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Thirkell has provided glasses, so I shall pour while Stephanie opens presents. You’d better start, Stephanie, or your kids will explode with waiting.”
    Penny had placed three packages on the coffee table, and Sabrina removed the wrapping paper from the two top ones, opening them at the same time. “Oh, how lovely!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting a new necklace. Penny, how did you know? And is this candleholder made of walnut. Cliff? It’s perfect with our new tablecloth; we’ll use it tomorrow night.”
    â€œWe made them in school,” Cliff said. “Dad said it was better to make things than buy them.”
    â€œOf course it is. I love whatever you give me, but it’s special when you make something yourself. And I love you. More than anybody in the whole—”
    â€œExcept for Dad,” said Cliff.
    â€œAlways except for Dad.” Over their heads, Sabrina met Garth’s eyes. “Always.”
    â€œPort,” said Marty Talvia, handing small glasses to the six of them. “Penny and Cliff, you’ll have to wait a few years.”
    â€œMom lets us take a sip,” Cliff said. “She never used to, but all of a sudden, you know, lately she started—”
    â€œIt’s because you’re twelve,” Garth said.
    â€œBut I’m only eleven and I get a sip, too,” said Penny.
    â€œThose are the magic ages: eleven and twelve,” Sabrina said lightly, sliding past another observation—one of so many in the past year—that she did things differentlyfrom the way Stephanie had done them. “Now, what’s going to happen to that large, elegantly wrapped gift still sitting on the coffee table?”
    â€œOpen it!” cried Cliff.
    â€œPlease open it,” Linda Talvia said. “I’m going crazy, waiting.”
    â€œSo am I,” Dolores said. “We bought it together. Of course you can buy any of these things for yourself now, but we thought—”
    â€œNot necessary,” said Nat, his hand on her arm.
    Sabrina pretended to be absorbed in working open the gilt wrapping paper. There had been difficult moments among the six of them when the others became aware of how much money and property the Andersens now had, since Sabrina’s will had left everything to her sister. I’ve left everything to myself, Sabrina had thought, frantic with despair and bitter humor the previous October, in those awful weeks after Stephanie’s funeral. But she and Garth were careful to keep their life much as it had been except for a few changes. They had had the house painted, and she had gradually brought in some fine antiques from London and from Collectibles, the shop in Evanston where she had become a partner. She had linked Collectibles to Ambassadors, and occasionally she went to London to buy at auction and to watch over her shop. She and Garth took more short trips together, and of course Mrs. Thirkell was there, the perfect housekeeper, the envy of everyone.
    Those had been the only changes, and as the months went by, everyone seemed to forget that Garth and Stephanie Andersen had become wealthy, at least compared with other academics in Evanston.
    But now Linda said, “We think about it, though, buying you things. It used to be so different. Remember when we bought you that bathrobe? Dolores thought it was too loud, but I said you’d been wearing brighter colors since you got back from China, so we bought it and you loved—”
    â€œOh, wonderful,” Sabrina breathed, lifting from itscushioned box a Penrose Waterford decanter. From the early nineteenth century, it was etched with eight-pointed stars, its stopper shaped like a small umbrella above three doughnut-like rings. “It’s absolutely perfect. Where did you find it?”
    â€œThe Charteris estate sale. I knew you liked Waterford.”
    â€œOh, I do. And I’ve never had a