Chapter 23: A Year and a Day

They had not named the babies by the second morning, and the nurse was getting short with them.

"The form has to be in by noon," she said. "Names, please. Or I put 'Baby A' and 'Baby B'."

Felix sat up in bed with a boy on each arm.

The nurses had said not to do it, and Mrs. Froster had said to.

"Noah," Casper said.

He had been looking at the brown-haired one for an hour.

"Noah?"

"It was my father's name. Mom's husband. He built a boat once in the garage and it never floated."

"Noah Froster," Felix said, tasting it. "He has your eyes. He should have your name."

Casper's face did something complicated.

"I thought you'd want him to be a Ride."

"I want him to be yours. He is. Besides, one Ride at the table is already too many."

Casper laughed, and winced, and held his side.

"And the other one?"

Felix looked at the dark-haired baby with the grey eyes and the crescent on his neck.

"Tom. It was my grandfather's name on my mother's side. He taught her to read a balance sheet."

"Tom Ride."

"He'll be a terror."

"He's already a terror. Look at his fist."

The nurse wrote it down with a sigh of relief.

"Noah Froster. Tom Ride. Is there a middle name?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Froster from the chair in the corner. "Rose. For both of them."

"Mom."

"A boy can have a rose in the middle. Nobody dies of it."

The nurse wrote that down too, without comment.

Two months later, on a bright cold morning, the lawyer came to the penthouse.

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