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and smiling snowmen plaster the windows of the shops lining Avalon Street. By early December, a light snow heralds the approach of winter.
    With the pregnancy and my business with the café, Dean and I have put our plans to renovate the Butterfly House on hold. The paperwork and process of obtaining permits is both long and daunting, so while Dean still works sometimes on weekends clearing out the house and making plans, we’ve decided to wait until spring to start the work. Even then, we’ll stay in our Avalon Street place for at least the next year.
    Thanks to our friends, we have all we need for the baby, and lo and behold everything fits in our little apartment. I put all the newborn clothes in a dresser and packed the others away for when the baby is older. We have a pack-n-play in the bedroom, a swing in the living room, and a bouncy chair by the kitchen table. Diapers and lotions are arranged on a cart beside the bed, baby books line the bookshelf, and there’s a bunch of toys in a box underneath my desk.
    I continue to work at the café, though none of my colleagues will let me lift so much as a tea tray. By default, my responsibilities turn more toward office work and payroll while Allie and Brent handle things in the front of the house. I love what Allie and I have created, love the work, my fellow employees, the whole atmosphere of the café.
    One afternoon, I head home a little early because I’m accompanying Dean to his department’s holiday party. He’s already home, so I take a quick shower and dress in black pants and a red maternity blouse with a ruffled neckline.
    “Pretty.” Dean pats my belly and kisses my temple as I’m fastening on silver earrings. “Pregnancy suits you.”
    He moves to take his clothes from the closet. I like watching him dress—the adeptness of his fingers as he fastens the buttons, the smooth way he tucks in his shirt and slides his belt through the buckle, the effortlessness with which he knots his silk tie. Then, of course, I like to imagine watching him undress, which is even better.
    We drive to a reception room on campus, which the department has reserved for the party. It’s a big crowd because collaborating professors and students from other departments have also been invited. There’s lots of holiday cheer, sparkling lights, and a great deal of food and eggnog.
    Dean gets me a glass of mineral water, then squeezes my hand and heads off to socialize. I make small talk with several people I know, introduce myself to others whom I don’t know, and eat a lot of canapés. I glance at Dean from across the room. He catches my gaze and winks. My heart does its usual flip-flop.
    I’ve seen him in this kind of social interaction before, but I forget how good he is at it. He moves from person to person with such ease, his focus intent on whomever he’s speaking with, his interest in the subject evident. And people respond to him with admiration, eager to earn his attention, anxious to impress him.
    So proud. I am so damn proud of that man.
    I turn to introduce myself to a new group of people. For the next few hours, I’m aware of the tide of conversations—often about holiday plans and the like, but also a great deal about medieval studies and research. Musical words float between the clusters of people— pastoral, mystification, Avignon, allegorical, marginalia, Lindisfarne, Neoplatonic, palimpsest. It’s like they’re speaking a secret language.
    When the party begins to wind down, Dean finds me again and slides his hand over my lower back. “Ready to go?”
    I nod. We say our goodbyes and return home. Dean pushes the door open for me and tugs at the knot in his necktie as he follows me into the apartment.
    “Hey, Dean?”
    “Hey, Liv.”
    “I was thinking… maybe sometime you could tell me about your research.”
    He pauses in the motion of unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt. “I tell you about my research all the time.”
    “Not all the time, you