And some small gnarled place inside me hated her for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put us through. I had taken a step back from my mother, put up a wall to protect myself from needing her, and nothing was ever the same between us again.

I drink in his wholeness, the soudness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks.

The numbness of his loss had passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, racking my body with sobs. Where are you? I would cry out in my mind. Where have you gone? Of course, there was never any answer.

I stare at the mirror as I try to remember who I am and who I am not.

And to us, we're more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us.

That it's no good loving me because I'm never going to get married anyway and he'd just end up hating me later instead of sooner.

That seems to be crossing some kind of line," I say. :So anything goes?" They both stare at me- Beetee with doubt, Gale with hostility. "I guess there isn't a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being.