Saturday morning at 6:30 AM the alarm went off. Mira got up while Durango was showering, went into the kitchen, set a bowl of orange slices on the table, put bacon on the griddle, whisked eggs, made coffee, toasted English muffins. Remembering how on the telephone, from across the country, their son had joked about coaches' wives' duties, she smiled to herself. The years of grad school, of research, and now of the responsibilities of a college President -- these productive, tense, but not unhappy years -- no longer seemed to weigh on Durango's shoulders. Last night, he had hummed to himself, while he packed his Offensive Line Coach bag -- before he climbed into their shared bed.

Mira watched out the window as the buses pulled up beside Presidents Yard. At the door, she kissed Durango goodbye, tucked a 4 leaf clover she had found on the Huygens campus into his jacket pocket. In the living room, she opened the case where her Boehm Flute resided in velvet.