The Novel Habits of Happiness (26 page)

Edward nodded. “You can look at it that way,” he said.

SHE COOKED FOR JAMIE
that evening. She had a new book, published by a chef who had just been awarded his first Michelin star. She chose one of the simpler recipes, but even that, it seemed, required two hours of preparation time. Once Charlie had been put to bed, Jamie came down to help her. She gave him carrots to chop.

“There was a boy at school with me who had the tip of his finger missing,” he said. “He told us that he had lost it when he was chopping carrots. He thought his finger was a carrot.”

Isabel winced.

“But he had a vivid imagination,” Jamie continued. “We didn't believe him.”

“Still, he had lost a bit of his finger,” Isabel pointed out. “He must have cut it off somewhere.”

“He became a dentist,” said Jamie.

Isabel, grating cheese, raised an eyebrow. “His patients must have seen the missing joint. They might have thought that somebody had bitten it off in the middle of some dental procedure.”

“That must happen,” said Jamie. “It must be an occupational hazard.”

The sauce was taking shape, and Isabel, half an eye on the recipe book and half on a simmering saucepan, needed to concentrate.

When the meal was eventually served, Jamie pronounced it well worth the hours of preparation. He did the washing-up while Isabel checked on Charlie, and then they went into the music room. He played the piano while she sat and listened. He sang the song she asked him to sing. Then he closed the lid of the piano and stretched.

“Fatigue,” he said.

They went upstairs.

Isabel had something to tell him, and she thought that now was the moment. She would need confirmation, and she would go to the doctor's surgery the following morning; she had already arranged the appointment.

She waited for him; he often took a shower at night, just before going to bed. She heard the shower, and when she closed her eyes she thought how like the sound of tropical rain it seemed—a good, long, soaking downpour.

He spoke as he towelled himself dry. “Let's try this evening to increase our little family.”

She watched him. She would tell him, but not just now; she would wait, and tell him later, just before they went to sleep, although she knew that the news would keep them both in wakefulness. But it would be good news on which to close one's eyes.

“Isabel,” he said from the other side of the room. “Yes?”

She nodded, and she waited while he came to her, caught in the gentle light of the late summer evening when Edinburgh never really got dark; caught in that light he came to her, like an angel.

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served with many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.