Friends Like These
A FEW YEARS AFTER my wife and I moved to Danville, our elderly neighbor sold her house to a young couple, Brian and Jennifer, who were expecting their first child. Occupied with moving, getting their old house ready to sell, fixing up their new one, and preparing for a baby, they neglected to bring me a plate of warm cookies welcoming me to their new neighborhood. I kept dropping hints about how much I liked cookies, but their minds were apparently elsewhere, and I resigned myself to having self-centered neighbors.
When their daughter was born, my wife and I walked next door to inspect the child. While my wife was chatting
