Lightning

and down my back so bad I had to put down the book and go for a walk in the sun. And there were times when I laughed like a loon."
    Laura ached in every muscle, in every joint. She did not have the strength to lean away from the pillows and put her arms around her friend. She just said, "I love you, Thelma."
    "The Eel wasn't there, of course."
    "I'm saving him for another book."
    "And me, damn it. I'm not in the book, though I'm the most colorful character you've ever known!"
    "I'm saving you for a book all your own," Laura said.
    "You mean it, don't you?"
    "Yes. Not the one I'm working on now but the one after it."
    "Listen, Shane, you better make me
gorgeous
, or I'll sue your ass off. You hear me?"
    "I hear you."
    Thelma chewed her lip, then said, "Will you—"
    "Yes. I'm going to put Ruthie in it too."
    They were silent a while, just holding hands.
    Unshed tears clouded Laura's vision, but she saw that Thelma was blinking back tears too. "Don't. It'll streak all that elaborate punk eye makeup."
    Thelma raised one of her feet. "Are these boots freaky or what? Black leather, pointy toes, stud-ringed heels. Makes me look like a damned dominatrix, doesn't it?"
    "When you walked in, the first thing I wondered was how many men you've whipped lately."
    Thelma sighed and sniffed hard to clear her nose. "Shane, listen and listen good. This talent of yours is maybe more precious than you think. You're able to capture people's lives on the page, and when the people are gone, the page is still there, the life is still
there
. You can put feelings on the page, and anyone, anywhere, can pick up that book and
feel
those same feelings, you can touch the heart, you can remind us what it means to be human in a world that's increasingly bent on forgetting. That's a talent and a reason to live that's more than most people ever have. So… well, I know how much you want to have a family… three or four kids, you've said… so I know how bad you must be hurting right now. But you've got Danny and Christopher and this amazing talent, and that's so very much to have."
    Laura's voice was unsteady. "Sometimes… I'm just so afraid."
    "Afraid of what, baby?"
    "I wanted a big family because… then it's less likely they'll all be taken away from me."
    "Nobody's going to be taken away from you."
    "With just Danny and little Chris… just two of them… something might happen."
    "Nothing will happen."
    "Then I'd be alone."
    "Nothing will happen," Thelma repeated.
    "Something always seems to happen. That's life."
    Thelma slid farther onto the bed, stretched out beside Laura, and put her head against Laura's shoulder. "When you said it was a hard birth… and the way you look, so pale… I was scared. I have friends in LA, sure, but all of them are show-biz types. You're the only
real
person I'm close to, even though we don't see each other that much, and the idea that you might have nearly…"
    "But I didn't."
    "Might've, though." Thelma laughed sourly. "Hell, Shane, once an orphan, always an orphan, huh?"
    Laura held her and stroked her hair.

    Shortly after Chris's first birthday, Laura delivered
The Golden Edge
. It was published ten months later, and by the boy's second birthday, the book was number one on the
Times
bestseller list, which was a first for her.
    Danny managed Laura's book income with such diligence, caution, and brilliance that within a few years, in spite of the savage bite of income taxes, they would be not just rich—they were already rich by most standards—but seriously rich. She didn't know what she thought about that. She had never expected to be rich. When she considered her enviable circumstances, she thought perhaps she should be thrilled or, given the want of much of the world, appalled, but she felt nothing much one way or the other about the money. The security that money provided was welcome; it inspired confidence. But they had no plans to move out of their quite pleasant four-bedroom house, though they could have afforded an estate. The money was
there
, and that was the end of it; she gave it little thought. Life was not money; life was Danny and Chris and, to a lesser extent, her books.
    With a toddler in the house, she no longer had the ability or desire to work sixty hours a week at her word processor. Chris was talking, walking, and he exhibited none of the moodiness or mindless rebellion that the child-rearing books described as normal behavior for the year between two and three. Mostly he was a