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  Come on, Hiroko ' it's coming now ' push again ' But she was too weak to try as the pain subsided, and then Crystal realized what was wrong. The baby was facing up instead of down. They would have to turn it. She had done it with animals, but the thought of doing it to her friend was terrifying as she glanced at Boyd and quietly explained it. She knew then that if they didn't turn the baby, it might die, or Hiroko would. It might already be too late for the baby now. Crystal knew they had to hurry. Another pain ripped into her friend, and this time she didn't tell her to push, instead she gently pressed her own hands into her and felt the baby in Hiroko's womb, and barely daring to breathe herself, she turned the baby carefully as Hiroko cried out and Boyd held her. Another pain came and she pushed again, as though to force Crystal from her, but as Crystal withdrew her hands, the head moved forward again, and suddenly Hiroko pushed as she had never thought she could have. The pain was blinding as the baby began to emerge and Crystal gave a shout of victory as the head came out, and with its body still inside the mother, it was already crying. Tears streamed down Crystal's cheeks as she worked to free Hiroko of her baby, and there was a tense silence in the room as Hiroko pushed again, but this time she was laughing and crying all at once as she listened to her baby cry, and then suddenly with a whoosh, the baby was free of her. It was a little girl, and the three of them looked down at her in amazement. The placenta came afterward and Boyd disposed of it, as the book had described. But the book had been useless until then. It was Crystal who had saved the baby's life, and she looked down at the tiny child in awe. She looked just like her mother, and Hiroko cried with joy as she held her.

  Thank you ' thank you ' She was too tired to say more, and she closed her eyes as she held the little girl, and Boyd cried watching them. He looked lovingly at his wife, and softly touched the baby's cheek before glancing back at Crystal.

  You saved her ' both of them ' His tears were born of relief, and Crystal left the room, quietly. The sun was high in the sky by then, and she was startled to realize how long she'd been there. The hours had flown by as she worked to save her friend, and the tiny baby.

  Boyd came out to see her after a while. She was sitting on the grass, and thinking how remarkable nature was. She had never seen anything as beautiful as their baby. Like Hiroko, she seemed to be carved out of ivory, and her eyes had the same Oriental slant as her mother's, but there was something of Boyd's look about her, too, and smiling to herself, Crystal wondered if one day she would have freckles like her father. He looked very grown up suddenly as he stared down at his wife's friend, grateful beyond anything he could tell her.

  How is she? Crystal was still worried, and wished that they could have called a doctor. There was always the risk of infection.

  They're both asleep. He smiled, as he sat down next to Crystal. They look so beautiful.

  Crystal smiled at him. They were two children who had just grown up that morning. Life would never be quite the same again, and having seen the miracle of the baby's birth, at that moment it seemed infinitely precious to them. What are you going to call her?

  Jane Keiko Webster. I wanted to just call her Keiko. But Hiroko wanted her to have an American name. Maybe she's right. He looked sad as he said it, and then looked out over the valley where they had both grown up. Keiko was her sister, she died in Hiroshima. Crystal nodded, she knew about it from Hiroko.

  She's a beautiful little girl, Boyd. Be good to her. It was an odd thing to say to him as she looked at him. He was twenty-four years old and they had known each other since they were children. Becky had had a crush on him once, and nothing had ever come of it, and Crystal had always been sorry. He was a kind, decent man, and a lot different from Tom Parker. She looked dreamily out at the hills as she talked to him, it was a beautiful spring day and the sun was shining brightly. My daddy was always so good to me. He was the best person I ever knew. Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked back at Boyd and wiped them with a corner of her work shirt.

  You must miss him a lot.

  I do. And ' well, things are so different now. Mama and I have never been close. She's always favored Becky. She said it matter-of-factly with a small sigh as she lay back on the warm grass. And then she smiled, remembering again, I guess she always thought Daddy spoiled me. He did, I guess. But I can't say I ever minded. She laughed then, and for a moment she seemed young again, but he was sorry for her.

