"It seemed like the end. Of everything. Of my life. Of my desires. There was a finality to the hug Richard gave Shari. And I just couldn't believe my eyes." Marie lifted her head. Her flowing gray hair covered her shoulders. "Looking back, you'd think knowing the money was still there would have made me a happy woman, regardless of Richard's affections, but it didn't. It didn't make anything at all better. I think that's when I finally realized it never had, never would, and never could have."

Marie bent from the chair she sat in, and picked up a pile of news clippings from a battered trunk at her side. The stack of papers fluttered in the breeze that blew across a prairie of tall grass that stretched below a magnificent mountain range in the distance.

Next to her chair, a distinguished young man in his forties leaned up against the grainy wood of a log cabin. His arms folded comfortably, he looked down at the pages in Marie's hand. She offered them to him, and he took the pile. Leafing through the headlines, blurbs, articles, and stopping at one that grabbed his attention. Marie could see the pain in his eyes. If getting up weren't such a chore anymore, she would have jumped up and hugged him. Poor fellow. She was sure this man had no idea when she'd called him out to meet with her, that he would be privileged to hear the life story, and confessions of a mad old woman. It wasn't a lawyer's job, but he handled it well.