O+F Part 46

"Nothing wrong with that." Conor swept his arm expansively, making room for conservatives.

"The next generation's asleep," Oliver said, pointing to Emma. "Got to pull anchor, head for port. Nice talking with you."

"Standing clear," Conor said. Oliver felt a rush of relief that Francesca had left the guy. Marguerite caught his eye. She raised her eyebrows, amused. Complicated, Oliver thought, easier to go home.

Jennifer made an effortless series of goodbyes, impressing Oliver with her skill once again. "Farewell, Eric," he said to the host.

"Merry Christmas, Oliver."

It was dark and much colder as they settled into the Volvo and drove home. "What a great party," Jennifer said. "You know, I was talking to Mary. If you're tired of bouncing around, I think you could get a good position at Tom's bank. She said he was looking for someone to come in and learn the ropes, take over as MIS officer."

"Do I look like the officer type?"

"If you don't, no one does. It doesn't have anything to do with height.

You were having fun with Marguerite."

"Yeah, I like her. What's her story?"

"Poor Marguerite, she's had--unfortunate affairs. I really don't know what men see in her. She's awfully skinny."

"Well," Oliver said, "she's sympathetic."

"Too sympathetic," Jennifer said. "She ought to pick some nice guy and get on with it." Get it on, Oliver started to say, but didn't. "It was so nice to see all the children playing," Jennifer continued. "Wouldn't it be wonderful for Emma to have a little brother to play with?" She reached over and rubbed his leg.

"Get on with it, you mean?"

"Oh Sweetums! Of course not! Not like that. But it _would_ be nice, wouldn't it?" She kept her hand on his leg.

"Yes," Oliver said. "Seems like yesterday that Emma was born."

"It does," Jennifer said enthusiastically.

Oliver took one hand from the steering wheel and rested it on top of Jennifer's. "Merry Christmas," he said. "Merry Christmas, Emma." He looked over his shoulder at Emma, buckled into her car seat, serene, half asleep. "I love Emma."

"And me?"

"And you," he said. It was true, but why did his heart sink after he said it? There were loves and there were loves. He patted her hand and corrected a small skid.

21.

Oliver enjoyed Christmas in the new house. He talked to his mother and his sister on the phone, took pictures of Emma in front of the tree, and made another bookshelf for the living room. Jennifer eased up on the little brother plan, accepting his suggestion that she might not want to be heavily pregnant in July. "A little pregnant would be fine,"

she said. Oliver agreed--a three or four month delay. He tried not to think of Suzanne. He decided to skip the coming Friday visit.

Tuesday, at work, he handed Dan a picture of Emma. "Pride of the Prescott's," he said.

"Chip off the old block. Does she program yet? A cutie! She'll keep you busy."

"She will. How was your holiday?"

"Fine. My brother came for a couple of nights. Lots of music, good eats." Dan patted his stomach. "Have to work it off. Any luck with the trial balance?"

"Not so far."

"Well, if you can't find it, you can't find it. Month to month, we're doing fine; the numbers aren't getting worse. I've got to find Vi." He raced away at Dan speed.

Oliver took a deep breath and walked down the hall to Suzanne's office.

She looked at him, glad and appealing. "Friday . . ." he started. She blushed.

"I've got something to show you at the house," she said.

"Good," he heard himself say. He stood there, grinning, amazed at himself. "Friday," he confirmed. He went back to the computer--happy but frightened. He couldn't make excuses; he _had_ to see her. Don't panic, he told himself. Just stay for a couple of hours and go to Deweys for a Friday night drink with the boys. Go home smelling of Guinness and cigarettes . . . He was skidding, losing control. He plunged into the hunt for the missing money with renewed determination.

Computer programs evolve and become more complicated over time. This accounting package had been in place for eight years. Many new versions had been installed and much had been changed to suit this particular hospital. It would take too long to set up a parallel test system, and it probably wouldn't help, anyway. The best hope for fixing programming problems is to catch them when they happen, when there are clues to help in the search. The monthly trial balance is off--why? What changed last month? A weird data situation? A new program? Modifications to an old program? But in this case, the accounts had drifted out of balance over a six-month period, nearly two years earlier. The imbalance had remained constant since then. Either the problem had been fixed, or it was still there and might or might not happen again.

Naturally, the previous programmer hadn't bothered to keep a log or make comments in the programs. Typical. Oliver was used to cleaning up after other programmers. In fact, their mistakes were the source of half his work. Still, it annoyed him that they didn't take time to do the job right; comments made life easier for everyone.

On Friday, he told Dan that he didn't think he could find the problem.

"Not unless it starts happening again."

"It's not worth spending any more time on it," Dan said.

"What will the auditors do?"

"I don't know. Fudge it, probably. Create some kind of miscellaneous adjustment account. We'll see. Oh, we got a package from IBM--looks like another operating system release."

"No sweat," Oliver said. "I'll install it after the month-end run--midnight, the 31st."

"I'll put it in the cabinet in the computer room," Dan said.

Oliver took care of loose ends until noon and waited for Suzanne to drive away. Half an hour later, she met him at her door. They clung to each other silently and then stepped inside. Oliver hung up his coat.

"So, what are you going to show me?"

She pointed to the living room. "Come see."

He followed her into the room where a quilt in the making was spread out on the rug. A roll of white cotton batting leaned against the couch. Rectangles of brown and faded gold were st.i.tched to a neutral backing--some were small, some large, some nearly square, others long and thin. Short irregularly curved stems cut from cloth--mostly black, a few reddish brown--were sewn randomly over the rectangles, crossing over and under each other, separate, yet interlocking. He saw it suddenly. "The field! Looking down."

"Bingo!" Suzanne said. "I make a different quilt every year for the hospital benefit auction."

"Wow, I love it. What goes on the bottom?"

"I've got a piece of dark brown material."

Oliver's eyes moved around the quilt. The patterns were unpredictable, but they had a sense of purpose, a natural order. "You could live in there," he said.