“What’s all this?” he asked, pointing to the big orchestral chart upon which was mapped out my latest arrangement for big band and strings.

“It’s music for your aunt Peggy to sing,” I said.

“She’s not really my aunt, right?” asked Bob for about the tenth time that year.

“No, you know that. She’s just our friend, but she likes you like an aunt.”

“Yeah, she’s okay,” he said, staring at the piano keys, dying to bang on them. “How come you always call her Norma?”

“Because when I met her, that was her name. And her last name was Egstrom. That was before she went back to using the name Lee.”

“And she’s your boss?”

“No, I work for lots of people, but a lot of the time it’s for her.” I indicated the arrangement. “She’s going to sing this on the television. On a show called Cavalcade of Bands. Your uncle Jack’s group is going to be the band of the week.”

Bob frowned. “Yeah, well we won’t be able to see it. Unless we go to Nick Michael’s house. He has a TV machine.”

I said, casually, “Well, I thought it was time we got one, too.”

His eyes nearly burst out of his head. “We’re gonna have a TV?” he asked. I nodded in the affirmative. “Holy cow. Wait till I tell everybody.”

“You going outside?” I asked.

“Yeah, maybe later.”

“Where?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Why do you always want to know?”

“Because I like to know lots of things. What are you going to do?”

I had to remember that he must be allowed to do the things other kids did, even if it meant he might skin his knee or get hit in the head with a football or step on a nail. As his namesake had once told me, “It’s a miracle any kid gets through life, but most of them do.” With luck, this lifetime the odds would be in my Bob’s favor.

I told him a list of twenty things not to do while I was out of the room, took the very first of the yellow pads from orange crate number 1 and went downstairs to show it to his mother. As I left, I looked at the photo of Linney that always sat on the table where I’d been writing. Bob reminded me in absolutely not one way of her . . . except that he, too, was my child, and I would think about him and love him every day I was alive.

Maybe even after that, but that was not up to me.

I went through the kitchen door and saw Gail at the table, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Have you finished the chart yet?” she asked. “I’d love to see it when it’s done.”