After swimming and enjoying the water for a while, they lay on their blanket soaking in the afternoon sun shining down on them. Late afternoon, they ...ather their things and head back to the van. Emma goes to make their bed as she did a year ago and is surprised to see a much thicker mattress than that thin rubber thing from a year before. She smiles a bit, somewhat missing that thin mat with humor. But Emma is both amused and grateful that Donald saw fit to get a thicker pad for under them. Shortly after holding the green button, I materialized on the other side of the road from my current home. It was around 10 am in the morning. I edged the white lever ahead until I saw myself emerge from the house and rapidly walk down the road towards the bus stop, a routine that I had followed for many years to be at work by noon.I slowed the motion down until I saw a man walk down the sidewalk and then take the path to my front door. He knocked and my wife came to the door and let him in. I. He did his best to put those images out of my mind and just concentrate on her but it did rile him up and he was after her more than usual for a while. Those images, especially the recent ones, kept popping up and he remembered fucking her in their stuff.They seemed to be settling back in to their relationship when the next surprise occurred. He came home one evening from work and she was sobbing and pretty drunk. He got a tall glass of whiskey on the rocks and sat down across the kitchen table. We looked into each other's eyes for a second and she smiled and said, 'Hello.' "So of course I said, 'Hello.' She made a little small talk about me being new there, and I made small talk back, and the whole time I stared into her eyes and then looked away, but each time I looked back, she was looking at my face and smiling, except one time I saw her looking at my fingernails." She looked at me with a smile and said, "Always a good sign, and of course I'd made sure to cut them very short the.