"That shocked me even more. Uncle Dar had once told me that he had plenty of money from working in Iraq for two years, but I didn't think that he'd ma...e so much as to just spend $40,000 and forget it. I wondered how much he really had.We talked about it for a bit, and then Ellen said, "I don't really care how much he has left. If he was broke, I'd still love him and would want to be his daughter. He's always there if you need him. Always has time to talk if you want to talk." I know," I said.. Shit she told me that’s about all she ever thought about.’ ‘I think of it as my slut period. Anyway, you didn’t seem to mind, so … anyways that Labor Day offered us our first three day weekend, and while driving to Hartford all this lunk could think about–so he says anyways–was how to get rid of my roomie. ‘Now I gotta tell ya Joanna was my closest friend in high school. By the way, she’s very cute and she’s Asian—American with a tight, athletic build. The three of us got along all right, but. Now with her pregnancy, it had blossomed into an even more stressful event.Helen was flying in on Wednesday night. Connie thought it best that she pick up Helen at the airport by herself, take her home, catch up, and she could tell her about our training, the race, and our relationship. And I would come over for Thanksgiving dinner and we would tell her the rest together.----Helen’s flight was hours late, she finally landed after midnight. Helen was burned out and she and Connie didn’t have. The men who would be men instead of some shallow imitation of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible IV, addicted to mirrors. She like to say she lived in Saint Louis, but the truth was, she was a small fish, in an even smaller pond. She lived in Wildwood Missouri, and worked in a slightly larger bedroom community called Clayton, which is just outside of Saint Louis. She was three years out of Law School, after graduating Cum Laude from the University of Illinois, with a dismal future ahead of her. .