  I guess I better go back in to them. Should I fix her something to eat? He wasn't sure what to do, and Crystal smiled up at him.

  When she's hungry. Mama says Becky ate like a horse afterward, but she had an easy time having Willie. Tell her to take it easy. She stood up too. I'll come back this afternoon or tomorrow, if I can get away. Her mother was always finding chores for her. And now, with Becky expecting, she was always telling Crystal to clean her house for her, or help her with the laundry. She felt like a slave sometimes, as she scrubbed Becky's front room while she and her mother sat in the kitchen drinking coffee.

  Take care of yourself, he stood looking awkward for a moment as she went to untie her horse, and then blushing self-consciously he kissed her on the cheek. Thank you, Crystal, his voice was hoarse with emotion, I'll never forget this.

  Neither will I. She looked at him honestly, almost as tall as he was, as she held the reins of her old pinto. Give Jane a kiss from me. She swung herself into the saddle then, and looked down at him again, and for an odd moment she thought of Spencer. She felt so close to Boyd after delivering the baby that she almost wanted to tell him. But tell him what? That she was in love with a man who'd almost surely forgotten her? They'd only seen each other twice after all, and yet as she rode home, smiling to herself, thinking of the baby sleeping in Hiroko's arms, she found herself dreaming of him again. It was all she had, dreams of him, and memories of her father, and pictures of movie stars tacked up in her bedroom.

  Where've you been all day? I've been looking for you everywhere. Her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen when she got back after delivering Hiroko's baby. And for a crazy moment she felt like telling her what had happened. It had been beautiful and exciting, and very, very scary. For a girl not yet seventeen, she suddenly understood what it meant to be a woman.

  I was out riding. I didn't think you'd need me.

  Your sister's not feeling well. I wanted you to go over and help her. Crystal nodded. Becky was never feeling well, not that she admitted to anyway. She wants you to take care of Willie. Same old story.

  Okay.

  There were dishes in the sink that Olivia had left for her, and after she did those, she walked across the fields to the cottage. Tom was listening to the radio and the room smelled of beer, as little Willie tottered around the room in an undershirt and a diaper. The room was a mess, and Becky was reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette in bed, in their bedroom. Crystal offered to make her lunch, and she nodded without ever looking up, as Crystal went back to the kitchen to make her a sandwich.

  Make me one, too, will you, hon? Tom called out beerily. And hand me another bottle from the fridge, will you? She walked into the front room to give him his beer and scooped Willie up in her arms. He had been making a mudpie in the ashtray with the milk in his half-empty bottle. He cooed happily as Crystal cuddled him. He smelled foul, and Crystal knew no one had bothered to change his diapers since the morning. Where've you been? I hear your ma was looking all over for you. He was wearing an undershirt with two half-moons of sweat under the arms, and everything about him was pungent as he eyed her. She looked mighty good to him. His own wife was fat and tired and always complaining, and the two girls didn't even look as though they were related.

  I was visiting friends, she said noncommittally, with his baby in her arms.

  Got a new boyfriend?

  No, I don't, she snapped at him as she walked back to the kitchen. Her legs looked endless in the tight-fitting jeans, and he was admiring her rump as she went to make him his sandwich.

  She didn't get b
ack to her own house till dinnertime, after cleaning up, making their lunch, and bathing little Willie. It made her sick to see how they left him. And now they were having another child, so they could let him go filthy and wild, crying half the time because he was hungry and Becky didn't feel like making dinner. Tom went out before she left, and Crystal was relieved. She never liked the way he looked at her, and the questions he always asked about her boyfriends. There had never been anyone. No one except her harmless dreams of Spencer. The others were all too afraid of her, and that suited her just fine. She had nothing in common with any of them. Their lives were confined to the valley. They had no idea that there was a world beyond it, and no thirst whatsoever to find it. Unlike Crystal who still hungered for more than the Alexander Valley had to offer.

