If Allison hadn't known her better, she would have said that Nicole was fighting off tears. But Nic never cried.
"We found all these stuffed animals and dolls in his car. Actually things that were more suited for a younger girl. I think he really had some fantasy about being her father."
"Everyone dreams about being a parent," Cassidy said with what Allison thought might just be a wistful smile. She looked at Allison."Has the doctor said whether you and Marshall can have another baby?"
Nicole lightly slapped her arm. "Girl--it is too soon to ask her that. Just let her be."
"No, it's okay," Allison said. "She said we could start trying again in a few months. But part of me gets worried about going back to that place when we were trying to get pregnant and couldn't, month after month. Everything that's happened recently has brought Marshall and me closer. Even my finding that little girl on the day that Jim Fate died. Yesterday, I brought a few things over to Estella's family. They're barely scraping by."
"Doesn't it bother you that they're illegal?" Cassidy asked.
"It would bother me more if I knew they were hungry and cold, especially a little child who didn't have any say in where she was born. Jesus said, 'I was hungry, and you fed me.' He didn't say, 'I was illegal, and you deported me. "
"Good point," Nicole said, surprising Allison. Usually any God-talk was met with a skeptical silence.
"If Jim were here, I'd bet he could come up with a half-dozen argu—
ments against what you just said," Cassidy said. "But he's not." She sighed. "You know, I miss him more than I would have ever guessed." "To Jim," Allison said, raising her glass of wine.
"To Jim," the other two women echoed, leaning forward to clink their glasses together.
"And to the Triple Threat Club," Nicole said.
"Long may it reign!" Cassidy said.
And the three friends drank their wine and smiled at each other.