Jack tilted his head back to look at his mother. Wilma, fiddling with the brooch at her throat, nodded. “It’s all right, Jack, do as Uncle Gust says. You may tell Cook that I said to get you a snack.”

Gust released Jack and, when he popped up, gave him a gentle swat on the rear. Jack toddled out quickly. The only thing more exciting than wrestling with Uncle Gust was the prospect of food.

“He’s grown,” Gust told Wilma when Jack had gone.

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen you,” she said.

He picked up his hat from where he’d dropped it on the floor. “What, two weeks?”

“A month, at least.” And it had been much longer since she had been really alone with him.

He shrugged, and put his hand in his pocket. “Time passes so quickly, you know.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I haven’t wanted to disturb you.”

She sat up straighter, folding her hands across the baby within her. “You needn’t have worried about that.”

“Well, you know,” he said.

He walked over to look out the front window. “It’s snowing again. There’s already an inch of new.”

Wilma watched the square of his shoulders framed against the snowy sky visible through the window. “Did you come here to tell me it’s snowing?”

He sighed. “No,” he said, and turned to face her. “I came because I was just meeting with your husband. My brother. And he was intolerable as usual, begging your pardon. I thought you might be able to help me see the good points in him.”

Wilma smiled. John often complained about his younger brother, saying Gust was reckless and never thought of the bottom line. Sometimes Wilma imagined that was all John thought of. “Gust, you and John are just so different. There are bound to be things you disagree on.”

“Yah, that’s true enough,” he said, and pursed his lips. He turned from her and walked to the side window. “How do you get on with him, then, Wilma?” he said, peering out at the trees.

“Fine, I—let him have his way,” she said quickly, watching the square of his jaw.

He turned toward her. “Is that the secret, then?”

She touched her brooch.

“It makes me burn inside to see the way he takes his luck for granted,” he said suddenly. He threw his hat across the room, where it landed on the sofa. “Just this afternoon, he was groaning about how expensive it is to ‘keep’ a wife. About the clothes you order from Chicago, and the things for the babies, all the time you ‘waste’ on your music. I can’t even listen to it.”

Her hands were clenched. “I shouldn’t think you would need to worry yourself about that, Gust.”

“If you were my wife, I wouldn’t begrudge you the moon, Wilma, and the children would have their hearts’ desire!”