They just could not understand that we were no longer in love, but we were still married and that Daria was telling me to ‘date’. I did date a cou...le of women and was completely honest with them, about my ‘situation’. They were of course dubious, at first. However, once they saw things with Daria and I with their own eyes, they accepted and even kind of understood the ludicrous, platonic marriage I was in. In fact, Daria met all the women I dated seriously. On occasion, we even all had dinner. The hard soles of mybaby mary-janes give out on me and I crash to my knees and then to mychest. My hand is on the zipper of the bag. I pull it away from him. I'mnot even letting him pull that thing out of the bag. No!Owens frowns at me."Baby-baby-baby..." he coos. "There's something every daddy has..." hereasons."No!" I don't know if I actually paused at any point. I think I've beenscreaming it since the moment I spotted it.I pull the bag towards me. Stewart is crying. Jenny is screaming.. I was impressed."Becky sweetie," Ken said, "Don't go out on the deck this week bare-footed, okay? It still needs to be finished." It looks finished," Becky countered."Not that kind of finished," said Ken brightly, "I need to put finishing on it. That means I need to treat the wood to make it smooth and protect it from the rain. But first I need to let the wood breath for a few days."The following weekend didn't look to be fun, at all. He was covered in dust from the sanding and the mask, for. The woman seemed very nervous; he watched her stutter as she looked up to her waitress and gave her order. Strange, that. There was something familiar about her blandly pretty face, but nothing he could put his finger on. She certainly wasn't one of the secretaries from his office.His meal arrived and he made short shrift of it. He was hungrier than he had thought and was halfway through his second glass of tea when he cleaned the last of his plate. His stomach grumbled at him, and he decided.