Chapter 25

“Guess I better start finding your girl then, huh ... finish what she started...”

Dani was determined to find Leslie, my high school crush, Leslie Simonton, that I was sure was the girl with her that night she’d tied me to the chair in my dream ... as Dani said, to ‘finish what she’d started’ that night.

We went up to our bedroom, Dani with her laptop in hand. She leaned back against the headboard with her computer in her lap, making no effort to cover herself, naked tits rising and falling with each breath, her nipples slightly upturned. Dani seemed so different after my coma, everything about her turned me on, like we were newlyweds again, except so much better.

Watching Dani, knowing what she was doing, trying to track down a girl, for me, felt like I’d imagine a drug high might feel.

“What makes you think she might be interested if you do find her?” I asked her.

She looked over at me, “How many things from your dream have turned out to be real? she asked back to me.

She had a point, so much, so many ‘coincidences’. We spent the next several minutes talking about just the things we’d discovered so far: Alan’s truck and mattress; the similarities between Marci and the Dani of my dreams; the black negligee; all the things about Tampa that I couldn’t have known.

There were others, too, things I hadn’t even mentioned to Dani; Rebekka, and the ‘Rose Petal Peach’ lipstick, and the list went on, just those that I’d realized so far. Betty, I was almost certain there was much more to her than had been revealed so far – that hug had been much more than just a ‘glad you’re okay’ hug.

“Do you remember me telling you anything about her in your dream?” Dani asked. This conversation was so weird, talking to Dani about a dream as if the events had actually happened. “Only that I knew her, that I dealt with her...” and something else that I’d forgotten, “she was small.” I suddenly felt the blood draining from my head, nearly causing me to pass out, “Leslie...” I could barely speak, looking straight at Dani, “I didn’t know who she was ... In my mind, I called her ... Leslie.”

Dani just stared at me, her mouth dropping open. Finally, “Leslie, you called her Leslie?”

I nodded, in disbelief at what I’d just remembered. Then I scrambled up, ran back downstairs, and retrieved the yearbook, bringing it back to bed with me. This time my hands were shaking when I opened it back up to her picture. Could this actually be the picture of the woman who fucked me that night? Whose tit I had in my mouth? She was small, Leslie is small, or at least she was thirty years ago. No way in hell that could have been a coincidence!

Hell, she might be a hugely overweight behemoth, rolling in fat by now. But no, she wasn’t, I knew. It was her that night, but why? Where and how had she come into the picture of my mind? I don’t remember ‘knowing’ her, at least not in the last thirty-plus years since high school. Dani said in my dream that I ‘knew’ her. Even after what Dani and I had just done downstairs, I felt my dick growing. Dani was my first, last, and only sex partner. I know that my coma-fed imagination had led me down that path, but no matter how real that had seemed, it wasn’t.

“If you find her?” I said, mostly to myself, barely loud enough for Dani to hear. Was it even possible that I might...? I couldn’t even finish the thought, it just seemed so outlandish.

“I don’t know,” she said, the reality of it suddenly looming much more likely. “Let me find her, then we’ll try to figure out what’s next.”

Dani looked into my eyes, “But...” she said, “I want this to happen.”

I shuddered with the intensity of Dani’s words. Suddenly, it did seem possible.

It was already past eleven, we’d had a long day, not to even mention that trip home and the fuck in the living room. I wondered about that, Dani and I had always ‘made love’, we didn’t ‘fuck’. It had always been that way, even before we married. Now, since I’d awakened from the coma, it was so different. It seemed that nearly every time, we fucked with an urgency that had never existed before, with extreme orgasms that we’d never experienced before, either of us. Feeling her spasms around my cock was a totally new experience and wow, just fucking wow!

Not that I was complaining, far from it. Neither was Dani. I just didn’t understand. We’d never even roleplayed before, either. It seemed that Alan Ryder and now Leslie Simonton, people neither of us had seen since high school, were having a major impact, changing our lives completely.

Dani said she had to go to sleep, and so did I. Except, I couldn’t, I must have lain awake until at least three in the morning, so many things going through my mind, not the least of which was the thought of actually meeting Leslie Simonton and what might happen afterward.

It was after ten the next morning when I awoke, Dani was gone, her side of the bed empty and cold. When I went downstairs, she was on the couch, her legs curled up under her like only a woman can do, unless you’re a contortionist, her laptop in its preferred place on her lap. Which reminded me of thinking about the back seat of the Mustang, that we weren’t contortionists any longer. I couldn’t help but smile and give a little laugh at the thought, how silly it seemed.

