He paused a moment, searching for the right thing to say and at the same time unsure whether an answer was at all necessary, then narrowed his dark, deep eyes at her with a sort of softening compassion that made Ally smile even wider. He reminded her too much of a certain someone…

“Hey,” Harry smiled, attempting to comfort her and shield her from all the unfairness in their lives. “*I* love you… That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” she agreed, smiling wider, blonde hair rebelling against the ponytail she’d pulled it back in and falling against her cheek. After sharing a warm, affectionate glance for a moment, both bent in for a kiss, happy they had each other to touch and hold and love. He murmured something about wanting it “hotter” - the water, that is - and she giggled, settling in for another kiss, her hand reaching around his neck to deepen it. As the faint music grew stronger, separate notes melting into beautiful chords, the camera panned over to the bathroom mirror - even steamed and blurry, it reflected the tender, refined kiss the two shared perfectly, adding a certain mist-like quality to the image to create a sense of a dream coming true, despite the attitude of the world around them.

Ally’s sappy side had just been fed a double appetizer, delicious main course, two refreshing glasses of bubbly and an extra-chocolaty serving of dessert, all accomplished by that one gorgeous scene, and was now full, satisfied and happy. She reluctantly lifted herself up off the couch and away from the TV to grab another Perrier and check on the unusually, almost *suspiciously* quiet Dream Team of their 4-year-old angel-in-heavy-disguise, Anna, and her sophisticatedly goofy father, Larry. Perrier in hand, she made her way over to Anna’s room, to find the door swung open and frequent “naaaaayyyyy-gh”s coming from somewhere inside.

“Anna? Larry?” she peeked in cautiously, expecting to come across something harmless like Larry imitating farmhouse animal sounds while reading a book to Anna. What she saw caught her off guard -- Larry was on all fours with Ally’s red leather MaxMara belt in between his teeth, while Anna was on his back, holding the “reigns” - the said belt - and digging into his ribs with her heels to indicate that he was moving way too slow.

Her eyebrows reached for her hairline as she adjusted her head, tilting it to the side, to make sure this wasn’t just some optical illusion or Al Green equivalent.

“Hi schpweetie…” Larry attempted to pronounce through the frantically expensive polished leather of Ally’s favourite belt.

“Hi mommy…” Anna smiled, tiny teeth lined up a perfect row. “Go!” she ordered, and Larry, croaking, obediently made another lap around the room, squeezing his eyes shut as Anna grabbed his “mane” and held on to it. Ally still didn’t budge.

Feeling that she was a tad surprised to see what she saw, Larry spat out the reigns and smiled the same smile Harry had rewarded Lauren with earlier.

“We were watching the annual Equestrian Open… these are just practice rounds, I’ll be doing hurdles in a little bit here…” he said as if it were a completely normal activity for them.

“Daddy’s my horsie…” Anna gave a less sinuous explanation.

Ally chuckled. Larry let himself be tied into knots by his daughter, and she knew it. Any request - he’d fulfill it. Anything she asked for would be hers in a split second, on a golden platter and with a cherry on top. He loved her to pieces. He was an amazing father.

“Yeah…” Larry confirmed, wincing in obvious pain as Anna attempted to pull him up by his har, his mouth once again occupied with the reigns.

“Okay.” Ally nodded, watching Anna ride off on a very tired “stallion”. “When Miss Jockey becomes interested in macaroni and cheese for dinner, please be sure to let me know…”

“Kay mom.” Anna grinned, enjoying the ride. Ally went over into the kitchen to fix dinner, her activities interrupted a few minutes later by a loud crashing noise and a following “I’m ohhhkkk… no I’m not…”… Just as Anna’s dinner was reaching the desired consistency, an exhausted Larry entered the kitchen, followed by Anna mumbling something about horses not walking on two feet.

“You need an oat feeder?” Ally giggled, watching him stretch his worked muscles.

“Funny.” He acknowledged. Ally placed Anna’s plate down onto the table, then hurried back to fill two more plates of chicken marsala. Anna disappeared to somewhere, returning a minute later with some kind of plastic bowl and a large spoon. Just as Larry’s mouth began to water when a plate of deliciously sauced chicken marsala was placed before him, Anna, being very business-like and quick, removed the plate from under his nose and set down the plastic bowl in front of him instead.

“You need oats.” She declared.

Larry looked at her pleadingly.

