" Sophie rested a hand on his shoulder, with surprising warmth. "Same thing."Dunfermline, Fife, December 10thGabriel scrolled through the detailed rep...rts at the table, while Sophie and Caerys sipped gently at their soup and stared across the broad expanse of the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh clustered low on the far bank in the shadow of the mountains."It's not like real mountains," Caerys observed. "Mount Hood's huge compared to those, especially if you sit on a boat on Trillium Lake." You. “Yes.”Three games later, I’d had it, literally. I made it to deuce with her exactly once. The scores were brutal. When it was over I dragged myself to the net to shake hands with Alejandra, who seemed to have barely worked up a sweat despite the afternoon heat.We each grabbed a bottle of water as we walked back to her parents’ table.“So, you’ve played a lot, Alejandra?”“Yeah. Some.”That turned out to be the understatement of the year. I laughed, even if it was kind of a rueful laugh.“Some?. In less than three months Weather would be gone. I was afraid of her leaving. I stared at her working quietly, already feeling the sorrow of her departure, the melancholy of being alone again. I so loved her I couldn't imagine life without her. But, like a recurring nightmare, it was going to happen. Like it or not Weather would leave me and I was going to do absolutely nothing to stop her."Eíste chtypitós." Huh?"Weather looked up at me and smiled. "I said you're staring." I know that. I'm not.. It had all seemed so simplethen; now, it was like reading Greek.Mimi assured me it was no problem; probably just "writer's block" orsome such. Since the programs essentially ran themselves, Mimiconvinced me to just leave it alone for a while and concentrate on someof the less-demanding clerical duties she needed to have performed. Ibegan answering her phone calls, typing up her correspondence,scheduling her meetings, making reservations for business lunches,dinners, and travel, receiving.