  Becky didn't bother to thank her before she left, and at the ranch house, her mother told her to peel the potatoes for their dinner. She did as she was told, but when she finished she went to bed, too tired even to think about eating dinner. She thought about Hiroko for a little while, before she fell asleep, promising herself to go back and see them the next morning after church. She'd have to figure out a way to get away from her mother and sister. They always seemed to have chores for her. It was all so different from when her father was alive. In two months, she had become nothing more than a ranch hand, someone to do their chores and clean up after them, someone for them to shout at and ignore, and she could see the hatred in her mother's eyes when she thought Crystal wasn't looking. She resented her, but Crystal didn't know why. She had done nothing to them, except love her father.

  School let out in June, and she had only one more year until she graduated. But after that, what? Life would still be the same. She would be doing chores on the ranch, and watching Tom destroy what her father and grandfather had built, the ranch Tad had loved so dearly. Tom was going to plow the grapes under that year, having been unable to sell them for the first time in years, and he had sold off a lot of the cattle, saying that they were too much trouble. It put money in the bank for him, but it weakened the ranch profits a lot, and they all felt it.

  Becky's baby was born just after Crystal got out of school. A little girl this time, who looked exactly like her father. But it was Hiroko's baby that made Crystal's heart sing. They christened her at a church in San Francisco and asked Crystal to be her godmother. It had taken countless lies to explain to her mother where she was all day, but she had gone with them, fascinated by the sights she saw there, and she felt alive and new again as they drove back to the Alexander Valley.

  It was a beautiful summer that year, Crystal turned seventeen, and she spent long hours visiting with Boyd and Hiroko and their baby. Little Jane looked as much like Hiroko as she had when she was born, and yet at the same time there was something of Boyd about her, an expression, a smile, and the reddish brown hair that was a perfect blend of both her parents'. Crystal would lie lazily on the grass for hours, under the tree in their garden, playing and holding the baby close, feeling her warmth as she gurgled. Her visits with them were the highlights of her existence. And she only went home in the late afternoons, in time to help her mother and grandmother fix dinner. Like Tom, her mother accused her of having a boyfriend from time to time, and told her she should be helping her sister with the children, but she had other things on her mind, and so did Becky. Everyone in the valley was saying that Ginny Webster was having an affair with Tom. And Crystal suspected there was some truth to it. She asked Boyd about it once, and he only shrugged and said he wouldn't believe what people said, but as he said it, he blushed almost the color of his hair. It was true then, not that Crystal was surprised, but she wondered if he would have dared to if her father were alive. It didn't matter now, Tad was gone, and Tom Parker could do whatever he wanted.

  Tom and Becky christened the baby at the end of summer, just before Crystal went back to school. But this time Spencer didn't come, and her mother didn't give a big party. They invited a few friends for lunch after church, and Tom got drunk and left early, while Becky cried in the kitchen with her mother. And Crystal walked slowly to the river afterward, to sit near the spot where her father was buried. It was hard to believe that only a year before he'd been alive, and she had sat on the swing, talking to Spencer. She had still been a child then, she realized, but no longer. The past year had been too hard, the losses too great, the pain too deep. She was only seventeen, but Crystal Wyatt was a woman.

  The invitation came to his office, and as Spencer looked at it, he smiled. His father had been right. He had read it in the papers weeks before. Harrison Barclay had been appointed to the Supreme Court, and Spencer had been invited to his induction.

  It had been a good year for him, full of hard work and people he liked. Anderson, Vincent, and Sawbrook was conservative, but much to his own surprise, he liked it. And he had done well. He was already an assistant to one of the partners. And his father was pleased with him. There had been some early skirmishes between the two men, particularly over Barbara. His parents had rented a house on Long Island the summer he came home, and Barbara had spent much of August there with her two daughters. And Alicia and William Hill had counted on Spencer to come too. In the end, there was no avoiding it. He had spent two weekends there, with Barbara making up to him, and his parents' eyes filled with expectation. She had waited for him, his mother said. She loves you, his father prodded. And Spencer had finally exploded. She had waited for Robert, not for him, and it wasn't his fault his brother had been killed in the Pacific. She was a nice girl, and he loved his nieces, but she was his brother's wife. It was enough for Spencer that he had become a lawyer. He didn't owe it to his parents and his late brother to marry his widow too.

