We were part of the last generation ofkids who were sent outside to play on their own, no adults hovering overus.We were expected to handle everything...short of drawing blood on our own,and we did.Now, I know you probably means things were scary. We tend to think of kidjustice as something closer to lord of the flies than lord of the manor,but the fact was we were all unconsciously aware of the fact that ifthings got too out of hand, the adults might Get Involved, and since wedidnt want that, it. He hasn't used it that I know of, but I'll bet all his buddies have seen it several times. That's one of the reasons I left Kelowna and came down here. I didn't want to run into any of those creeps." And Steve doesn't know about this?" Jenny asked cautiously."No, I haven't told him yet. Maybe I never will. It was over fifteen years ago and I was just a kid. Every year that goes by is that much more distance between me and my past," she said sadly."I don't know where Max is, but I haven't seen. No staring at the stars, kissing, laughing, no anything. Why she left- ‘Get up and make the bed. Your dad has gone fishing and the barn needs to be taken care of. It won’t do it itself…you hear me?’ ‘…yes ma’am’ Carolynn was about to close her son’s door when she paused and looked back at her son. ‘I love you, alright?’ ‘I love you too ma’ She loved her second son just as much as she loved her first, third or fourth. He never had a daughter but he was the closest thing to it, not that he was. She shrugged, so I rented the room. We had supper and trudged up the stairs.There was only one bed in the room, and the bath was down the hall, so I returned to the lobby while she undressed and crawled into bed. After a decent 15-minute interval, I returned to the room. The woman was in bed, buried in the quilt. Thinking she was probably asleep, I stripped down as I usually do, turned out the light, and carefully slid into my side of the bed.This was before the days of queen and king sized.