“No.” she wouldn’t give in. For four years old, she was quite stubborn. Of course, her mother *was* Ally McBeal…

“You couldn’t even do hurledlies! You *fell*! What kind of horse are you if you can’t do hurledlies?” Anna demanded, hands on her hips and her facial expression very much like Ally’s in similar situations. Two to zip. Larry felt doomed.

“Really, what kind of a horse am I?” he matter-of-factly ran it by Ally, who by this time was hysterical, fork stuck in her chicken and her eyes almost watering from the amount of laughter she was undergoing.

“Anna, darling,” he continued, his expression pained as he watched Ally continue to devour her normal dinner, “the reason I can’t do hurledlies-“ he caught himself, realizing adding extra syllables had become addictive from his daughter, “*hurdles* -- is because I’m a very tired, very hungry and very *old* horse--“

“No, you’re not,” Anna looked up at him with shining blue eyes, “You’re not old, I just got you today; and you’re tired and hungry because you don’t eat oats…” she moved the bowl closer to him, proving her point. He tried to convey disgust, but Anna’s soft smile overpowered it.

Ally watched on sympathetically as first one, then another tablespoon of dry mulch-like oats were sent into Larry’s mouth, with Anna standing by and encouraging it further. “There you go!” she freed him of torture after the fourth tablespoon, by which time Ally had mentally promoted Larry from “Wonderful Fathers” to “Saintly Fathers”.

“Okay,” Anna enthused, “Now we have to set up where you’re going to sleep… We’re going to the stable--“

Ally looked at Larry questioningly. “Closet--“ Larry swiftly explained, his tone expressing that he really had no power over his daughter’s decision. Ally nodded, surprise not subsiding at all.

“I think next time we should settle for a daschund…” Ally whispered as Anna made Larry familiar with the surroundings of his sleeping place for the night.

“Yeah, well this one you can’t exactly take back to the store and get a refund on…” Larry hissed, Ally’s smile widening.

It wasn’t at all one of those tiny closets, with enough space for only a Swiffer and perhaps, if lucky, a refill pack of dustsheets. No, not at all, this one was large enough to turn around in, held various items of outdoor clothing, along with some equipment and a few garden tools. It had enough breathing space, yet not *too* much so as not to let anyone trapped inside become too at ease with their surroundings. All in all, a true stable, providing at once the luxury of oxygen and the promise of untimely defeat if undertaking an attempt to run free. In fact, Ally & Larry had been known to retreat there on occasion, throwing morality out those Ikea-framed windows and onto the wings of soft winds in the course of doing a “Bad-Bad Thing” within the limited space the given endroit provided, but only in cases where it was absolutely inevitable – any other action would’ve had them caught sooner or later by either Renee (for the first few months around, of course) or Anna (by the time she was old enough to distinguish places, parents & activities…). Those facts alone could’ve witnessed on behalf of its spaciousness, but on this particular evening, it wasn’t so much the room (or lack thereof) as its *location* that’d stripped Larry of any previous bouts of enthusiasm on the subject. Anna’d won, as always. He’d always wondered why Ally was never the prey in Anna’s tiny little claws – perhaps it was because to him, Anna was another Ally, another baby girl to cherish and spoil and sweep off her feet with laughter and music and all those other extras that came pre-paid & gift-wrapped with a Larry Paul. In similar situations, where Anna’d be replaced by Ally, she’d always beat him, too. There just wasn’t any escaping it…

Ally’d made the unpardonable error of letting Richard Fish, of all people, look after Anna while she was in trial for an hour, and her darling four-year-old had afterwards spent the entire ride home trying to slur out “intimacy”, something she’d listened to Richard complain about lacking in his relationship with Ling… Anna had probably supposed it meant a limited amount of space to do something, so she was rattling away about the wonderful sense of “ittymashee” the “stable” would provide while dutifully leading her “horsie” by its “reigns” (that aforementioned belt that Ally’d already mourned over and was now sure its soul resided in MaxMara heaven, wherever such a place may be). Larry, though touched by Anna’s concern, would’ve much rather preferred the “ittymashee” of Ally in a relatively narrow bathtub, but since his vote didn’t count for much, he kept hush. What could he do, really?

