ONE LITTLE CANDLE

"God, Amanda, I"m sorry. This is not what I had planned for your birthday."

Lee slid into the booth across from her, his coat dotted with rain and his eyes shadowed with fatigue. He felt as if he could put his head down on the table right then and go to sleep. Amanda looked just as exhausted, her eye makeup smudged and her hair a little flat from the half-hour nap he'd made her take on the Q-Bureau sofa while he debriefed with Billy.

"It's fine," she said, her voice scratchy. "It's just a day."

"It's not," he said. "It's your day."

Phillip and Jamie were both away on separate school trips, something they'd scrimped and saved and raised funds for for months. And Dotty was in town, but she'd offered to bake a cake for the weekend, when everyone was home. Amanda had been fine with the plan, because that was the kind of person she was, but Lee had secretly hoped to make the day special anyway. He thought mournfully of the chateaubriand he'd planned to make, and the bottle of wine he'd bought and stashed up above the fridge. The special pastries he'd ordered from the little bakery near the office — an order gone unfulfilled as their latest case kept them both on the move for two days straight.

"At least we caught our man," she said, shrugging off her coat.

"Thanks to you."

"Thanks to everyone." She settled in the seat. "And we have tomorrow off. That's not so bad."

"We could do something," he suggested. "Brunch somewhere, or…"

"Honestly, all I want to do is sleep in," she admitted, flipping open the menu. "And maybe watch an old movie. In my sweats."

Lee nodded, awash with guilt at how appealing that sounded.

"I'm getting soup," Amanda said, shutting her menu with a decisive snap.

Lee stared at the menu, thinking his eyes must be moving independently of each other — the letters seemed to dance on the page. He blinked, willing them to stop, and found himself fixated on the mushroom omelet. Fine, he thought, there it is. Not his usual but good all the same, warm and savory and something that required no effort beyond lifting a fork to your mouth, which was about all he could manage.

Stopping at The Pie Plate had been an act of desperation on his part, a last-ditch attempt to make something out of a day that had gone sideways before it even started. He'd thought, as they'd driven away from the Agency, that even if she couldn't have the romantic candlelit dinner he was supposed to give her, she could at least end the day with a piece of pie.

This week alone was supposed to have been relaxing. Sure, they were working, but they were supposed to have time together in the evening, something that had become truly scarce. They'd dropped Jamie at the airport on Monday morning, Phillip had climbed on a bus on Monday afternoon, and they'd had one evening together — one — before their current case had reared its ugly head.

He didn't resent the boys being around, that wasn't it. It was the intrusion of work that was starting to get to him. It had crept into every corner of their lives over the past few months, jettisoning plans for family outings and nightly dinners, killing their regular date night more than once. The boys had been good about it, content to spend time with their friends, but Lee and Amanda were both feeling the strain. "I'm so sick of dinners at our desks," Amanda had said the week before, and Lee had agreed.

He knew it was mostly his fault. He'd spent months chasing down leads that fizzled into nothing, working every contact he could think of to gather even the tiniest amount of evidence. Amanda had coaxed him repeatedly to scale back, and he'd eventually listened because the boys had joined the chorus, and then another case had landed on the Q-Bureau docket and he was at it again, pulling her along with him.

He had thought this week could be an opportunity to hit the reset button, especially with Amanda's birthday right in the middle. But he should have known better, because the forces of the universe always seemed to sense when they had downtime. He'd watched all his best intentions slide away, one by one. The time alone, the leisurely dinner, the beautifully wrapped gift — replaced with an all-nighter at work, a lengthy debrief, dinner in a diner, and a brown-paper-wrapped package that still had the shipping label attached.

Francine had given her a gift. In fact, Francine had been the one to corner him in the break room, as he poured his forty-fifth cup of coffee, and confirm the date. "It's today, right?" she said. "I know you mentioned it last week but this case has turned everything upside down and I wanted to make sure."

