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Chris stayed close at my side He released my hand to put his arm around my shoulders "Dr and Mrs Christopher Sheffield," he introduced us in his kindly way, "and you?"

The wizened old ht hand and shake Chris's strong, tanned one His thin old lips wore a cynical, crooked smile that duplicated the cock of one bushy eyebrow "My pleasure to meet you, Dr Sheffield"

I couldn't take my eyes off that bent oldabout his s hair with broad streaks of silver, those eyes with startling dark lashes Daddy!

He looked as our father ht have looked if he'd lived to be as old as this h every torment known to mankind

My daddy, my beloved handsome father who'd been the joy of ain some day

The stringy old hand was grasped firmly by Chris, and only then did the old -lost uncle as, ostensibly, lost in the Swiss Alps fifty-seven years ago"

Joel Foxworth

Quickly Chris said all the right words to cover the shock that obviously showed

on both our faces "You've startled my wife," he politely explained "You see, her maiden name was Foxworthand she has believed until now that all her maternal family was dead"

Several small, crooked smiles fleeted like shadows on "Uncle Joel's" face before he pasted on the benign, pious look of the sublimely pure in heart "I understand," said the old man in his whispery voice that sounded like a faint wind rustling unpleasantly in dead, fallen leaves

Deep in Joel's watery cerulean eyes lingered shadows, dark, troubled shadows I kneithout speaking that Chris would tell ain

No shadows, no shadows, no shadowsbut those I created myself

To lift myself above my suspicions of this old man who claiazed with interest around the foyer that had often been used as a ballroom I heard the wind pick up velocity as the thunderclaps drew ever closer and closer together, indicating the storm was almost directly overhead

Oh, sigh for the day when I'd been twelve and stared out at the rain, wanting to dance in this ballroom with the man as my mother's second husband and would later be the father of my second son, Bart

Sigh for all that I'd been then, so young and full of faith, so hopeful that the world was a beautiful and benign place