Now that was behind them. It was early, he warned her. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But Olivia had a glow that could not be denied. Her positive mood was a force, a storm, a tide. Matt had no chance against it.

That was why they were here.

Camera phones, Olivia had stressed, would allow the soon-to-be threesome to share family life in a way their parents' generation could never have envisioned. Thanks to the camera phone, neither of them would miss out on their child's life-defining or even mundane moments- the first step, the first words, the average play-date, what-have-you.

That, at least, was the plan.

An hour later, when they returned to their half of the two-family home, Olivia gave him a quick kiss and started up the stairs.

"Hey," Matt called after her, holding up his new phone and arching an eyebrow. "Want to try out the, uh, video feature?"

"The video only lasts fifteen seconds."

"Fifteen seconds." He considered that, shrugged, and said, "So we'll extend foreplay."

Olivia understandably groaned.

They lived in what most would consider a seedy area, in the strangely comforting shadow of the giant beer bottle of Irvington. When he was fresh out of prison, Matt had felt he deserved no better (which worked neatly because he could afford little better) and despite protestations from family, he began renting space nine years ago. Irvington is a tired city with a large African-American population, probably north of eighty percent. Some might reach the obvious conclusion about guilt over what he'd had to be like in prison. Matt knew that such things were never so simple, but he had no better explanation other than he couldn't yet return to the suburbs. The change would have been too fast, the land equivalent of the bends.