This would be our place and nobody else's.The following Saturday, we got up early and made ourselves breakfast and a few sandwiches to take with us to...the cave before Mom was up. Dad was already out doing fence repair with one of the hired hands. Nobody gets up before he does. Sometimes I think he doesn't sleep at all. We got our chores done early and saddled our horses for the ride out to the cave. I found an old oil lantern and a half-full bottle of oil in the tack room and stuffed them into. After he was gone she cried so much inside then, like she had at first.I thought Sammy and I would drown in her tears. It felt like when shewas saying goodbye to me in the mirror. I felt her heart breaking allover again above us.I tried to reach up to touch her back and let her know that I was cryingwith her, but I understood she needed to do it the way she did. Justlike right after this happened when I felt how much her sorrow waskilling her inside. I know losing me killed her every time she. "Okay.Monday morning an alert went out around the ranch that Sugar was in labor. Her mother, Regina, had been hanging out for two weeks with Casa del Sol. It was hot as blazes and I was glad that Lamar and Lionel had thought far enough ahead to have their home air conditioned.Lionel had yet to report to a training camp for the NBA. He'd been a second round draft pick for the Miami Heat, but as soon as his contract had been signed, it was traded to the Timberwolves for a first round pick next. My elder brother hadgone on a rugby tour a couple of years before to Australia with astopover in Bangkok. He had come back with stories that made my hairstand on end. One story in particular had stuck in my imagination. Oneof the team had got very drunk in a bar and the other lads had paid fora bargirl for him. Except this was a very special bar girl. After manypints and much prompting my brother revealed that he had been the guythey set up.He claimed he vaguely remembered this gorgeous girl.