Andrea Blewett lay on her back in the big double bed in her Lawson Street home, wishing her ex-husband were lying beside her.   Then she coloured from anger and thought, ‘No, I don’t, he’s a wimp.   I’m better off without Terry.   It’s bad enough he let Fanny Ross steal his rightful job of sergeant of police at the Glen.   But then to forgive him and accept him as a mate.   Huh, what a wimp!’

Though they had separated in 1986 and divorced in May 1996, more than nine years later, in September 2005, Andrea still missed her handsome ex-husband.   Although her fiery Italian blood refused to let her admit it — even to herself.   Except on the loneliest and longest spring nights.

Andrea had dated on rare occasions over the last thirteen years, but never seriously.   And her strict Catholic upbringing had prevented her from having even one-night stands.   But her main regret was never having had children.   At forty-eight, nearly forty-nine, she knew that it was unlikely that she could successfully carry a child to gestation, even if she was to remarry.

“And it’s all your fault, Terry!” she said aloud.   But then she started to wonder if it really was.   ‘Have I been too harsh on you, Terry?’ she thought, for the first time since they had separated thirteen years ago.   She knew her ex-husband still loved her and had hardly dated (if at all) since their separation.

‘Maybe it was partly my fault after all,’ she thought, listening to the rain as it started to fall on the corrugated-iron roof.   ‘Late in the year for rain?’ she thought.   ‘Still, the farmers won’t be complaining.’

She listened to the rain and watched as lightning flashed outside her bedroom window for a moment, then she smiled and thought, ‘Maybe I’ll call Terry tomorrow, just to say hello?   Maybe we can meet for dinner and a few drinks, or something?’

She blushed like a schoolgirl contemplating her first date and realised that it would be her first date in two or three years.   “Who knows…?” she said aloud, not daring to even finish the thought that they might even get back together again after so many years apart.   Might even remarry after so many lonely years.