Chapter Fourteen

Tony threw the Bower Agency's front door open and stormed in. "Where the hell is she?!" he barked at Mona. Mona ignored him and continued to enjoy the latest works of the Smashing Pumpkins on her Walkman, cheerfully jamming along, drumming two pencils on the bookshelf behind her desk. "Eh, you're no help!" He stomped over to Angela's door and found it locked. "Angela, it's Tony! Open up! I wanna finish that talk we were having last night, that we should've had a month ago!" Or several years ago. But there was only silence behind the door.

A sleepy-looking security guard, drawn by the noise, briefly peeked in. He looked Tony up and down and walked away, apparently judging Tony unworthy of his fear or attention. For some reason, that just made Tony's blood run hotter. What the hell does a guy have to do to get noticed around here? Wear a bomb? He gave the door a kick in frustration, but it was built solidly, of sturdy oak, and he just ended up stubbing his toe.

On the plus side, the noisy expletive he screamed finally got Mona to notice his presence and remove her earphones. "Tony, what have I told you about picking fights with furniture? The furniture always wins."

"Sorry," Tony apologized insincerely, giving the door one last glare. Bigger and better things than you have stood between Angela and me, you useless hunk of wood! Watch yourself…

Mona threw a paper clip at him to get his attention. "What are you doing here? Did you get bored from a whole day and a half of Christmas break and decide to apply for a second job?"

"No. I'm here to talk to Angela. Is she here? I didn't catch her in a meeting, did I?" He immediately felt guilty for his violence towards her door. He didn't want to make a scene in front of her coworkers, or worse yet, a client.

"No, she was trying to brainstorm a slogan for puppy treats, but if you ask me, she'd do better to outsource that to someone who actually likes dogs." Mona rolled her eyes.

"Tell her I want to see her," said Tony, trying to act like his entire life wasn't hanging in the balance. "Tell her it's important. Tell her it's about the 'you-know-what.'" He rolled his eyes and made finger quotes. "She'll know what I mean."

"Something important about the you-know-what?" Mona's interest had been kindled, and she motioned him closer. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked quietly.

"I dunno," Tony replied warily. Was she trying to bait him into letting something slip? "What do you think it is?"

"If you're being this secretive about it, I'm guessing it's exactly what I think it is." Mona smirked.

"She told you?" Tony expected he should feel betrayed that she'd spilled their secret, but part of him felt relieved. If she'd told her mother, that was a good sign that she wasn't too terribly ashamed of him. Despite their constant sniping, he knew Angela deeply respected Mona and valued her opinion.

"She didn't have to tell me. I figured it out. I mean, it doesn't exactly take a genius, with the way you've been carrying on these past few weeks." Mona chuckled, giving him a look of mingled pity and amusement. "Hell, these last few years. Something like this was bound to happen, sooner or later."

"Could've fooled me," said Tony bitterly. "All she seems to care about is keeping it a secret until she can get it taken care of discreetly, and then pretend it never happened!"

Mona frowned. "She said that? That's funny, I suggested that very thing yesterday and she seemed to be very much against it, then."

"She did?" The spark of hope in his heart, kindled by the memory of their wedding, flickered into a small, white-hot flame.

Mona handed Tony the key to Angela's office. "Here. Go on in with my blessing. And no more scuffing the interiors. Though a new coat of varnish is a small price to pay to finally see you man up and admit what's been written all over your face for four years."

Tony dearly wished he had a comeback, but unfortunately, she wasn't wrong. "Thanks, Mona." He unlocked the door and threw it open, prepared to pour out his heart, and found Angela slumped over her desk, her head pillowed on her arm.

"I hear snoring, is she asleep again?" Mona sounded exasperated.

Tony shut the door, turned off the intercom, and just to be safe, reached into his pocket for a piece of gum, which he rapidly chewed and stuck in the keyhole. If this conversation went as well as he hoped, he and Angela would need to decide on a tactful way to break their news to the family. And if it went as badly as he feared, he didn't want any witnesses to his humiliation.