  Barbara had left the house in tears, and there had been an ugly scene with his parents. He left Long Island shortly after that, never to return, and he didn't see them again until well into fall. Barbara had gone back to Boston by then, with the girls, and he had heard recently from a friend that she was seeing the son of a key influential politician. It was the perfect choice for her, and he hoped she was happy. All he wanted was a chance to do well, and carve out a life for himself. He liked New York, but he still missed California. And more than once, he found himself thinking about Crystal. But less often now. She was simply too far away, and she wasn't real. She had been merely a rare and beautiful vision, like a wild-flower one stops to admire in the mountains, never to be seen again, but always remembered. He had had a letter from Boyd when their daughter was born, but it had said nothing about Crystal, and he'd gotten an announcement that Tom and Becky had had another baby. But all of that seemed very remote now. It was part of the war, for him, part of another life. He was wrapped up with his work for Anderson, Vincent, and Sawbrook, and he was learning a lot about the new tax laws. His real interests were in criminal work, but none of their clients had problems in that direction. He helped to set up estates, and complicated wills, and it was interesting work he could talk about with his father.

  He discovered when he had dinner with his parents that night that they had gotten the invitation too. But his father said he was too busy to attend the induction.

  Are you going?

  I doubt it, Dad, I hardly know him. Spencer smiled at him. His father was wearing well. He had just been involved in an important criminal case and Spencer was anxious to hear more about it than he had read in the papers.

  You should go. He's a good man for you to stay in touch with.

  I'll try, but I don't know if I can get away from the office. Spencer smiled, looking younger than his twenty-nine years. He was tanned from weekends at the beach, and he'd been playing a lot of tennis. I feel foolish going, Dad. He really doesn't know me all that well. And I don't have time to go to Washington.

  You can make time. I'm sure the firm would want you to go. Always responsibilities and obligations. It chafed at him sometimes. Life here seemed so full of what was expected. It was part of being grown up, part of being in the real world, but he w
asn't always sure he liked it.

  I'll see. But much to his surprise, the partner he worked for echoed his father's words a few days later. Spencer mentioned the invitation over drinks at the River Club, and his mentor suggested he go to Harrison Barclay's induction.

  It's an honor to be asked.

  I hardly know him, sir. It was the same thing he had said to his father, but the senior partner shook his head.

  No matter. He may be important to you one day. You have to keep those things in mind. In fact, I'd like to strongly recommend it. Spencer nodded, accepting the advice, but he felt foolish when he accepted the invitation. The firm even went so far as to make reservations for him, at the Shoreham, and he went to Washington on the train, the day before the induction. The room they had taken for him was airy and large, and he grinned to himself as he sat down in a comfortable leather chair and ordered a Scotch from room service. It was a pleasant way of life, and maybe it would be fun to go to see the Barclays again. He suspected that Elizabeth would be there. He had never heard from her after she went to Vassar. She probably had other fish to fry, and he had his share of attentive ladies. He'd been out with a dozen different women in the past year. He had taken them to dinner at 21, Le Pavilion, and the Waldorf. They had gone to parties, the theater, played tennis with him in Connecticut and East Hampton, but there was no one he cared about particularly. And three years after the end of the war, everyone still seemed to be in a hurry to get married. It was not a pressing need for him, there was still a lot he wanted to sort out in his own mind. Somehow just practicing law didn't seem like the end of the line to him. He liked it better than he thought he would, but secretly he admitted to himself that it lacked excitement. He was still trying to figure out how to incorporate it with something more challenging and demanding. And at twenty-nine, he figured there was still a lot of fun in store for him before he settled down with anyone for good. He had to find the right girl first, and she hadn't come along yet.