“Now, you’ll be nice and comfy in here…” Anna motioned at the lair she’d made for her “horsie”, and Larry forced out a smile. His little princess had thought of everything -- a pile of hay brought in from outside -- which Ally suspected was crawling with bugs she surely didn’t want in her carpets -- for a pillow, extra oats in a FisherPrice bowl if he were to get hungry during the night, and even tap water for him to drink.

Larry, convicted and sentenced, sat down miserably in his “stable”.

“Mommy?” Anna asked, holding on to her mother’s hand and briefly looking over to her new pet, “Can I get a pony? A real one?”

“Uh, Anna--“ Larry started, attempting a feeble reply, but he was cut off with a very Ally-like “shush!” from Anna, and she continued, turning back to her mother, “He’s gonna get really lonely if we don’t get him a friend…” Her eyes expressed compassion and sympathy.

“It’s kids like this that promote adultery…” Larry mumbled, sharing a small, intimate smile with Ally. Her eyes shimmered as she turned to her daughter.

“Anna, honey, I think he’ll be fine for now…” She said reassuringly. Anna smiled.

“Okay.” She agreed, making her way over to kiss her horsie’s forehead goodnight. Ally followed, carefully timing her own to make sure Anna wasn’t looking when she stole a brief tongue-twisting version of it… Larry looked even more depressed when she quietly added she was headed for a bubble bath, making him painfully consider the beautiful alternative he could be enjoying in ten-something minutes. Anna waved bye and closed the door, leaving Larry in darkness.

Ally was enjoying quality “Ally time” -- alone, in a luxurious bubble bath, with the radio barely audible and sensuously sweet. No men, no children… for once, she felt relieved to be alone. She stifled a laugh as she thought of Larry crammed into the vertical coffin that was their closet. Anna seemed beyond content, though, and that’s what mattered most to him.

She lifted her foot out of the water to turn off the faucet with her big toe, enjoying the seemingly cool air against her hot skin. Just as she immersed it into the water again, proving Archimedes right, she heard a soft knock on the bathroom door.

“Are you decent?” asked a yawning Larry from outside the bathroom. “Do you care?” Ally answered with a question of her own, wondering how the amount of clothing on her body -- or lack thereof -- would influence Larry’s decision to come in.

“Not really…” he admitted, entering and closing the door behind him. “You look nice.” He smiled, admiring her tanned peach décolleté contrast against the white faience.

“Thank you.” She smiled back, as though receiving a compliment from her boyfriend on prom night. Her hair was swept up into a sloppy bun held together by bobby pins, and her face, rimmed only by the shadow of her chin on her neck, looked beautiful. Adorning all this beauty was a wide grin, lips shaded a glossy red and pressed neatly together as she bashfully looked down, obviously enjoying Larry’s gaze despite her efforts not to show it.

“You’re finally out of the closet?” Ally asked sympathetically.

“That… doesn’t quite sound right…” Larry smirked, noticing an unintentional pun in the phrase. Ally giggled.

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Thank you,” Larry acknowledged. “Yeah… she’s finally asleep…”

“Did you have fun?” Ally asked.

“Dream come true.” he grinned.

“She’s just playing…” Ally explained as though Larry didn’t understand their daughter’s behaviour.

“I know, but, sweetie, you didn’t have to spend an hour neighbouring hay in a shoe-polish-smelling closet, so I don’t think you have a very vivid picture here…”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one insisting on watching hurledlies--“ she covered her mouth with a chuckle, noticing how contagious Anna’s word had become, “--*hurdles*…”

“And now I’m suffering through the consequences…” Larry finished her thought.

“Something like that, yeah…” Ally nodded, agreeing.

“Pass me that pink one, pleeeease…” Ally pointed at one of the 30 variously shaped and coloured bottles on the bathroom tray table.

Larry looked confused at first, not sure which of the 15 “pink ones” she meant. Ally sighed a discontent sigh, as if to make him feel guilty for not knowing *exactly* which one she needed at the moment, and continued to give him directions.

“Behind the blue one… No, no, the other blue one… The *baby* blue one… no, that’s *your* aftershave!… yeah, that one… thank you…”

Larry grimaced as he attempted to read the unpronounceable French title of what Ally was about to put on her body.

“It’s *gel*…” Ally explained impatiently, reaching for the Shiseido bottle.

“That’s a… lot of words for “gel”…” Larry handed her the bottle, then returned to his position seated atop the toilet seat cover.

“It’s *soft*…” Ally persuaded him to like her favourite bath product.

