" Now wait a minute, you never mentioned anything about..." my mother replied boldly before being cut off."...I didn't. But you knew what this was abo...t when you brought your son here. And let's not forget how much I'm paying you and helping you with my connections. Now start unbuttoning your shirt, we wouldn't want your son to wait any longer."She looked defeated as she held her head down for a moment and slowly began undoing the top buttons on her shirt as the camera kept clicking away. I. The sun was hot on her bare shoulders, the breeze cool on her cheeks. She actually felt better, almost human again.Nick was sitting next to her, drowning french fries in ketchup and munching on them."So," he started, keeping his tone of voice light despite the feeling of dread he couldn't quite bury."So, what?" She reached out and rescued one of his fries from the red ocean of ketchup and nibbled on it."You still going to respect me when I'm soaping bumpers at the car wash?" He bit into the. Her eyes met mine and I kissed her forehead again. She hugged me closer. “I love you Matt. Thank you.” She gently pecked my lips and lay her head down on my shoulder, my arm encompassing her, holding her body close to mine. “I love you too Kassie, I always will.” I felt her twitch next to me, shifting again, moving closer to me until she kissed me again, on the lips, more insistently this time. “I just realized Matt. I trust you,” she kissed me. “You protect me,” she kissed me again. “I love. Uncle Milton was a veterinarian par excellence. His specialty was fixing up exotic animals with rare diseases. He worked for some animal conservation group and was always flying to Africa or Borneo or somewhere else exotic. He always joked that it was OK for a lion to eat a gnu, but let one stub his toe and he'd be off on the next plane. And let some native or hunter be involved with it and they'd take a whole planeload of conservationists over.Uncle Milton was Mom's baby brother, and she.