I don't know this yet, but on my fifty-first birthday, not long after all the Hellers have returned from Hawai`i, David and the rest of my children will gather around the dining room table with Sheyene and me at our house on Wildcat Ridge in the Little Apple. Even Grandma Heller will be there, sawing the air with her hands as she tells her own tales. David's expression will be one of pensive determination, the product of resilience, maturation, and hard-won forgiveness. Hey, he will say to Sheyene. Hey, David, she'll reply. And that will be that. In a few weeks, they'll be friends. Soon David will be bragging to her about his new passion: breakdancing. I can do a headspin better than any black guy in this town. But I still can't do the liquid stuff as well.
        Sheyene edges closer to me on the floor in front of the couch. Phil nods at my comment about time slowing down, and picks up the tale again. I turn toward his moving lips, and soon my own vision of that night fades back into view. In my mind's eye, the two of them, Phil and the gunman, are framed by the edges of Mark's bedroom doorway. But Mark's phone may have actually been in the living room. Phil doesn't mention this detail, and I can't really remember. That night is a dream turned story now, like all the rest of my life with Mary.

        As the gunman marches Phil into the living room to join the rest of us, the screen door swings open. The second gunman also wears a nylon stocking over his head, and a plain T-shirt of a color I can't remember. The second gunman is fatter; his gun is black.
        Lie down on top da floor, the fat gunman orders. All'a yous.
        On top you stomach, the skinny gunman adds.
        Mary drops to her knees ahead of me. Ordinarily, Mary cannot bear any kind of danger. Years later, when we are parents, she will call out, even shriek, whenever one of the children takes a single step toward the street, no matter how far away. But tonight, with two determined strangers pointing guns at us, Mary is under control. Even if this scene is a still a dream to her, she knows how to behave. As she stretches out on the floor in her blue jeans and blouse, I find myself staring at the gunmen. I can tell they're young, younger than Mary and I. An odd thought forms in my mind: Be professional, guys. There are rules here.
        In another moment we are all on our stomachs on the bare wooden floor. Or is it carpeted? I can't feel the difference on my grizzled chin as I try to remember. The skinny gunman ties my hands behind my back with my own belt, a thick brown leather thing with a broad buckle.
        Who dat shit? the fat gunman asks.
        It takes me a moment to realize he means the music. Ella Fitzgerald, I reply from the floor.
        To my surprise, he lets the album keep playing as they tie us up and arrange us on the floor: Phil and Anita beneath the window, Mark in the middle of the room, Mary and me squeezed into the narrow space between the sofa and the coffee table. When the gunmen have satisfied themselves that all our bindings are secure, the skinny one asks: OK, which one Mark Wilson?

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