“I’m not gonna argue with that…” Larry raised up his right hand, admitting his lack of expertise in the area to prevent the subject from going on.

Ally’s arm fluttered out from underneath the bubbles, stretching out beautifully as her fingers formed a classic allongé. Tapping their way softly into his palm, they interlaced with Larry’s as he smiled a warm, satisfied smile.

“We never talk anymore…” Ally said, looking serious. “All we ever do--“ she pulled a toned, tan, physically perfect leg out of the water and placed it on the side the of the bathtub, squeezing the peachy gel into her hands and smoothing it over her beautiful skin, her shoulders barely moving at all as her eyes intently followed her hands’ movements, “-- is watch TV and--“ she paused, sufficient words escaping her, “*unh-unh*…” Larry, thankfully, got her point, and gestured for her to skip the lengthy explanation she had planned for the second one and continue on to checkmark number three. “It’s *fabulous*, don’t get me wrong!” she was quick to assure him, “I mean, it’s…” an unintentional blush flew onto her face as she mentally replayed the moments she meant as he, yet again, motioned for her to move on, nodding in agreement with the silent description of their bedroom croquet games, “…but why don’t we talk anymore?”

“We’re talking… right now…” he pointed out, trying to concentrate on her words rather than her disbubbled leg staring at him provocatively.

“Yeah…” she agreed, “but it’s so *rare* we get to talk…”

“Anna.” Both answered each other’s silent “why?”s at the same time.

Ally grabbed the razor and slid it up her leg, stripping it of foam. Larry was palpably more interested.

“What is it with men and… breasts?” Ally asked matter-of-factly, staring calmly yet questioningly at Larry.

“That’s the… first question that popped into your head?!” Larry stared back, incredulous and a little worried over what to answer. He didn’t have a clue.

“Well, just as a start-off point, I mean…” she began. “No, really, what’s so… appealing in them?”

“I’m no shrink--“

“Though you presented yourself as one--“ Ally smiled, recalling the time they first met… Walking into that office and being faced with a whipsmart, fast-paced and very yummy “therapist” too low on patient rolls to ignore house calls, she could never imagine, not even for huge sums of money, that five years later, she’d be in a bubble bath across from a still notwithstandingly yummy *him* with their princess sleeping in a room down the hall…

“Hey!” he stopped her, his tone suggesting more was on the way. “Attorney at *law*…” he began again, contouring the imaginary rectangular sign with his index fingers and thumbs, “right *smack* on the door, nailed in… nails…? hammer…?” he searched for a reaction in her eyes as he ran her through a list of associative terms. She finally couldn’t take it anymore, and burst out laughing.

“I know…” she traced a line down his palm with her index finger.

“You’re just kidding…” he continued for her.

“Yes, I’m just kidding…”

The razor continued to slide up her leg until all the foam on that longitude had been shaved off. The long, thin island of exposed skin running up from her ankle to about mid-thigh, between two seas of gel, got Larry wondering what EXACT moment of absolute brilliance had swirled over him that afternoon when flipping through channels, which led to him sitting in a closet for over an hour while the opportunity to be in that same bathtub with Ally was inexcusably being missed.

“Okay, so back to square one… breasts. Why?”

“Uhhh…” Larry started off.

“Come on! A guess?!” Ally encouraged.

“Don’t you think whoever would come up with the answer to *that* would be filthy rich?!”

“So… get on it.”

“Yes, my life is otherwise void of work…” he sarcastically pointed out.

“We could use the extra cash. The cost of Anna’s daycare--“

“Which *you* picked out, by the way--“

“I had no choice! It was either this one or the catholic one down the street that looked like a mortuary and would have her swallowing her Rs into aaahhhhs - “Haaaahhhvaaahhhd” - a la Irish…”

“There are only *two* daycare centers in all of Boston?”

“Only *two* that feed them right…”

“Honey, I don’t think a choice of eleven PETA-approved salads for lunch is of utmost importance to a four-year-old… Romaine Plain, Romaine Fruitarian, Romaine Spring Greens, Romaine European Pick -- what’s the difference?! She doesn’t even eat salads…”

“Maybe she *will*, under the influence of this place…”

“Okay, okay, okay…” Larry shut down the topic.

“And we still haven’t gotten anywhere with our discussion…”

Larry let out a very long, heavy sigh. It was going to be quite the evening…