Angela hadn't stirred. Poor Angela. She'd been too long without her beloved coffee, clearly. Tony shut the door behind him and approached her desk. She was smiling in her sleep. "Mm, Tony. I think you earned an A with that performance. Yeah, I'd love to go for extra credit."

So his suspicions earlier had been correct. She was starting to remember their whirlwind courtship, just as he was. Tony found himself grinning like an idiot. He had promised her she would, hadn't he? And she had promised him.

"Oh yeah. Harder, Tony. No, harder than that. Yes, I'm sure, damn it…" And then she trailed off into soft giggles. Ah, yes. That had been the point where he'd rhetorically asked her to pinch him so he could be sure that what was happening wasn't a dream. She had taken him at his word, giving him a pinch on the tush. He couldn't blame her. He had walked right into that one.

Unable to resist, he leaned down to speak directly into her ear. "Just so you're aware, Mrs. Micelli, I think that technically counts as domestic violence."

Angela inhaled deeply and her head snapped up, her eyes bleary. "Tony?" She glanced around. "Oh no, did I fall asleep again?"

"Yeah." Tony took a seat on the corner of her desk. "Glad as I am that you're following that pinhead doctor's orders, I don't think you were built for a life without coffee."

"Me either." She gave him a confused frown. "What are you doing here?"

Oh, right. The seething storm of passion, fury, and terror that had finally boiled over inside him. It had subsided far too quickly at the sight of her happily moaning his name in her sleep. Again. Marone a mi, I really should have picked up on this sooner. Boneheads, the both of us. "I've got something for you."

She perked up. "Brownies?"

"Nope," said Tony flatly. "And just so you know, it's going to be at least a few weeks before I make another batch of those. Your comments the night you accepted my proposal have had me feeling jealous of my own creation."

Angela rolled her eyes. "Tony, I just said they're one of the things I love about you, not that I love them more than I love y—" Her hand flew to her mouth, silencing her mid-sentence. He couldn't quite tell whether she was shocked at what she had just remembered, or what she had just said.

"Don't worry," he was quick to console her. "Remember what we talked about that night? I still technically said it first." And he would say it again, once he got a few other details out of the way. He dug into the bookbag slung over his shoulder and withdrew his daughter's cassette player.

Angela gave it a quizzical look. "Tony, what are you doing with Samantha's tape player? You know how territorial she is over that thing. If she throws a hissy fit when she sees it was moved, I'm not covering for you."

He suspected her outrage on his daughter's behalf was more a desperate attempt to change the subject than anything else. "I'm trying to jog your memory. I once promised you that you would remember losing me as a friend, and Tony Micelli's a man of his word." Before she could grill him further, he pushed play. The chorus of Neil Sadaka's "Love Keeps Getting Stronger Every Day" filled the room.

Angela shuddered. "Tony, turn that garbage off. Jeez, if I'd known you liked Neil Sadaka, I would have slammed the door in your face four years ago."

Tony happily complied with her request, his point having been made. "But then you wouldn't have anyone to pretend to like your disgusting tuna sandwiches. Besides, I much prefer to hear the song in your sexy voice."

When he looked back at her after ejecting the tape, he found her staring vacantly at a blank spot on the wall as the memory played out in her mind's eye. "Tony? Did I…sing at our wedding?"

"If you can call it that," Tony chuckled. "We'll blame that on the booze. Don't worry, you normally have a perfectly lovely voice."

She turned on him with murder in her eyes, and for a moment, he was afraid he had gambled all and lost. Then she shoved him. "How did you find out about the golf clubs?"

That was what she was so upset about? "You hid them in the attic!"

"Yeah, so?"

"So you're married to an extremely sentimental guy who likes to go up there and look at the old family keepsakes when he's got a little time on his hands. Which brings me to the next something I brought with me." He took a small velvet clutch out of his back pocket, and emptied it into his hand.

"Is that…a washer?" Angela put her glasses on. "Oh, no. My mistake. It's a ring. Is that iron it's made out of?"

