"Kathleen, but I get called Kath." I nodded and said. "Mine's Jim, perhaps you would let me get you a drink?" She sort of looked at me and said, "Pret...y forward aren't you!" I laughed. "My days of doing the mating dance are long gone, now it's just being simple and see where it takes me." She laughed, but returned to her friends. Later as the bar was emptying, and I was just about to leave, I felt a hand on my arm. "Leaving so soon?"...." Don't you like a coffee Jim?"I swallowed my last drink. Her father died six months before the anomaly would return. During the ceremony of succession Tex was named a Consort. All began to treat him as royalty, although most people had been doing so for years but there was now a touch of ceremony with it. When the anomaly reappeared Tex had approached it and was sure he could navigate into it but could only hope Earth was at the other end. The space station crew had documented that the wrinkle stayed stable for thirty days. Tex had decided to go on. You have a nicetime; you deserve a night with your friends. Just relax and don't youworry he's a big boy he'll cope!" Well, well, well" Sarah then said as she switched my phone off andplacing it on the side. "Sound like your lovely Jen won't be cominghome tonight and then she's going straight into a double shift!"She smiled, adding "And there I was about to send you home to change.Looks like you're now going to be all mine until Wednesday night, my,my..." she smiled. "...that gives us two more. She barely slept that night, and when she answered the call for breakfast from their old housekeeper, her long-suppressed, deep-sitting resentment against her husband was nearing the boiling point. Sure enough, when she joined him at the breakfast table he was already nursing on that accursed medicine bottle. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. With newly found resolution Priscilla snatched the bottle from his hands."That's enough! You are drinking away your estate and our livelihood..