“Good morning, sleepyhead, I thought you’d never wake up,” she greeted me with.

I plopped down beside her, knowing full well what she was doing, remembering our conversations from the night before, still a little in awe. No, a LOT in awe!

“You know how many Leslie Simontons there are?” she asked me.

“No, how many?” I responded to her.

“I have no clue, but a LOT and none of them are your Leslie Simonton,” she told me.

If she hadn’t been able to find her yet, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. I took a finger and tilted her chin toward me, kissing her on the lips, a long, lingering kiss, “Maybe it’s just not meant to be,” I told her, “guess I’ll just have to settle for the booby prize,” jumping off the couch as soon as I said it, laughing, so as not to be pilloried, brutalized, possibly re-hospitalized.

She frowned at me, glaring, “I AM going to find her, and you’re going to regret that ‘booby prize’ comment,” she said.

“Okkayyy, I’m fixing breakfast, you had any yet?”

“No, I want sex for breakfast.”

I laughed, “Gonna have to wait, love,” I told her.

She scowled at me, “Alan never made me wait,” she said, untying her robe and pulling it open, revealing the naked body inside it, her legs spread wide.

Oh, but he had! He had tormented her, in fact. Of course, she was talking about the teenage Alan that she’d lusted after. It was the mature Alan who I’d seen tormenting her, over and over again, denying her, making her wait, building her passion, quivering on a bathroom floor. Somehow, I needed to channel his willingness to restrain himself. Going to be fucking hard, though!

But my resolve began to melt, just at the sight of Dani’s wide open, shaved pussy, nice and juicy-looking, just aching for attention.

She pouted, “At least you could have a nice breakfast,” she said, running a finger gently between her pussy lips, then holding it up, showing me how damp it was right before putting it in her mouth and licking it clean.

I gritted my teeth. Not. This. Morning! Not for the next week. I hadn’t planned on sex the night before, either, but my willpower isn’t that great ... and to be fair, Dani had ambushed me in the car. Nobody, not even Alan Ryder would have resisted her after that little car episode.

But, I’m a man. There are some things a man just doesn’t say no to, at least not this man. I knelt down in front of my wife and kissed the inside of her knee, slowly kissing up her thigh. She scooted down a little, letting her knees swing a little wider, letting out an, “Ohhh, yesss!”

And then a loud groan when my tongue touched between her lips where her finger had been a moment earlier. I sucked her juices, that ‘breakfast’ she’d offered, licked her clit, sucking the little nubbin into my mouth, sooo fucking hot! And Dani’s loud groans were like the biggest aphrodisiac in the world. “Ohh, Leslie,” I whispered, feeling Dani’s muscles already starting to clench.

I kissed back down her other leg to her knee, and looked up at her, leaning back, eyes closed, mouth slightly agape, then mustering all the willpower I could, stood and kissed her letting her taste herself on my lips.

“You’re not going to...” she started to say, just as I retreated to the kitchen, hearing the rest of her sentence, “stop,” fixed two omelets, and took one to Dani, still scowling. Fortunately, she’d wrapped the robe back around herself, not sure I’d have been able to resist if she hadn’t.

“I’m going to call Karen at school tomorrow, she’s the computer whiz, maybe she’ll have an idea.”

The thought kept going through my head, ‘what the hell if Dani finds her? Could I, really ... do it?’

The rest of Sunday was a normal day, Dani got dressed after breakfast, and we had a relaxing day. I watched a Mariner’s preseason game, and Dani went to her mom and dad’s house for a little bit. It was probably the most boring day we’d had since I came home from the hospital.

Until about six, that is. “Any more Alan and Daniella stories?” she asked when the Hallmark movie we’d just watched was over.

“Uhh, yeah, lots,” I told her, “what, you want to know just how much fun you had?”

She snuggled up to me on the couch, feet tucked up under, the way she likes to sit. Amazes me that she still can, I sure as hell can’t bend like that. “New Year’s Eve, you and Alan, 1987,” was the first thing that popped into my mind. And then I thought about a way to make this more fun, checking my watch. “Six, the mall closes at eight on Sundays, let’s go shopping,” I told Dani.

She looked at me with that face she has when she thinks I’ve gone bonkers, quite often, actually. “For?” she asked.

“Find out when we get there,” I told her, “let’s go.”

She struggled to her feet, “Give me ten minutes.”

