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“Perhaps he needed a diversion out there in that desert Maybe he needed to be distracted from the fact that he was so far away fro to support a wife he hadn’t planned on”

Julia could only blink at the venones’s voice There was no way Julia could battle a e of her dead perfect son

“Perhaps, you’re right,” she lied in a vain atte unstable towers for her son

Agnes left the roo the door behind her Julia shut her eyes as the vacancy surrounded her It seenes had sucked all the vitality from the room with her blind defense of a man who didn’t deserve it Julia’s heart felt too heavy to be borne

The one person ould understand the burden of Mitch’s ed to talk to, refused to see her

AMANDA CAME BY Jesse’s house on Wednesday afternoon Again It had been a littlein after church and after school She was like lice Lice that never shut up

Oddly enough, when she wasn’t there, however, he missed her

“So, Uncle Jesse?”

“Yes, Niece Amanda?”

They were in his backyard cleaning up the last of the old roof He’d stripped it of the ruined shingles and it was now ready for new ones He’d worked hied to take the painkillers only every other night

“Considering I’ve been workingpaid…” she said

He smiled

“I think it’s ti to reimburse me for my efforts”

“No interview, Amanda”

“Okay, we can talk about so else”

He looked at her over his shoulder “No more stories about your friends’ love lives I can’t take any more”

“Fine” She arched one eyebrow and picked up a shingle “But there have been so developments between Christie and—”

“Enough!” he cried

“How about you tell me about your love life”

He shook his head

“Well, I heard that when you were in high school—”