North

"You really mean that, don't you?"

"I do." Then we laughed at my response. It was too much like a wedding response. "Look, you can get work down there, and I'll have my unemployment. It's almost enough to live on for me. You were through with Watson Lake anyway. What do you have to lose?"

She smiled and used another napkin to wipe her face off. I liked it that she didn't wear makeup. She had no need anyway. "All I could do is wait tables or something else that pays minimum wage. I never went to university."

"I went, but it didn't take. That doesn't matter." She sat up and squared her shoulders. I knew she'd decided. Then she got a crooked grin on her lips.

"You don't know about my kinky side, Don. I can get pretty wild."

"Hey, as long as it's consensual, I couldn't care less." My mind took a flip and I wondered how wild she meant to get. "For that matter, I like some things we haven't tried together." She laughed.

"Yeah, well I can guess, what with the way you like your nipples treated." She hadn't seen the waitress approaching with fresh coffee. There was no way the woman hadn't heard her comment. She cut her eyes sideways at me as she poured. I just smiled back. Her cheeks flushed.

So that was what we did. When we got to Seattle we stayed with my brother a day and a night. Like me, she said she thought he was "a little tight-assed". Three days later we were in Tucson. We spent the winter there in the sun, wearing shorts while the locals wore parkas. We fell in love – hard. Marjorie almost stopped drinking, though we did have some great times boozing it up. By the time April rolled around we were too close to break the bond.

She returned with me to Alaska. She'd gotten a green card when we hit Arizona and worked shifts at a restaurant. They'd made her the hostess before she left. In Alaska, she went to work at the same place Sherry had worked and I went back on the boat. Together, we made enough money to make a start on the house I'd designed with her help. When we left the following September, the foundation and the exterior walls were up. By the next year's end we were living comfortably in our home.

We never got married but we were together for the next twenty years. We'd still be together if Marjorie hadn't come up with lung cancer. She didn't smoke. While we were together I took pains to leave the house to smoke. After she died I quit.

As I write this I'm sitting in our living room, gazing out at the snow falling. It's October again and the Halloween party is tomorrow night. It will be the first time I've attended since Marjie died. She's been gone almost five years now. I guess I'll never stop missing her. Rebel's been gone ten years now and I finally got another puppy. She's a cute little fuzz ball and I named her Marjie. I think Marjorie would be pleased.