Okay, I had to change, too. This was going to be fun.

Twenty minutes later, we were in the mall. I knew the store I was looking for, I’d seen it Saturday when I was there. It was a more informal young women’s store, hopefully with the kind of things I was looking for.

First, I went to the rack with blouses, Dani following along. Yes! I found just the one I was looking for, lacy, flowery, totally sheer, holding it up to the light, you could see completely through it. Heck, even without the light you could see through it, both layers, front and back together.

“Hon,” Dani said, “I ... umm ... that’s not something I’d ever wear.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll find a camisole to go with it,” I told her. So Dani found a pretty, cream-colored camisole that she said would look wonderful under it. When she held them both together to see how they’d look, she got a big smile on her face. “Okay?” I asked her.

“Beautiful,” she responded.

“Now we need a skirt,” I told Dani. She went to one rack, I went to another. She picked out a skirt, probably about twenty inches long, I saw one just a bit shorter, closer to ten-eleven inches. I took hers and told her I’d get them paid for if she wanted to wander around a bit more.

“Think I’ll check out the shoe store just down the mall,” Dani told me.

“Find something that’ll match, something sexy,” I told her.

I stood there, watching Dani leave the store, then put her skirt back on the rack, and picked out the one I’d seen, got them paid for, then followed Dani down to the shoe store, my purchases safely hidden away in the bag. She found a pair, red, sexy-looking heels with a strap around her ankles, a lot like I remembered the ones she’d bought with Alan in Tampa. These weren’t exactly Gianvito Rossi, though, funny that I’d even remember that name, I hadn’t ever heard of it before Dani told me, and hell, that was only a dream. These weren’t quite five hundred dollars, either, although they were $149.95, expensive enough.

Next stop was Victoria’s Secret. Again, Dani picked out a bra and panty set, and I saw another, red ones, advertised as ‘very sexy embroidered bra and thong’, they were as advertised! I suggested she check out the costume jewelry in a kiosk we’d noticed earlier just down the mall while I paid for the lingerie, switching them as soon as she was out of sight. The ones I liked were about triple the cost, too. It didn’t seem fair, with about a third of the material. The salesgirl chuckled when I paid for them, she’d seen the ones Dani had picked out and these were most assuredly not them. “I like these better, too,” she said with a giggle.

I’d have loved to take Dani to Classic Curves and see if Rebekka was working, except that I know she would have mentioned what I’d bought the day before, and I didn’t want to give it away to her just yet. I figured I’d tell Dani about Rebekka after next weekend and then take her there.

Once we were home, I told Dani that this shopping trip was to reenact her New Year’s Eve with Alan back in 1987. I explained to her that she’d bought an outfit to wear to his house, just for him and her, ‘Something he liked’ as she’d described it to me. She giggled and said it sounded like fun, going to her vanity to work on her hair and makeup.

“Make it sexy, a little slutty ... for Alan,” I told her, chuckling to myself. Yeah, this was going to be fun! “Remember you’re planning to seduce him on New Year’s Eve,” I told her.

Then I sat and watched Dani doing her makeup, this time a bright red lipstick to go with her rouged cheeks, then some spray perfume. When she finished, she turned toward me, naked tits and all, and asked, “Think Alan’s going to like?”

I could smell her femininity across the room.

“Uhh, yeah!”

“Okay, clothes.”

I handed her the bag from Victoria’s Secret, awaiting her reaction.

She reached inside, pulled out the set, her face blushing, “Ummm, this isn’t what I picked out,” looking at me, “you switched?”

“Yeah, but ... actually, it is, it’s exactly like you told me you’d worn that night.”

She held up the bra, “I wore this? It’s barely there.”

I nodded, “The matching thong, too,” I told her.

She put them on, hooking the bra, turning it around, then the thong, and stood, looking at herself in the mirror, brushing her fingers over her breasts, over her nipples. My breath quickened, my resolve was just going to have to wait one more night. I had never seen my wife in a thong, or a bra like that, either, at least not for real. ‘I liked’ would be a major understatement.

I handed her the other bag, holding my breath. The lingerie was the easy one. She sat beside me on the bed and lay her, i.e., ‘my’ purchases out beside her. She picked up the skirt, the blush back in her face, “Ummm...”

“I think it was shorter that night, the way you described it, but this was the shortest I could find,” I told her.

