“Oh, it’s just that limited edition retrospective collection that Alan wants to do.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?”

She smiled. “You’d think. But all he can focus on is having to sign a few thousand signature sheets.”

“Maybe we should buy him one of those automated signature machines.”

“Except then he’d just find something else to get wound up over,” she said.

She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Coffee’s on the stove, and I’ll be back in an hour,” she added. “Will you stay for dinner?”

“Love to, thanks.”

Then she went out onto the street, and I took the stairs up to their apartment.

I guess the biggest thing Saskia did for Christy and me was to teach us that family didn’t have to be a dirty word. It wasn’t something she actually talked about, or worked to convince either of us to accept. It just kind of happened. Before she came into Christy’s life, Christy and I really didn’t have much time or patience for each other. But once he and Saskia were a couple, she made a point of having me over for dinner, or getting Christy to take her out to one of my shows—just bringing us together with her present so that we were on better behaviour than we might have been if it was just the two of us.

It was a slow process, with lots of bristling and affronts taken on both our parts, but Saskia knew how to smooth over the rough patches without ever really letting on that she was doing so. She’d just show us how much we had in common, gentle the start of angry words, and generally refused to let us drift apart. She was such a success with us that she could probably have reconciled us with our parents if we’d let her try, but we stood shoulder-to-shoulder on that one and would have nothing of it.

I guess the reason she was so good at it was because she never had even the pretense of a family herself and was determined to make one for all of us.

“Saskia says you’re grumpy today,” I said after I gave a perfunctory knock on their apartment door and then went on inside without waiting for a response.

Christy looked up from where he was reading a stack of manuscript pages on the sofa.

“She’s probably right,” he said.

“You should be happy that your readers will pay the big bucks for a signed limited edition of your stories.”

He smiled. “Oh, I am. But you know me. . . .”

“You have to pretend to at least make a credible fuss about it.”

“Or something. There’s coffee on the stove.”

“Thanks. You want some?”

“No, I’m good.”