"Good guess. It's actually steel," said Tony. "It belonged to my Grandma Micelli. And before you say anything, Grandpa wasn't a cheapskate," he was quick to insist. "See, back in the mid-thirties, when the Depression was on, Italy was as bankrupt as every other country. Our people had the likes of FDR to get 'em through it, but the Italians were stuck with Mussolini. That jackass' brilliant solution was to sweet-talk, or in some cases, strong-arm all the housewives in Italy into giving up their gold wedding bands to be melted down into bullion."

Righteous indignation temporarily chased away the confusion and unease in Angela's eyes. "That's horrible! Taking away something that means so much, and from his own people!"

Tony shrugged. "Brutal fascist dictators do tend to be jerks. Anyway, when the Blackshirts came to Grandpa and Grandma Micelli's door, Grandpa told 'em what they could go do with themselves, but Grandma told him to pipe down because she'd rather have a live husband than a shiny ring. She forked over her band, and they gave her this steel one in return." Tony held it up for her perusal. "Grandpa promised to get her a new one, but she was worried that one would just get stolen, too, and told him she'd rather just keep the steel one. Said if he could put it on her finger and pledge his love to her when he did, that was all she needed." He smiled fondly, his heart swelling with love for both his grandfather and the wonderful woman in front of him. "After the war, he tried to buy her a replacement, but she wouldn't accept it. Said this one helped her remember the hardships they'd been through together, and that was what marriage was really about."

"Is that writing on it?"

"Yes. It came with the inscription Oro alla Patria. Gold for the homeland. Grandpa didn't much care for Fascists or their stupid slogans, so he took it to a blacksmith and had him strike it out." He trailed his finger over the inside of the band. "These are their names, Matteo and Eva." He pressed it into her hand. "And the writing on the outside is the family motto."

Angela held it close to her eyes for a better look,. "Vera…esto…fortes? Is that Italian?"

"No, Latin. It means 'be brave and be true.' And I ain't been doing so well with either lately." Tony took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Speaking of which…" He reached into his bookbag for the envelope he had been hiding at the bottom of his underwear drawer. Opening the envelope, he brought the four sheets of paper that had been haunting his nightmares out into the light of day.

Angela stared down at them uncomprehendingly, her face morphing into a mask of carefully-cultivated neutrality. "The annulment papers? They finally came?"

"They came on Monday. But I've been putting off signing them." He placed a hand under her chin and tilted her bespectacled face up to look him in the eye. "Because I don't want to."

Angela gasped, her eyes welling up with tears. "Tony…"

She hadn't slapped him again. This was promising. "From what I've been remembering, I'm starting to wonder if maybe you don't really want to, either. So I thought I'd take the ring's advice and give truth and bravery a try." Emboldened, Tony released her face and knelt down beside her fancy swivel chair to meet her eye to eye. "This is the traditional position, isn't it?"

"We've never worried about being traditional before," Angela sobbed.

"Humor your husband, Mrs. Micelli." He plucked the steel ring from her palm. "When I told Grandpa about my first kiss with a certain miniature blonde temptress all those years ago—"

"You told him, too?" Angela swatted him in the arm.

"Yep," Tony confessed, shamelessly. "I had to. I was floating on air, and he was about five seconds away from poking me with a pin to let the helium out of me. That was when he gave me this ring and told me about how Grandma had insisted on keeping it. Said that since I was showing an interest in girls, he wanted to make sure I knew how to tell when I'd found the right one."

Angela understood immediately. "Because when you find the right person, getting through hard times together brings you closer in the end." She sniffled through her tears. "Like when you get fired and he turns it into one of the best things that ever happened to you. Or when you get divorced, and he leaves behind a great job and life in a mansion to help you through it."

"Or when you're trying to find yourself after losing your career and your wife, and she puts you on the path to new adventures you didn't even know you wanted." Tony nodded. "Yeah. Like that. See? I told you my family would have approved of you."

She held out her left hand. "Tony Micelli, if you can put that ring on my finger and pledge your love to me, that's all I need."

