She had been trying to come up with a way to cheer her up for the last few days with no success. Deep in her heart she knew her daughter's mood wasn't...her fault, but she still felt responsible."Could I say I'm sorry one more time," Dorothy said."You don't have to, Mom," Cassie replied, "It was my fault, not yours." Still, maybe I shouldn't have even brought it up unless I was totally sure," the older woman said."No, you told me to keep it to myself and instead I told Janet," Cassie went on.. They went home with pockets filled with empty shell casings. Yes they had pockets now, diapers had given way to training pants and then to normal underwear so they were in little boy jeans and camo. They just had to show Mommy all the different kinds they had found.If I could just convince them to pick all of them up and put them in buckets. There were companies that bought empties to reload. In fact we could have bought the mass production equipment to do that ourselves but I didn’t think it. All drove me mad. She knew what she was doing and what effect it would have on me.Mid-morning, mid-week and the gym wasn’t too busy. I knew most of the faces and was on chatting form with a few. Some knew that Sam and I were friends and flirted with one another, I don’t think any of them realised we were lovers. Sam was a master at playing it cool.After our sessions, we walked out together and got on our bikes. We cycled to my house where we would have the privacy we needed. I never knew how. The yellow-winged Pixie paused a moment then pointed behind and to herleft."My gift...you say my gift...its right around that corner? On the otherside of that wall, right?" Got it in one, hun," I giggled.Sunni slowly took to the air and flew off to my right. She was gone forno more than a minute before she returned, looking extremelydisappointed."I am sooo damn gullible! I didn't really expect you to be straight withme, Alex," she said as she gently, slowly landed again on the left sideof my.