One of the women at the firm where his wife worked, had gone on maternity leave. Management had distributed her work among the other employees, with t...e result that there was more work than could be done in a work day. If that wasn’t bad enough, another of the people had a heart attack. His workload had been distributed around, also. The end result was that Janet was working most nights until nine.His son came home from school and locked himself in his room with his game box. He came out at six. As any good university student, I had learned to rationalize everything I couldn’t explain right away, thus stripping it of its mystique and danger. Or so I tried to convince myself. The pond was almost a perfect circle, ringed by a dense, red-green mat of moss. Tufts of the crimson carpet had torn itself loose and was floating lazily along the edges of the water, looking like the filthy hair of whatever skulked beneath the surface. Sorry excuses for saplings tried to eek out a living amid the. Delores was staring straight ahead."Delores, where are we?"She turned her head, but didn't say anything. I put my hand on her shoulder, and squeezed lightly. She moved over a couple of inches, giving me access to her neck. I massaged her neck and shoulders for a minute or two. She turned her head, enjoying the way I was making her feel."Can you tell me how to get to your house?"She pointed, and I drove. She pointed which way to turn, but she didn't speak. Even when I parked next to her car, she. The decorating and artwork throughout the home was spectacular. Sheila explained that KC, one of the women in the ‘family’ had done many of the paintings.Another floor up, Sheila led them to a balcony that overlooked the pool, backyard, meadow, and down a slope to where a small river crossed the property. She explained, “We go skinny-dipping in the river most of the year. We can float along on tubes for over a mile before we have to get out and walk back unless we left a golf cart for.