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" 'Do you fully understand the risk, Quinn?' asked Dr Winn

" 'I do, sir,' I replied

"It was hard for me to look at the needle in the back of her hand, at the redness of her skin and the tape that overlay it, but I felt I had to, I had to experience it with her as best I could, andto the plastic sack of clear liquid which hung from its metallic hook at the top At soenerated nuer machine sat near, ready for some more complex connection, but fortunately none seemed to be needed just now

"There were so many questions I wanted to ask Dr Winn Mayfair, but it wasn't my place to do it, and so I had to rely on Mona's assertion that her condition was indeed stable and I knew that I had to leave her the nextwith her word that Aunt Queen's health hat mattered at this juncture in my life

"Within moments after the doctor had left ere in each other's ar her with all the dra heronly to pleasure her as she pleasured me

"It was a long night of tender kissing and love, and the quilts probably bear their testimony to this time

"Dawn had coht over the city, before I said my farewell to Mona, and if anyone had told ain -- this soft, drowsy child aloriously disheveled hair -- I wouldn't have believed it But then there were s I would not have believed then

"And there were ood times to come

"I went straight from her hospital room, where I left her sleepy and beautiful and fresh as the flowers all around her in their moist baskets, to obtain the airline tickets, and fro Tommy's passport, where Aunt Queen and I were both able to 'claim that we knew him as Tommy Blackwood,' and then ere on our way by plane to Newark, with Goblin strong and visible and in his own expensive first-class seat, and from Nee flew out to Rome "

Chapter35

35

"WHO CAN SAY how different ht have been had I known that ould be gone on our European odyssey for a full three years?

"No one a, and indeed it was the spirit of livingAunt Queen's blood pressure and general stamina with her favorite physicians of Paris, Rome, Zurich and London -- as we roved ever back and forth through the castles, museums, cathedrals and cities that Aunt Queen showed me with such love and enthusiasm, and with Nash's wise instruction fro sti to Aunt Queen's desire to travel 'a few reat and grand 'ruin' that I should 'never forget ¡¯

"Aunt Queen's health was failing, there was no doubt of it, or, to put ittoo old to do what she was doing, and that is what she would scarcely face

"Cindy, our delightful nurse, was sent for and came to travel with us, which put everyone's ns and administer appropriate pills at appropriate hours, and also she was of that congenial brand of nurse who does notwith all sorts of personal tasks, and so became Aunt Queen's secretary as well