“I guess ... as long as we’re not going anywhere,” she said, pulling it up. She giggled when it was on, the elastic waist holding it up, “I couldn’t sit,” demonstrating by sitting back down on the bed, the skirt pulling far up her legs. The only way she could hide her panties was to hold her legs tight together.

She started to pick up the camisole, and I stopped her, holding it down, “No, we only bought that because you’d said you wished you would have when you bought the blouse so it wouldn’t have been so embarrassing to buy, but you only wore the blouse.

She held it in front of her, looking down, “Ummm...”

I laughed, “That’s three ummms, think that’s the limit for one set of clothes, don’t you? Bet you didn’t ‘ummm’ when you dressed for Alan. From all you told me, this was pretty modest for what you usually wore with him ... and besides, he was the only one going to see you.”

In any case, Dani’s face was still a very cute shade of red. She slipped the blouse on, arms through the sleeveless ‘sleeves’, buttoning up the front. “It’s ... different,” she said, standing up to look in the mirror. It was every bit as sheer as it had looked, her tits showing through it with little more than a red tinge covering them, sexy as hell, more so than if she’d been stark naked on top.

I got up and brought her shoes, “You’ll need these to go to Alan’s,” I told her. She sat back down and slipped them over her dainty feet. I’ve never thought of Dani’s feet as ‘dainty’ before or noticed how sexy they were. Any thoughts of my morning resolve had long since been abandoned.

She put on the shoes, “At least it was just to his house,” she said.

“Well...” I began, “not exactly ... it was the original plan, what he’d told you, but when you got there, he was getting ready to go out, said you and him had been invited to a party, he SAID the guys’ girlfriends would be there, turned out the only girl was Alan’s girlfriend, you.”

“Dressed ... like this?” looking down at herself, about as close to topless as you can get without actually being topless and a short skirt like I had NEVER seen my wife wear, even when we were younger in her ‘short skirt’ days, going to parties.

“How you described it, you sounded like you enjoyed yourself ... especially the spin the bottle game, being the only girl.”

“Oh yeah,” Dani said, “but some of those guys were really lousy kissers ... I spent so much time teaching!” getting into the story herself, beginning to toy with the top button of her blouse, undoing it, then the second button, “they made up for it in other ways, though,” glancing back and forth between the front of her blouse and me.

She got up, rummaged in her closet, pulling out a light sweater, slipping it on, leaving the two buttons undone, “What ... are you doing?” I asked her.

“Shame to be dressed up and just stay home,” she answered, “you’re taking me out.” My jaw dropped, nearly to the floor.

We took the Mustang, and I followed her directions, “Going to a place Alan often took me,” she said. We parked in a parking lot of Columbia Park, a four-and-a-half-mile-long wooded park along the bank of the Columbia River, developed forty-some years ago into a beautiful parkway. It was a beautiful, spring Sunday evening, the temperature in the mid-sixties, and consequently a couple dozen cars in the lot, no doubt people walking the trails along the river.

“Want to take a walk?” Dani asked me. I couldn’t believe that she would, there would be people on the paved trails, Dani was ... Hell, I’d never imagined she’d go out in public like that, it hadn’t been my plan at all.

She waited, and I opened the door for her, helping her out. “Thank you,” she said, “Alan was always a gentleman that way,” grinning at me, that devious grin, “Other ways ... not so much.” Scooting out, her skirt slid up her leg, giving me a nice view of her sheer, red thong ... and taking the sweater off, dropping it back on the car seat.

We walked slowly, occasionally passing a lone person, sometimes couples, all of them noticing Dani. I said a bit ago that I was surprised what I was learning about her, this was taking new experiences to a whole fucking new level!

After, maybe a quarter-mile, there was a bench set a few feet off the trail with a nice view of the river in a wooded area, beautiful with the stars and moon out. We sat, and Dani snuggled up to me, “We used to come here,” she said, turning her face toward me and kissing me like we were a couple of horny teens on a third date. Our kiss quickly grew, Dani moaning and pressing one of my hands to her breast, “Alan kissed so much better than any of those guys at the party ... course,” she said, “he had lots of practice, not as shy about playing with my tits, either ... or my pussy,” she said.

The way she was talking; hell, if I hadn’t known better...

I undid the third button, enough to reach my hand inside ... a couple was walking up the trail, just a few feet from us before we realized it. Dani hurriedly moved away and did the button back up, not that it hid anything. “Take me home, now!” she said, “I’ll show you how Alan fucked me that night after the party.”

Like I said, my resolve had evaporated long ago.

