for a shower before I was crammed into Grandma’s wedding dress. I thought she’d have a fit when she saw how the bodice fitted. She wanted me to stuff it with Kleenex— can you imagine that? And then, when I was ready to go down the aisle my brother had to drop everything and go rent me another pair of crutches.’

‘You could have been married in the wheelchair,’ he reminded her. ‘I already had that.’

‘If you thought I was going to marry you sitting down, you had another think coming,’ she teased him. ‘You had enough advantages over me without that!’

‘You talk about advantages,’ he snorted. ‘How about me? All alone at the reception. Every time I turned around some great big hulking relative of yours would come up to me, stuff his hands in his pockets, and say “So you’re the Mountain Man, huh?”—as if I had some kind of infectious disease!’

‘But all the girls thought you were marvellous, dear,’ she soothed him. ‘My niece Becky said she was sorry you married me, because when she got to be fifteen she’d like to marry you herself. That makes you feel better?’

‘Yes, it does, Katie.
You
make me feel better. I’m much more secure in these valleys with you at my side.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be,’ she laughed. ‘Little Harry is Grandma’s first step in the plan to capture the valley.’

‘Come off it,’ he snorted. ‘Your grandmother is as big a kook as you are. How capture the valley?’

‘It’s getting too crowded in Ohio,’ she told him. ‘We Russels need more room for expansion.’

‘So?’

‘So we adopted the old Irish tradition. If you can’t beat them, out-populate them!’_

He retaliated by an all-out assault on her foot, tickling her Until her giggles woke the baby up. He backed away from the cradle, hands behind his back.

‘You can pick him up,’ she said, trying to hide the grin. ‘He’s near unbreakable at three months.’ Harry bent over the cradle, slid one huge hand under the baby’s shoulders and head, and lifted him out as if he were a crate of eggs. Kate took the little bundle, unfastened her bikini top, and began to nurse the child. Her husband watched, fascinated. ‘He’s pretty big, but he’s lost all his hair?’ He tried to make it a statement, but it came out a question.

‘Yes, Harry, he’s pretty big. As big as his father one of these days. And he’s got that little tuft of hair right up in front. Red, without a doubt.’ They both watched as the child slurped his fill, and went back to sleep. Kate stretched him out on the lounger, changed his diapers and shirt, and popped him back into the cradle, just as Mary came back out to take her turn at baby-sitting. They transferred the child to the pushchair, still fast asleep, and Mary went off to the orchard with him.

Katie leaned back in the lounger, and stretched. It was a perfect world. Her husband was watching her with those piercing eyes. ‘How come you’re not down the cellar inventing something?’ she queried. ‘We have a lot of mouths to feed nowadays.’

‘Not to worry,’ he returned. ‘We’re fixed for the next four or five years. Besides, I have to know what people need before I can invent anything to satisfy them!’

‘Well, invent something for me,’ she teased. ‘Invent me a new heaven.’

‘Easiest thing in the world,’ he laughed, as he swung her up in his arms and started for the house. ‘Upstairs, second room on the left, madame. Would you like stars, too?’

She would.