Much to Tom's surprise, it was Gail who started a conversation he had been rehearsing all day. Tom never expected this conversation so soon. He figured maybe when they were back at home for a few days, so he was taken aback and unready for such serious talk. But, Gail brought it up.

"Tom, I need to tell you how sorry I am for the way I acted the past few days. I didn't know what hit me but I had a lot of time to think about it and realize I'm jealous. Remember how during the summer my dad and mother always took a week off on their boat by themselves? Mom always said it was a great time for them. It was as though they had run away. That's the way I've been feeling that we should run away once in a while"

"Yes, but you ruined that for them one year when they had their boat on Block Island, You did get jealous, and made believe it was just a day trip to surprise them. We took the ferry from the mainland and joined them with the three kids. I think it was a shock to them, but they really made us feel comfortable and we stayed aboard with them for a few days."

"Tom, that was a long time ago and we only had the two boys at the time and my father was always glad to spend time with them."

"Gail, we ruined their runaways after that year. They never went off without some of their kids, relatives or friends with them." Tom continued. "Somehow or other there were always people with them except when they took that cruise for their twenty-fifth anniversary."

"Mom was a little disappointed by the ship, I think she had a more luxurious type in mind. It was February and the weather was awful. Just remember what a disaster that cruise turned out to be?"

"Yes, they could have died when that rogue wave hit the ship they were really lucky. But they had a good time anyway."

"In a way I'm still jealous. We just had our twenty-fifth and couldn't get away. Too much paperwork to get the boys registered for college, and it costs a ton of money.

Allison's parochial school tuition is not much, but she will be graduating soon, and we'll have another college kid to worry about. I think we'll never be able to afford a real vacation."

"We don't have a real life of our own anymore. Remember when we used to go down to Second Beach in Newport, spend the days on the rocks, and run through the surf. We sure didn't have a care in the world. How did we get bogged down with all this responsibility?"

"Good question," answered Gail, "We were teenagers and now we're grown-ups. We got married, we both worked hard, bought our house, had kids, bought cars, made the house bigger, the kids got sick from time to time, I had an operation, and we had to take care of all those animals. And our circle of friends kept getting larger. Then there are our families, you know how close I am with my sisters and brother. You only have your brother who we don't see too often, his two children will probably be getting married soon, and our extended family will just keep getting larger."

"Gail, we are still working hard, maybe harder since the boys started college. It's not family responsibility that comes between us. You're forgetting that your high-powered job not only keeps you away from home a lot, and you really work more hours a day than I do. Also you make so much more money than I do that you are the main breadwinner. Not that I'm complaining, but sometimes it just seems as though it doesn't matter if I work or not."

"Tom, you're wrong! It's your income that puts us over the top. We seem to spend every cent I earn, and it's your earnings that give us a really good life. I realized how important your income was when you were sick last year and couldn't work for six months."

"Sick? I wasn't 'sick' I had a 'little' stroke.'" That is worse than just being sick. I don't know if or when it could happen again, and it changes the way I think about things. Life is so tenuous. We never know what will come next. Before we know it, both our