«What?» said Douglas Spaulding.

«I've felt funny all day. And I was sick, a little bit, this morning.»

«Oh, my God.» He rose and came around the card table and took her head in his hands and pressed her brow against his side, and looked down at the beautiful part in her hair, suddenly smiling.

«Well, now,» he said, «don't tell me that Sascha is back?»

«Sascha! Who's that?»

«When he arrives, he'll tell us.»

«Where did that name come from?»

«Don't know. It's been in my mind all year.»

«Sascha?» She pressed his hands to her cheeks, laughing. «Sascha!»

«Call the doctor tomorrow,» he said.

«The doctor says Sascha has moved in for light housekeeping,» she said over the phone the next day.

«Great!» He stopped. «I guess.» He considered their bank deposits. «No. First thoughts count. Great! When do we meet the Martian invader?»

«October. He's infinitesimal now, tiny, I can barely hear his voice. But now that he has a name, I hear it. He promises to grow, if we take care.»

«The Fabulous Invalid! Shall I stock up on carrots, spinach, broccoli for what date?»

«Halloween.»

«Impossible!»

«True!»

«People will claim we planned him and my vampire book to arrive that week, things that go bump and cry in the night.»

«Oh, Sascha will surely do that! Happy? »

«Frightened, yes, but happy, Lord, yes. Come home, Mrs. Rabbit, and bring him along!»

It must be explained that Maggie and Douglas Spaulding were best described as crazed roman-tics. Long before the interior christening of Sascha, they, loving Laurel and Hardy, had called each other Stan and Ollie. The machines, the dustbusters and can openers around the apartment, had names, as did various parts of their anatomy, revealed to no one.