"Is it getting serious?" she asked."No." Three nights in a row sounds serious to me." This is not a night. It's an afternoon swim and dinner. She has ...a date," I said, already planning to call Loretta as soon as I got a look at Kelley's date."Would you like to bring her to dinner tomorrow night? We'll eat in the dining room and I'm sure you want to see Judge Slocum and meet my brothers." I'll see if she's free," I answered, thinking of my back-up choice and what a hit Loretta would make with the. However, I do remember his threat thatI would lose my life that night, and I think I remember a part of hisrhyming going something like, "You shall lose all that you hold dear, anew life to gain every year..." Of course I had shrugged off that nonsense as the rantings of acrazy old man, though soon discovered that those very rantings weren'tquite as much nonsense as I had believed. Unfortunately, I discoveredthis far too late. I had been in the middle of the party with my friends when thestroke. . Mommy...LIZ: Breathe, sweetie. While I was going out of my mind with pleasure,my hand rested on top of your belly... and drifted down to find yourlittle "trouble maker"... mmmm... and then... oooo... we lost allcontrol!--------------------------------------------------JESS: I think didn't leave the house for days! We couldn't keep ourpretty hands off each other. Each kiss, each caress. I learned how touse my fingers and tongue to make Mom squeal and cry out in severaloctaves!LIZ: Hey -. T... t...two other times. But not this bad." I was having a hard time talkingabout it. "I'm sorry this is so hard." I began to cry."I know, but I need to know." She sounded concerned. "This is anemotional thing for you, isn't it?" Yes, and I don't know why." I was trying hard not to cry. But it wasgetting really hard to talk without crying. I reached under my pillowand grabbed my journal and handed it to her. "Here, I don't know if Ican talk right now, it's all in here anyway."It took her about.