It was wonderful to have their lives back again. By now the in-laws from hell should be past the New Mexico border and well into Texas. As she walked out to the garage, Butch was happily hauling his laptop out of its in-office exile and back onto the kitchen table, where he preferred to work. And, without much fuss and a minimum of discussion, the three of them had settled on an acceptable boy’s name: Dennis Lee Dixon. No Frederick Junior. No lurking grandfathers’ names. No traditional family names. Just a solid boy’s name with a good ring to it. No doubt Eleanor wouldn’t approve, and neither would Margaret, probably for entirely different reasons, but that didn’t matter. It was the name Joanna and Butch and Jenny had chosen together, and that’s what counted. When Joanna stepped out of her Crown Victoria in the Justice Center parking lot, the chill March wind blowing off the flanks of the Mule Mountains did nothing to dampen her spirits or take the spring out of her step. Maybe Joanna’s initial reaction to Margaret’s snoopiness had been negative, but now she felt as though a cloud of indecision—one she hadn’t known was there—had been lifted off her shoulders.
