Chapter 23: Benefit Column

I thought about it for three days.

Caspian spent them in bed with a green poultice and a stack of clan papers.

His tail would not stop bringing me things.

It brought me a pencil, then a cup of tea, then Leo's fourth crib catalog, which I had not asked for.

On the second afternoon I sat at the foot of his bed with the ledger open to a clean page.

I wrote one heading.

MARRY CASPIAN AGAIN.

Under it, I drew two columns.

Cost, I wrote on the left.

A lifetime of explaining to the school-district mothers why my husband has a tail.

Benefit, I wrote on the right.

I wrote his name.

Then the pen stopped.

"You are not writing," Caspian said from the pillows.

"I'm thinking."

"You are glaring at paper."

"It's how I think."

"What is in the benefit column?"

"Just you," I said. "Everything else I write comes out cheaper than it is."

He was quiet for a moment.

"That is a very poor ledger entry," he said.

"It's the best one I've ever made."

I closed the book, and he held out his hand, and I climbed up the bed beside him.

"I'm keeping the billion," I said into his shoulder.

"It was always yours."

"I know. I wanted to say it out loud so it's on the record."

"It is noted."

"And I'm keeping the gems."

"Also noted."

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