"You want me to go first this time? All right, I guess that's only fair." He slipped the steel band onto her ring finger. "Angela Katherine Micelli. I love you. Will you do me the honor of torching these annulment papers with me?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Cradling his face in her trembling hands, she pulled him in for a kiss. A sigh of relief gushed out through his nostrils while she was holding his mouth hostage, and she pulled back with a giggle. "Sorry," she apologized, biting her lip in an attempt to regain her composure. "I didn't mean to ruin the moment. You know I'm-"

"Ticklish," Tony finished with her. "It's okay. I'm glad to see you smiling." She had been in one hell of a mood lately, but he hadn't been much better. He kissed away the tears clinging to her cheeks, then rose to his feet, pulling her along with him. He drew her into his arms for a moment, clutching her like a kid with a security blanket, and was gratified when she returned the embrace with equal ferocity. "Come on. Show me where you keep the shredder and let's settle this for good."

As he tried to turn and head for the door, she hung on him heavily, holding him in place. "Tony, wait!"

He gave her a wary look. She wasn't having second thoughts, was she? "What's wrong?"

"Could we destroy them in private, please? I don't want Mother finding out this way."

"But she already knows, Angela." Was this more amnesia? Had she changed her mind about that case of vodka in the liquor cabinet, and finished it off without him in one go? Well, it would explain why she had been so sick this morning.

Angela frowned. "How did she find out?"

Why was she asking him? "You'd know better than I would, Angela. When I told her I wanted to talk with you about the you-know-what, she…" Tony's face fell. "She said she had guessed it, and had suggested that you get it taken care of discreetly, and then pretend it never happened. And here I thought Mona was rooting for us, all these years!"

"Tony…" She took his hand. "There's something you need to understand…"

Tony waved off her attempt at comforting or placating him. He had been too keyed up to pick up on the insult, earlier, but now that it had sunk in, he was stung. He would have expected this kind of behavior from his first mother-in-law. Mother Milano had been understandably horrified to see her only daughter taking up with a rascal like him. Given all the turmoil she'd lived through with her own rascal, that skunk Nick, it was to be expected. But he considered Mona family and had thought she felt the same. "Ain't this just typical? The moment she turns into my mother-in-law, suddenly I ain't good enough for you anymore?"

"Tony, pipe down! Mother's still rooting for us. She was talking about something else."

Tony was getting scared now. "We have another deep dark family secret?"

"It's not dark. At least, I hope it's not." The fear in her eyes belied her words, though.

His protective instincts kicked into action, and he gently touched a finger to her lips. "Could you wait a minute before telling me? Whatever it is, I want us to face it as husband and wife, with one less you-know-what hanging over our heads." He withdrew the lighter he'd won off the Patster from his hip pocket.

Angela examined it thoughtfully. "You won that the night before our wedding, playing pool with those frat boys."

"I did," Tony acknowledged. "Thank God I didn't try to start a romantic fire in the fireplace at the hotel afterward. Probably would have sent the joint up in smoke."

"We were aware we weren't at our best. We thought it was because we were train sick. It didn't stop you from carrying me over the threshold, though."

"Oh yeah," Tony recalled with a grin. "My arms were full and I couldn't tip the bellhop, so I told him to reach into my pocket. Then you made him stop because you didn't want anyone else grabbing my tush from now on."

"And I stand by that, mister," Angela warned, not entirely in jest. "I'd better not be catching you with any bimbos whose names rhyme with lasagna from here on out."

"Ay-oh! And that goes both ways," Tony fired back at her. "No more running around with pasty-faced geeks who are way too fond of their first initial."

"You set me up with him!" Angela protested.

"You didn't have to listen to me!" Tony retorted, well aware he sounded like a fool. "If I told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do that, too?!"

A voice crackled over the intercom. "No, Pablo, I still don't hear anything," they heard Mona say. "No puedo escuchar. Are you sure you connected the right wires? No. Alambre incorrecto!"

Murder in her eyes, Angela switched the intercom back on. "It's the right wire, Mother, but I think he hooked them up backwards."

"Oh, crap, I'm never going to hear the end of this one," Mona grumbled, right before the speaker fell silent once more.

Seeing that matricide was imminent, Tony placed himself between his wife and the door. "Angela, my little baked potato—"

Angela made a face. "Armin was right. We really do need to come up with better pet names."

