She should have the baby sometime in the first half of June, as we calculated last Fall.”“And Yaroslav Romanovich?” I asked.“Has come to dinne... three times, and is at the house this evening. I expect he will ask for her hand so they can marry before the baby is born.”“There won’t be much of a honeymoon!” I chuckled.“You are TERRIBLE, Mishka!”“But it’s true! And they have to wait until after Pascha, because neither the betrothal nor the wedding can be done during a fasting period.”“I would guess. Our afternoons were spent taking walks in the wooded hills behind our houses, listening to AM stations on our transistor radios, and laying under the trees making up stories and rhymes or just contemplating our place in the world. Two teenage girls completely free and young, just goofing around and looking forward to our lives after graduation. It was a memorable summer and the hills and the trees were our sanctuary. Our friendship was a chrysalis, about to become more.“Do you ever wonder. He thought when Rena brought him here that this was his neighbors coming together behind him and were celebrating his release from incarceration.After lunch Mary, myself, and the four other couples were asked to adjourn to a living room. This was the room where Max had shown the men the film of Mary's rape and they were decidedly nervous. When everyone found comfortable seats, Max said, "Something happened after the Christmas party that needs to be brought out into the open. Dirk's wife Mary. .. about sex with me. You called me your 'groupie, ' just then."Her remark alarmed me. "But I didn't mean any disrespect, Juni. I'm sorry if I..." No! No, you don't understand!" she said. "I'm not offended. Not at all ... I'm just saying, you've always been so careful never to allude to my having been, you know -- the way I am. Or the way I was." There wasn't any reason to throw it up to you, Babe. Not when we were doing so well. God, I think it's been so great, the way we've been, the way it's.