“What’s on your mind?”“Well, I called to see what you were up to later,” she said. “I was hoping we could talk now that things have cooled...down a little.”“Jane and I were just going to have a quiet night in,” I told her truthfully.There was a moment of silence from the other end of the phone before she recovered her equilibrium. “Does that mean you’d rather I not interrupt you?” she asked tentatively.“I’ll ask her if she wants to talk to you tonight or if she’d rather pick another time,” I. . he sounds like he is ill,” he said to mom.“Richard, we went to the same college, in case you don’t remember?” Mom said to back to him.“That was over 20 years ago,” he said back to her.“That doesn’t make it a bad idea!” she said in a way that made her point and was also the end of the discussion.“Do we know her?” He said dishing himself s second helping of meatballs on his spaghetti. Damn, he eats faster than I do!“I want to surprise you both, Mary knows, but plans to keep it to herself, won’t. “What! a bit of sex, a bit of fun, crikey we’re not going to announce it to the world, just have a quick shag each and see how we feel,” Mandy argued.“Do you want Andrew to screw you then?”“I fancy a change, who doesn’t. I’d rather it was an 18 year old Greek lad who would shag me all night, but I don’t think that is going to happen and anyway it might spice up all our sex lives.”“But how would we even start it, see if the men were up for it?”“Leave that to me,” Mandy said.That evening the four. ’ ‘I understand,’ he said making it easier for me, ‘I’m much older so I’m going to die.’ This blunt assertion made me even worse. I sobbed and held him so tightly it hurt. ‘Don’t say that, don’t say that.’ ‘But Lena, sweetheart, we all die. We have to take what today offers us, tomorrow’s another day. Everybody who loves another has to face the idea of being alone again. We both have our demons. I worry that you’ll find a nice young man and leave me, you worry I’ll kick the bucket. We should.