Lee had hung his head. "It's today. I haven't even seen her yet. She's been down on seven all night and I"ve been out —" He'd let out a long breath. "Thanks for reminding me what day it is."

"That's what I'm here for," she'd said. "Operational efficiency." She reached for a mug of her own. "Anyway, I'll let you offer up your birthday wishes before I do."

"Huh. Thanks," Lee said, wryly.

"You did get her a gift, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," he said, "It should be here any minute."

Francine blinked. "It's not here? Oh, Lee. I thought you were smarter than that."

"What are you talking about? It's fine. It'll be here in time."

"It's already not here in time," Francine said, her eyes narrowing. He'd shifted uncomfortably on his feet, thinking how much easier things had been when Francine and Amanda hadn't been friends because now Francine looked out for her with the same vigor she'd once looked out for him.

Amanda was funny about gifts. She never liked him spending money on her. She didn't want things, she said. She had enough things. So he'd started buying little gifts she could use or do or consume. Lavender crumble, once, from a trip to London. Perfume, recommended by Francine and still a favorite. Tickets to the symphony or a play. He'd been stumped over this year's birthday gift, and then he remembered that her favorite sneakers had worn out and she hadn't been able to replace them.

It seemed silly that she couldn't get a pair of white sneakers, but they'd changed the style sometime in the last eighteen months or so and she said the new ones didn't feel the same. So he'd gone looking. Well, technically he'd gone down to the bowels of the Agency, to Pascal down in Procurement, and sent him looking. And then Pascal's new assistant, Jane, had started, and Lee had asked her to help. Jane had some funny connections in manufacturing and had worked for the FBI, and somehow she'd found a pair that were languishing in the back of a sporting goods store in Albuquerque.

They'd arrived that afternoon, and Jane had delivered them during his meeting with Billy.

Billy had thought it was hilarious, when Lee had paused in telling him how they'd snagged one of the slipperiest Russian agents ever to infiltrate American soil to take the brown paper package and open it for inspection, as if it held classified information. Lee had asked for his letter opener, slicing the tape carefully and pulling the sneakers from their box. Then he'd grinned and put them back, carefully taping the paper up again, and resumed his story.

"I need to make a quick call," he said now, feeling around in his pocket as if for change. His fingers closed around the candle Francine had pressed into his hand as he'd left Billy's office, a leftover from the party they'd had for one of the girls in the steno pool the week before. A half-melted pillar of orange wax, nothing at all like the neat white tapers he'd planned to light on their dining room table.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just remembered something I told Billy I'd do. Nothing big." He leaned over to kiss her cheek as he moved past her. "I'll be five minutes. If Brenda comes by, you know the drill."

She nodded, resting her chin in her hand. He watched her as she turned to look out the window, at the darkened parking lot.

Brenda was hovering near the coffee station. "Hey," he said, handing her the candle. "Can you put this in a vanilla cupcake?"

"Of course." She frowned at the candle, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger. "Did something chew on this?"

"Probably." He sighed. "It's the best I could do after forty-eight hours of insanity."

"I will guarantee you we can do better. Ralph keeps a box of sparklers around for birthdays." She studied him for a moment. "You at least have a gift, right?"

"In the car, yeah. I'm just running out to get it. Maybe do your rounds and keep her busy for a second so she doesn't notice?"

Brenda nodded, dropping the candle in her pocket. She picked up her coffee pot and headed out onto the floor, and Lee slipped out through the front door of the diner as she did. From the parking lot he watched in the shadows as Brenda approached the table, her smile bright, coffee pot held aloft. He saw Amanda's face as she looked out the window and his heart sank. She wore an expression he was sure she didn't want him to see, unusually wistful. Brenda spoke, and Amanda's spine straightened. She pasted a smile on her face and turned away from the window.

He made his move.

