It was so many years ago when I first met her, but almost like yesterday. Charlene, the love of my life, dominated my thoughts deep into the night and early morning hours. After six and a half years, I still grieved like a lost puppy missing its mom. Insomnia can be dreadful, incurable in some cases, I suppose. Married sixty-three years, Charlene left me looking as beautiful as the day she stepped into my life on her way home from high school to say hello to Onalee, her next-door girlfriend. I didn't need a dictionary to define the word. But I did have two days, the boyfriend's away, and better yet, she's right next door, probably long overdue for a fun weekend. "Guess she's unavailable, Jack," Onalee said after Charlene had left. Unavailable?

My sleeping girlfriend, always a late riser, hadn't moved. I checked the digital clock, grimaced, then resumed my trek down memory lane.