Tony affected a hang-dog pout. "Does that mean I'm not your hunk of filet mignon anymore?"

Angela's lips twisted awkwardly as she fought a smile. "Tony, I know what you're trying to do."

"Is it working?"

"Yes," she sighed in defeat. "I meant what I said about you being cute when you pout." She slipped her arms around his neck and gently sucked his protruding lower lip between her own.

Tony felt his body starting to respond, and if that distantly-familiar little moan he was both hearing and feeling was any indication, so was hers. "And I meant what I said about you being cute enough to eat up."

His hands, which had been resting comfortably at the small of her back, began to drift apart. The left roamed higher, while the right wandered lower. Unfortunately, she withdrew from the embrace before either appendage reached its destination. "Tony, quit seducing me for a minute!" she panted. "We still need to talk."

"Maybe we should go home and talk there. Away from prying eyes and ears." Then he made a face. "Or maybe not. I just remembered who the neighbors are."

"Better those prying ears than these." She indicated their surroundings. "I have to stay just a little bit scary or my employees will never respect me."

"Speaking as your employee, I was never scared of you," Tony snorted.

Angela shot him the dirtiest look she could muster. "Shut up."

He nudged her pointedly. "Shut up what?"

"Shut up, my hunk of filet mignon."

He smiled broadly. "Was that so hard?"

Tony removed a wad of gum from the keyhole before opening the door for her. She took a moment to be grateful for his foresight in protecting them against eavesdroppers, before her attention was captured by her mother, who was reading the riot act to their poor maintenance man. "La vergüenza, Pablo! Our date tonight is off! No, there will be no more divertida for you, amigo! Eres tonto! And not in a cute way!"

"Aw Mone, don't be so hard on him," Tony said gently. "He did his best, and it's the thought that counts."

Angela scowled at him. "Hey, who's side are you on, buster?"

"Sorry."

Both to show him he was forgiven and to hide the ring on her fourth finger from her mother, she tucked her hand into her husband's. "Mother, Tony and I have some private business to take care of."

"Is that what you kids are calling it these days?" Mother tittered, placing a handful of intercom guts on her desk and gave the pair a calculating look. "Well, I hope you enjoy it as much as Pedro and I enjoyed our board meeting in the mop closet yesterday afternoon."

"Shh!" Pedro glanced nervously over his shoulder. "Es un secreto, mi belleza."

"That's where you've been disappearing to every afternoon?" Angela squeezed her eyes shut, but the images her mother's words had conjured refused to disappear.

"Well Mona, if I had been planning on a nooner with your daughter, you would have killed my chances by making her picture that." Tony sat the spare key to her office on the desk beside the pile of intercom guts. "I hope you're happy."

Angela placed the keys to the Jag next to them. "Could you bring my car home sometime before morning, and also lock up my office for me? I think I'm going to head out early today, since I stayed late yesterday. Tony's going to give me a ride."

Mother opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head with a mischievous grin. "Nah, that joke would be way too easy. Okay, I'll lock up and drive your car home, but I have a favor to ask in return. If I'm not there at the appointed time, send a rescue team to the south side freight elevator. Pedro and I probably knocked it off its tracks again."

"Deal, please stop talking," Angela begged. Tony gave Pedro a high five. Angela dragged her husband toward the door, not wanting to give him further opportunity to make her question her decision to hang onto him.

"Angela?" Tony ventured as she led him into the elevator and pushed one.

"What?!"

"I'm actually parked in the garage, we need to get off at basement level."

"Oh. Sorry." She hit B.

He raised his eyebrows at her as they emerged into the parking garage. "You seem jittery. Sure I can't talk you into a little of Ambassador Kaminski's vodka when we get home? It's surprisingly delicious when done right. Tastes a little like my new cranberry sauce recipe. You know, the one I used on Thanksgiving, with the orange peel in it?"