He'd tucked the box in the back seat of the car, in the footwell under a duffel bag that held a change of clothes. Lee scooped it up and pushed the door shut, scurrying across the parking lot as Brenda continued her animated chatter. She was still going as he crossed the dining room, the box tucked under his arm, but she turned as he approached.

"... and that's when I really told him where to get off," Brenda finished, laughing, and Amanda joined in.

"Not me, I hope," Lee said.

"Not you." She topped up his coffee. "I'll get your pie." Brenda headed back toward the coffee station, and Lee knew she'd be plating a vanilla cupcake now.

"What's this?" Amanda asked, as he set the brown paper package down on the table.

"Your present. Well, one of them. The other one was the dinner I didn't make you tonight." He hesitated. "Sorry it's not… prettier. It arrived this afternoon."

She lifted a hand to peel back the tape, clearly curious. Lee held his breath and tried to keep from bouncing his leg under the table, watching as the paper fell away and she lifted the shoebox lid.

"What the…"

"They should fit just like your old ones," he said in a rush as she drew out a shoe, her eyes wide. She sat holding it, silent, and his heart jumped into his throat as her eyes filled with tears.

"Sneakers?" she asked, her voice squeaking.

"I thought you'd —" He hesitated. His mouth had gone dry suddenly. Had he miscalculated that badly? He should have bounced the idea off Dotty first, he knew it. He'd turned into the joke husband who gave his wife a vacuum cleaner on her birthday. "I'm sorry. I know you'd been looking for them for a while, and —"

Amanda drew in a breath in a strange hiccup. She looked down at the shoe and her chin wobbled.

"Amanda," he said, desperate now. "I didn't mean to —"

"They're perfect," she said. "Just like my old ones. Where did you find them?"

"Uh, Albuquerque," he said.

"They're the exact right size and everything." She gulped. "How did you know what to get?"

"I looked at your old pair." All the information was right on the tongue of the shoe; it hadn't been that hard. They'd been sitting in a jumble with a bunch of other shoes in the back of the garage, relegated to yard work. "Actually, Jane down in Procurement tracked them down for me after I struck out. She said the guy has two more pairs in your size stowed away, too, so I called him this afternoon and told him I'd take them."

Amanda laughed. She put the shoe down in its box and mopped at her eyes with her napkin. "I love them," she said, leaning across the table to kiss him. "Thank you."

They both turned as Brenda approached the table, carrying a cupcake with a sparkler on it. "I'll spare you the vocals," she said, setting down the cupcake in front of Amanda. "But happy birthday."

Amanda nodded, hiccuping slightly as she sat watching the sparkler burn its way out.

Brenda gestured at the shoebox. "Sneakers, huh?" she said to Lee. "I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years."

"That's why it's so perfect," Lee said, almost giddy with relief.

Brenda laughed. "You tell yourself that," she said. "I thought things were going to take a real turn for a minute or two."

"You're sure you like them?" he asked, watching as Amanda neatly folded the brown paper and tucked it into her purse. She'd reuse it, he knew, on the next thing she sent to one of her aunts.

"They're perfect, sweetheart. Exactly what I've been looking for."

"They're not very —" He paused. "I really was hoping this would be a better day."

"I know." Amanda pulled the sparkler out of her cupcake. "But I'm not complaining."

"You sure? You looked a little… sad… earlier."

"Oh, Lee." She gave him a watery smile. "I just miss the boys, is all. And I'm so tired I can hardly think straight."

Lee nodded, surprised as she slid out of her seat, then into the booth beside him. She laced her fingers through his and leaned against him.

"Mother's going to tease you forever about buying me sneakers," she said, laughing softly.

"Probably." He pressed his cheek against her hair. "What about you?"

She shook her head. "I told you, they're perfect. Every time I wear them I'll remember that you knew enough about what I like to find me a pair of shoes from Albuquerque."

He slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. "Well, you deserve much more than a pair of sneakers."

"I do, huh?"

"Yep." He pressed his mouth against her ear, laughing a little as she hunched her shoulder in response. "You deserve three."