Jennifer stopped and looked straight at me. She was horrified. "Someone shot their dog? Who would do a thing like that? What kind of animal shoots a f...amily's dog?"After kissing Jennifer and promising that I'd think about a partnership, I headed downtown. I had some restaurant business to take care of. After riding on the freeway and in to the city for about five blocks, I arrived at my destination. I rolled up to the back of the "The Chicken's Lips" and walked in through the kitchen. Waving to. We hurt each other, and no matter what, even if the wounds heal, the scars will be there forever. Just like the ones from her accident.”“Are you spending the night with her tonight?”“No, because I need to be up early tomorrow for church, and Jocelyn’s family goes to church, too. Probably Monday night, because you and I are having dinner at Tasha’s tomorrow.”“When are you going to tell her dad the bad news?”“Tasha will tell him once she’s settled in McKinley. How did you know?”“You’ve been on. The Christmas Eve event faded into a nonevent. No-one got hurt so ‘no harm, no foul.’ Dad continued to go out to his favorite watering hole to discuss the latest national or international crisis. It was so easy to blame this group or that. After all, with global events it’s always a ‘them’ that is to blame. To those in the bar, placing the blame was the most important thing. Never was there a mention of what THEY could do to make life better. Dad never noticed what Mom was doing. She was just. Neither would win any beauty or body-builder contests, but both were good athletes at their school. The girls had been "going" with them for about a year now. Nothing serious, except to them. The boys had tried to fool around with them, but it never amounted to more than some mild french- kissing and heavy breathing. Clearly, the boys were not as "worldly" as they would like one to believe. But they were nice kids."Say, who was that guy we saw running away from here? It looked like he was still.