When we were back home, Heather opened a good bottle of wine. She had been on a Bordeaux kick and had been making a dent in the couple dozen bottles I kept in the basement. It wouldn't have been so bad if she'd started with the cheap stuff and worked her way up. Alas, this was not Heather's style.

We killed the bottle in the den. We talked for a long time about some things that mattered and things that didn't until Sam's eyes took on a dreamy quality. "Follow me upstairs guys," she said more huskily than I'd thought her little body would be capable of, "I'm making good...