"I like your new girlfriend, Dad," Valerie said. "Your Lauren Bacall."

"What was the deal with her and Bogart?" he asked. "Sarah mentioned that, too."

"They fell in love on the set of 'To Have and Have Not,'" Valerie said. "He was 45 and she was 21."

"That's an even bigger difference," Duane said, thinking. "And she was even younger. I'm rationalizing. I keep doing it."

"There's Paul McCartney," Yvonne offered. "He married a girl his daughter's age. After his wife died."

"Sarah's not as young as Lauren Bacall and not quite as young as I, and she's a doctor," Valerie said. "What do you think, Yvonne, of Dad dating this girl hardly older than me?"

"Let's not use the term 'girl,'" Duane said.

"OK," Valerie laughed, patting his arm. "This woman?"

"I think it's strange," Yvonne said. "But interesting. I feel like she's older than me, anyway."

"She was friendly to me," Valerie said. "But she didn't try to act motherly."

"She did try that with Yvonne," Duane said, dryly. "I saw it."

"How?" Yvonne said.

"You don't remember? At the party, she helped you out, with some glasses,"

"Oh," Yvonne said. "But she did help."

"I think she is crazy about you, Dad," Valerie said.

"That goes a long way with me," said Yvonne.

"Me too," Valerie said.

He looked at them. "You two matter to me more than anyone else," he said.

"I know," Valerie said. "I love you for that, but there's a little more space here. For somebody for you. I want you to be happy."

"I know it," he said. "I appreciate that."

"A doctor," Valerie said, "must have some brains. You tell that to me all the time about my doctorate. I think she likes you. Is she right for you?"

"She might be. She is strong. Very tough on the inside."

"Like she could take in stride being zillions in debt?"

"Like that," he said, laughing.

Jennifer and Jeff Webber were talking about the same subject, over dinner at their house.

Jennifer could tell Jeff everything Sarah had told her. She knew that Sarah assumed she would.

"I wonder, could it be that guy we met at the country club, Rick Friel?" Jeff asked. "He said he had two daughters."

"Not unless he is a lawyer," Jennifer said. "This guy is a lawyer."

"Oh," Jeff said. "Then Rick is not the guy. He's in sales for Jax Corporation."

"Besides, Rick Friel said he was a widower. This guy is divorced."

"I don't know where Sarah could have met Rick Friel, either."

"Anywhere," Jennifer said. "You're the one always telling me what a small town this is!"

"He's a lawyer," Jeff laughed. "Well, he's the one who is going to find himself talked into things!"

"And I don't think his twenty extra years of experience is going to help him much, either!"

"No, he's in the hands of Sarah," Jeff said. "Wonder if he knows that?"

"By now, probably yes," Jennifer said.

The next day, Joanna, Maureen, Quinn and Sarah were talking at a table in the hospital cafeteria.

"It was the first surgery I ever did," Sarah was saying.

"What kind?" Maureen asked.

"Tubal ligation. We had to go over it with the patient. She was 35, with three kids. That sounds like someone who won't want more children. You never know what can happen, though. We had her do counseling and sign all these disclaimers that she knew what she was doing."

"I thought about that," Joanna said. "Charlie and I had planned to have two children and we had two. Something stopped me. I'm glad I didn't do it. You don't know what will happen. Now I think, maybe, if I end up with A.J., one more might be something I'd want."

"At least it's an option," Quinn said.

"Right. He's only got one child. Of course he'd say we have three. But somehow the fourth seems to fit that potential family."

"Men should never do vasectomies," Sarah said. "They never know what's going to happen. If you're a woman and your forty years old, OK. But a man should be at least sixty before making that kind of decision."

"Yeah, he might end up with some younger woman," Maureen said, glancing at Sarah and smiling. "There's no end to a man's ability to reproduce during his lifetime."

"Yes," Sarah said.

Someone paged "Dr. Jeff Webber."

"They have to use first names for you and your parents," Joanna observed. "Like the Quartermaines."

"Maybe there will be two Nurse Quartermaines one day," Quinn said.

