The babies were everywhere. Leona was positive she had seen one driving a car on the overpass. One smoked a cigarette while a nanny pushed it in a stroller at the park. One hosted a nouveau-riche group of babies at the expensive restaurant where Richard took her for their third anniversary. Their own baby they had left at home.

"Well, happy anniversary," Richard said to Leona, as she shot a mean look at the table behind them, where the babies were laughing and ordering another bottle of Dom Perignon. Richard toasted Leona's turned head. "Here's to the third time being the charm."

Third time being the charm? What was he talking about? Oh, wasn't it just like Richard to say something that didn't make any sense and get away with it, scot-free? Just like their child would, when he learned to speak.

Into Leona's drink landed a Dom Perignon cork. The babies hooted and hollered, but when Leona turned again, they were silent, gazing at her with their innocent baby eyes as her baby often did, as though it weren't three in the morning and he hadn't just been screaming bloody murder.

Richard fished the cork out of her glass. "Oh my!" he said, as though it had a more meaningful origin than just some careless babies getting drunk on a weeknight. He used that phrase too often, an indicator that he didn't understand the world, didn't know what Leona knew.

Leona bowed her head. It was going to be a long life.