Her mouth started watering painfully at the memory of their last Thanksgiving dinner. She decided not to bother mentioning to Tony that she was hungry, as by the time they got home, she would probably be nauseated again. Child of mine, why are you yanking your poor mother's chain like this? Are you going to be a little prankster, like your big brother? Or are you just indecisive? If so, I guess it's not your fault. It's probably genetics. Just look at how long your parents have spent dancing around each other. "I'm sure. Do you want me to push, or gun the engine?" she asked as they arrived at his battered blue van.

Tony handed her the keys and held open the driver's side door for her. "You can gun the engine. I ain't letting you push in your condition."

"My condition?" Oh no, had he already guessed? Was that why he had come to her with a wedding band and gotten down on one knee? This was her worst nightmare come to—

"Yeah, so tired you're falling asleep at your desk like me in seventh-grade math class." He frowned. "What did you think I meant?"

"I just don't want to be treated like a porcelain doll," she replied truthfully, but without detailing why she feared that fate was imminent.

Tony laughed. "You're a doll, all right, but nobody in their right mind would mistake you for being fragile."

"Are you surprised? I'm a Micelli, after all," she teased.

Tony shut the car door behind her, but continued to stare at her thoughtfully through the well-cleaned window. She rolled it down. "Tony, are you okay?"

"Yeah. We'll talk after we get this boat moving." He gestured at the gear shift. Knowing the drill well, after all the times he had come to her for help with this sad blue bucket of bolts, she shifted into reverse. The van slowly oozed its way backward, an inch at a time, and she slammed the steering wheel as far to the left as it would go. Once the vehicle evened itself out, she turned the key in the ignition while stomping on the gas pedal with all her might. Tony came through with a push, and the wizened old engine sputtered to life. She eased her foot almost all the way off the gas, the vehicle rolling along at about five miles an hour. She kept the toe of one shoe on it as she scooted over to the passenger seat to make room for Tony as he ran up to the driver's side door, climbed into the moving vehicle, and took the helm.

Angela collapsed into her seat, thanking God for one more day of life, as she always did during a ride in Tony's alleged car. One day, this junk pile of his was going to get them both killed. Now that they were married, and had a fragile, flammable baby on the way, she wondered if he would let her buy him a new one? Probably not. Maybe I could set it on fire and make it look like the work of teen vandals.

"It'd be easier if you'd just drive till we got to a red light," he complained.

"You know driving your car makes me nervous. I don't know it the way you do, and it can be temperamental." And as awful as the old thing was, Tony loved his van like an old friend. She was always afraid the engine would either disintegrate or burst into flame, and that he would blame her for its demise if she was behind the wheel. As he looked at her to make sure her seatbelt was fastened, she noticed that his face was stained with exhaust. "Tony, you've got a little something…" She gestured at her own cheeks.

He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "Aw, nuts. I look like something out of one of them racist old minstrel shows. Remind me not to go through Harlem on the way home, my little baked potato."

The stupid endearment was oddly heartwarming. "Here, my slightly charred hunk of filet mignon. Let me help you." She took a tissue out of her purse and did her best to rub his face clean while he did his best to keep his eyes on the busy street. "So what were you thinking about so hard, just now? You're not having second thoughts, are you?" She smiled tentatively.

"Very funny. For your information, I was just thinking about your name. Do you think it'll cause you any trouble, professionally? I mean, people are probably going to wonder why Mrs. Micelli owns the Bower Agency."

She tucked the blackened tissue back into her purse, settled back into her seat, and buckled up. "No one's going to care, Tony. It's just a name. Mr. Wallace and Mr. McQuade have both been dead for years," she pointed out. "It's a shame, really, that I can't say the same thing about Mr. Bower."

"You don't mean that," Tony scoffed.

"No." Painful as the break-up of her marriage…well, her first marriage, had been, the memories had lost their sting. She was well-rid of Michael, and if she hadn't come out of that marriage with a growing son in need of a father figure, it was likely she would never have met Tony in the first place. "But I do mean what I said in Niagara, about being glad to be rid of that name."

"Why didn't you change it sooner, then?" he asked curiously.

"Tony, my maiden name is Robinson, and I am, or at least was, a divorcee," she reminded him. I would have had to introduce myself as Mrs. Robinson. In the business world, a successful woman is already presumed to be a tramp until proven otherwise. I didn't need to hand my professional rivals a handy slur on a silver platter."

