"It will appreciate."
"Right," Richard said. "If it survives my niece. It's going to be a
present for her eighteenth birthday."
"Would you be my uncle?" Oliver asked.
"Since she's not quite seventeen, that means I'll have to drive it for
a year." Richard illuminated the universe with one of his smiles.
"Well, you want to test it out," Mark said. Oliver laughed and drank
more Guinness. The room filled with the Friday crowd. He would be home
an hour late. So be it. Jennifer would forgive him. Emma would give him
a big smile. Woof. Verdi.
In the following months, Oliver slipped further.
Suzanne took days off, left early for the dentist, and called in sick
when they couldn't stand to be apart any longer. No one seemed to
notice that they were often absent from the hospital at the same time,
although Molly began smiling at Oliver in a shrewd and tolerant way.
"What are _you_ smiling at?" Oliver asked her as he was leaving one
afternoon.
"Mama didn't raise no fools," she said.
"I like your mama--she make biscuits, by any chance?"
"Melt in your mouth," Molly said. "Almost as good as mine."
"I want to die and wake up in Georgia," Oliver said.
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