"There she goes," Joanna said. "The matchmaker. She'll be working on you next, Sarah."

Sarah just smiled.

"How is Valerie?" Joanna grinned at Sarah just like Maureen had. "Did you see her, Quinn?"

"Oh, Joanna, you know that guy you were dating, before you got together with A.J.?" Quinn said, suddenly remembering, "Glen, the real estate agent? Mrs. Edwards is married to him now. I saw her here one day, and she said her name was Hancock now. Then I was talking to Valerie at her dad's house on Easter, and Valerie said his first name was Glen and he was a real estate agent."

"It is the same guy!" Joanna looked amazed. "He must have been dating her at the same time as me!"

"I don't know," Quinn said. "She was married, and maybe he was trying to, you know, avoid his feelings for her, whatever. They got involved when she was still married."

"Maybe he tried to split with her because of that," Joanna said. "Oh well, it doesn't matter to me now. But it seems like she is going down in the world. Trial lawyer to Glen the real estate agent." Joanna rolled her eyes at the thought of Glen the real estate agent. "I'm amazed anyone could find Glen that attractive, but there's no accounting for taste."

"The Edwardses were three million dollars in debt one time," Quinn said. "It was probably the stress."

"How could that happen?" Maureen was amazed.

"Something to do with a case," Quinn said. "Lawyers put money into a case, or owe it, or something. Then they get paid when the case ends, but there's no guarantee that the case won't bring in zero."

"Or not enough to cover it," Sarah said, "I see."

"Valerie and I were hanging out in her room one time," Quinn said. "When we were in high school, or maybe even junior high. Yvonne was out in the hall yelling. You know how some people sing in the shower? Yvonne liked the upstairs hall. Then their dad was never home, so when he was, it was a big deal. They were in their bedroom and we heard Mrs. Edwards yell at him that he had them three millions dollars in debt. I remember Yvonne singing, 'Three millions dollars in debt, we're three million dollars in debt.'"

They laughed at that image.

"Val and I always laughed about that later," Quinn went on, smiling at the memory. "When I was dating Sean she said are you going to marry a lawyer and let him get you three million dollars in debt? And it was even funnier one night when I was listening to Yvonne's band, and she had this song about this guy she hated because thinking about him kept her up at night, then it goes into this long list of terrible things he did to her, and one of them was that he got her three million dollars in debt."

They laughed some more. "I can see where you and Valerie and Yvonne could laugh, and where we can now," said Maureen, sobering up a little, "but where Mrs. Edwards maybe couldn't, then."

"The case must have paid off," Sarah said.

"I guess it must have, or another one did, or other ones," Quinn said. "They always lived in the same house, so it didn't put them in poverty. But there was always something going on. One time, the IRS was at his office seizing his desks and stuff. Then they came to the house and tried to take the furniture. Mrs. Edwards after that filed separate taxes, you know, married filing separately? Val said she thought that would help her."

They were laughing, again.

"It would be a pretty heavy thing to live with," Maureen said. "Especially if it went on for awhile. Maybe we shouldn't laugh at the poor woman's plight."

"Yes," Quinn said. "Val was lucky she was a kid and just thought it was funny. I remember her practically bragging about the IRS being at her house. And then she never takes things like that seriously, either. Like now, she thinks the IRS is a big joke. Everything is a big joke with her, but especially the government."

"Experience hardens a person," Sarah said.

"Yes, even vicariously," Maureen said. "I'll never fear the IRS again. Seriously, though, she thinks her father can fix anything?"

"He was my lawyer, and he was pretty good," Sarah said to Quinn. "Maybe he just knew it was a good case."

"That's true," Quinn said. "I wasn't seeing it that way. But it still could have been hard for his wife to see that, or have the same confidence. Dealing with the drama. I think Valerie did get from her dad this - disregard of authority, maybe? I don't know how to say it. A feeling that you can take the government on. Once you can do that, you can take anybody on. Rules don't matter."

Joanna and Maureen had to get back to their floors. "Where rules matter," Joanna joked.