As the evening grew chilly we all moved indoors. As ever I headed to the sofa close to the window expecting Sue to join me and D to take the armchair....Much to my surprise though Sue sat down at the other end and D plonked herself down between us. ‘Mum wants a cuddle Mark so let’s all snuggle up close, chat and listen to the music.’ I really didn’t know what to do to be honest and so another embarrassed silence ensued. We were all in shorts and button up tops and earlier I noticed neither of the. That was a relief. One of the few girls I'd managed toget past a first date with had a large barbell style stud in her tongue,and while things never progressed to the point where I got to feel itused on me, she'd only recently gotten it and it clearly affected herspeech, making her sound rather stupid.I hadn't noticed a small pile of black clothes that Simone had put onthe counter when she had come back downstairs. She pulled me out of thestyling chair, pointed at the clothes, told me to get. A sudden knocking on the stall door had me jumping with a squeak ofsurprise and the energy knife vanished from my hand. "Honey?" I heardfrom the other side of the door. "Are you alright? You've been in therea while now." I'm fine," I said and couldn't quite keep the tremor of emotion out ofmy voice. "Thank you."My answer seemed to appease the anonymous woman since I heard her heelsclick away and out the door of the restroom. Considering even I couldhear how unsure my voice was I guessed she had. It had gotten to a point where she really wasn’t sure how she felt any more. Before James had left he had been the hub around which her life revolved, but now after two months of living without him, what she had now seemed better than what she had when he was there; in the same way that married life had been better than life on the farm Could she still have the best of both worlds, she wondered?Another two weeks went by; Gareth had been over for Sunday lunch a few more times since the first.