"I'm sure now. I'm twenty-nine years old and I have a son and a station wagon with a heater that doesn't work, and I'm sure." She shrugged. "I'm sure of the name. I'm not so sure I live up to it."
For a long time Lucian didn't speak. The snow ticked on the glass. Roman sighed in his sleep and rolled over, flinging one arm out across the rug toward the tree.
"Did you ever write to him?" Lucian said at last. "The man on the program?"
She thought about it. "I don't think so. Maybe? I don't remember. I was a kid. I wrote letters to everybody. I wrote to Captain Kangaroo. I wrote to President Eisenhower about my cat." She tilted her head. "Why?"
"No reason," he said. "Only, people did. Write to the programs. I always wondered who they were." He set down the untouched brandy, very carefully, on the coaster. "Would you play me your tape?"
"No."
"Please."
"It's awful."
"Then I'll tell you it's awful, and you'll be no worse off than you are now, and possibly a good deal better." He smiled at her over his glasses. "I'm a very old man in borrowed socks on Christmas Eve. You can't possibly be embarrassed in front of me. It's not structurally possible."
So she got the Panasonic from the kitchen and the TDK cassette from her parka pocket, and she sat on the floor beside Roman, who didn't stir, and she put the tape in and pushed Play, and she listened to her own voice come out of the little speaker, tinny and too bright, saying, "Good evening, Buffalo, it's three a.m., and if you're up with me you're either a nurse, a baker, or a Sabres fan who can't sleep after that game, and either way, I'm glad you're here," and she wanted to crawl under the radiator and die.
He listened to the whole thing. Nine minutes. Her fake weather forecast. Her introduction to a Patsy Cline record she didn't play, because she couldn't afford the cable to connect the turntable, so she just said "and here's Patsy" and stopped the tape and started it again. Her little bit about the Peace Bridge at night. Her sign-off. When it was done, he sat for a moment with his eyes closed.