“Yes, Barbara.”“We’re preparing to leave and we need to know what to do about the three husbands in the brig.”“Barbara, please have them b...ought to me on the dock. Keep their hands and feet free, but we need a couple of armed guards to keep them from doing something stupid.”“I’ll get Zeke right on it.”A few minutes later Zeke and one of Marion’s men brought the three prisoners to the dock. “Gentlemen, I try to keep my promises. If you top the hill turn right and follow the river. Alexandria is. It couldn't hurt to have some nice wheels to impress the masses, I thought. -=*=-Saturday night arrived and as I'd hoped Jody was happy to drive us over to Andrea's. And as I'd also hoped we made a pretty good entrance, impressing the very people I had hoped to. So everything was working as planned. That is until Jody met Andrea. Fuck I should have known. He had her eating out of his hand right away. He even gave her a ride in his shiny new car. Just down around the block to get some ice, but. .. Have you tried his office? ... No idea. Okay. Bye again, Mom."She unplugged the phone from the wall. "She sounds desperate, Daddy."Mandy picked up the narrative. "When she called us yesterday, she said you were having some 'problems.' I asked her if Dad had finally twigged to her fucking around all day, or if he was pissed when he found out that we weren't really his daughters. That shut her up, let me tell you."I had reached for my glass of OJ and nearly dropped it on the table. I did. On the bed, beneath piles of woolen blankets, lay his father. The man’s skin had lost much of the normal fairness that a Solar possessed. Instead it looked grey. A bit like a smear of porridge made from too coarse a grain. His eyes were sunken and closed and he lay so deep in the bed that it almost appeared to be swallowing him. The symptoms had all pointed to a disease of some sort. Nobody had managed to figure out which. Even Eldrian had poured over their books and others, matching.