And in the silence after that, Maya Lin pushed herself forward about three feet across her own living room carpet in a chair with a navy towel on the seat, and stopped next to my son, and said:

“You’d better promise not to sell this one within twenty-four hours.”

And the room went.

Everybody laughed, properly, for about fifteen seconds, which is a long time for a room to laugh, and Jillian put her hand on the back of her daughter’s chair, and Officer Cooper laughed so hard he had to put his coffee down, and Nathan Lin laughed with his hand over his eyes.

And Julian said: “Deal.”