I sat in my brown suede-y chair in the “family” room of the townhouse I’d lived in for years now and cast my thoughts around frantically trying to think of the perfect gift. I had no idea what his previous wife had given him, but I was determined this present would be more meaningful. Madeleine the cat spilled over from my lap to the cushion, her heavy warm mass moving slightly with her purring. Madeleine seemed to know when I began thinking she was more trouble than she was worth, and she would make some demonstration of an affection I was sure was false. Madeleine had been Jane Engle’s cat, and my spinster friend Jane had died and left me a fortune, so I suppose Madeleine reminded me of good things-friendship and money.

Thinking of Jane led me to think of the fact that I’d wrapped up the sale of her house, so now I had even more money. I began thinking of real estate in general-and suddenly, I knew what Martin wanted.

Sophisticated corporation man Martin was from rural Ohio, oddly enough. The only obvious tie-in this had with his present life was that he now worked for Pan-Am Agra, manufacturing farming products in conjunction with some of the more agricultural Latin American countries, principally Guatemala and Brazil. Martin’s father had died early in Martin’s life, and his mother had remarried. Martin and his sister Barby had never gotten along with husband number two, Joseph Flocken, particularly after the death of Martin’s mother. Martin had told me bitterly that the farm was falling to ruin because the stepfather was too consumed with arthritis to work it, yet he wouldn’t sell, to spite Martin and his sister.

By golly, I’d buy the farm for him.

The tricky part had been thinking of a good reason to be absent from town for a few days. I’d finally told Martin I was going to visit my best friend Amina, now living in Houston and into the second trimester of her pregnancy. I phoned Amina and asked her if she and Hugh would mind letting their answering machine screen their calls for a few days. I’d call her every night and if Martin had called me, I could call him back from Ohio. Amina thought my idea was very romantic, and reminded me she’d be driving over to Lawrenceton soon, with her husband, Hugh, for the festivities preceding the wedding and the wedding itself. “I can hardly wait to meet Martin,” she said happily.