"I never thought of that." Tony enjoyed a good, long laugh. "Hey, I just realized, your mother—"

"And her fondness for younger men, yes." Angela sighed. "They say names have power. I'm starting to believe it."

As cramped urban streets gave way to suburban highways, lined with trees stripped naked of their foliage for the winter, they settled into a comfortable silence. Then Angela's stomach started to growl. "Uh oh," said Tony. "Are you gonna throw up again? Do you need me to pull over, baby?"

"No, the opposite," said Angela. "I'm feeling a little better now, and I'm actually starting to get hungry."

"Oh." He nodded toward the van's backseat, where he had tossed his bookbag. "I think there's a granola bar in my bag. Or I could swing by Bongo Burger on the way home."

"No, I don't want to push my luck. Let's see if the granola bar stays down, first." Angela rummaged through the bag, letting out a moan of despair when she encountered Sam's tape recorder.

"What's the matter?" asked Tony, watching her in the rearview mirror.

"I just realized our song is Love Keeps Getting Stronger Every Day by Neil Sedaka," Angela replied grimly.

"Could be worse," said Tony mischievously. "Could've been Barry Manilow."

"Don't even joke about that." Angela cringed. "Our children must never know of this secret shame, Tony."

"I'll take it to the grave, I promise," Tony replied bemusedly.

They arrived home about one-thirty, and the moment Angela finished unlocking the front door, Tony lifted her off her feet. She hadn't been expecting it, and reached out for the first handhold she could find, which happened to be a chunk of his hair. "AH!" she yelped.

"AH!" he echoed.

"I'm sorry." She released him sheepishly, lowering her hands to his shoulders. "Tony, you scared me half to death."

"Just following tradition. It was the Italians that came up with this, back during the founding of Rome, you know. A man's gotta be true to his roots."

She kissed him, though she was smiling so broadly that the attempted smooch turned out little bit awkward. "Technically, you already carried me over this threshold once since the wedding. Remember when I passed out on the way home from Dean Brown's office?"

"That one didn't count. You were unconscious, and I cheated by letting the old man help." He sat her back on her feet. "I'll bring in some wood. Grab me some newspapers to use as kindling, will you?"

"Gladly. I'm eager to have this done before you come to your senses."

That was funny. Tony had been thinking the exact same thing. When he came back in from the shed with an armload of split logs, he was relieved and perhaps a tiny bit surprised to see her right where had had expected to find her, sitting by the hearth wadding up an old copy of the Wall Street Journal. "Is this enough? Do you think we'll need lighter fluid?"

"Nah." Tony stacked a few logs in the fireplace and stuffed the newspapers among them, before removing the annulment paperwork from his bookbag and glaring at it intently. "Honestly, I doubt we're even going to need the lighter for this. I'm pretty sure I can set these papers on fire with the sheer force of my hatred." He pressed his index fingers theatrically to his temples and hummed like a Zen monk in deep meditation.

Angela chuckled and reached into his pocket for the lighter. "I think you need a little more practice," she informed him, holding down the button and touching the resultant flame to one of the balls of newspaper. A dull red tongue of fire began to rise from the charred newsprint. They proceeded to feed the flames until they were hot, bright, and putting off noticeable heat.

Tony split the four sheets of despised paperwork between them, handing two pages to her and keeping two for himself. "Shall we do this together, Mrs. Micelli?"

Angela's answering smile was radiant. "I'd be honored, Mr. Micelli." They stood, she counted to three, and they threw the papers into the fire.

The moment his hands were free, Tony stepped behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder as they watched the sheaves of paper curl into ribbons of black ash, and then smolder into powdery soot, destined to be scraped aside by the chimney sweep's broom. He couldn't think of a more fitting fate. Well, there was one, but they probably would have clogged up the toilet if he'd been stupid enough to try it. "You're stuck with me now, babe," he whispered next to her ear.

She spun around in his arms and brought him down for a kiss. "That had better be a promise."