Again, the second night in a row, the second time ever, I felt Dani’s lips sliding up and down my cock as I drove home.

My heart was pounding, my body already shaking when Dani pushed me up against the wall inside our house, kissing me. “Those guys made me so horny!” she said, backing away after three or four minutes of ... a just fucking wow kiss!

She led me to the couch, “Sit,” she commanded. Who was I to argue with the lady? She backed away, closed her eyes, and began to sway, playing with the buttons on her blouse. “Alan always liked me to strip for him ... he especially did that night,” she said in that seductive voice. That was what she’d told me in my dream, how she’d done a striptease for Alan that New Year’s Eve.

“Vince, one of Alan’s football buddies, one of the guys who could really kiss ... and wasn’t so bashful, I told Alan how Vince had finger-fucked me while he was fixing us drinks. God, I was about to come when Alan came back in the room. After that, I was a walking ... or I guess, sitting slut for the guys. I just wanted to fuck!”

She licked her lips, biting her bottom lip, slipping her blouse off, “They had my nipples so hard, pinching them, I didn’t think I was going to survive until Alan got me back to his house,” as she slid her thin bra from her arms.

“I told Alan I was glad he’d made me go to the party but wished he’d brought a couple friends back home with him ... he said he wasn’t going to share my cunt with any of them, ‘let them spend their night beating off’,” he said.

I closed my eyes, trying to imagine that this was my wife sliding her skirt down her legs, that it was her making up this story, Vince ‘finger-fucking’ her, imagining that she wasn’t making it up.

“I asked him if he had any Vaseline, he said he did, and I asked him to go get it.” Then she opened her eyes, looking at me, “Get the Vaseline,” she told me, as she pushed her thong to the floor.

I had no clue, what the hell? But I did as she’d asked, realizing she hadn’t ‘asked’, she’d told me, wondering what the significance of that was. Dani ALWAYS asked, no matter the errand. She wasn’t there when I got back after fetching the Vaseline, so I practically ran upstairs. Dani was on the bed, on her hands and knees, one hand back between her legs rubbing herself, groaning, rocking back and forth.

“Get naked,” she said, then when I was about to climb on the bed, “Vaseline on your dick, then fuck me!” I didn’t know why the Vaseline, she was already so fucking wet, I knew how wet and slippery her ‘cunt’ would be.

When I climbed behind her, getting in position with my cock at her entrance, my body already shuddering in anticipation, she said, “No ... that’s not how he fucked me.”

I stopped, the realization of the Vaseline finally hammering me between the eyes, she wasn’t serious, was she? She looked back, her knees barely spread, “Fuck me the way Alan did that night ... in the ass!”

I hesitated, I couldn’t, Dani interpreted my hesitation exactly, “Yes ... do it! Now!” she demanded, sexy desperation in her voice.

We’d never ... not a single time, ever...! I got up a little higher on my knees, my body shaking, holding my cock in my hand ... at her back door ... and pushed. Dani took a deep breath, grunted, rocking forward, then back. “Go slow,” she panted, “it hurts ... a little.”

I held her hips, pushed a little harder, the head of my cock about an inch inside her, so tight! I couldn’t believe what we were doing! What Dani WANTED me to do!

“He went slow, but pushed hard,” Dani grunted out, “was so big!”

I groaned at her words, wondering if...

But no, it was just her imagination playing a game with me, teasing ... wasn’t it?

I pushed harder, Dani’s body tensing, “Told him...” she was panting, “ ... was my first time ... He...”

And all of a sudden, I slid inside her, “Ohh God!” she groaned, panting, “wait ... just a little bit ... let me ... catch my breath.”

My hands were on my wife’s hips, my cock buried inside her ass, fucking unbelievably! I didn’t know how long I could ... felt so goddam strange ... sooo good ... throbbing inside her!”

“Bet ... Leslie never let you...” she groaned.

Ohh, fuck!

“Fuck me...” she said, “I’m ready.”

I started to pull out, the friction ... pushed back into her, “Ohh, GOD!” Dani practically screamed, “Again! Do it!”

This time I was forceful, about halfway out of her and suddenly thrust back into her, Dani screamed!

Again, and her body began shuddering, “Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!” almost incoherently, at the top of her voice.

Another full thrust into her and my orgasm exploded with no warning, Dani rocking back, screeching, totally incomprehensible. My fingers dug into her hips, pulling her back and forth, my body making short, stabbing thrusts, unloading copious amounts of cum inside her, Dani’s body completely out of control, shuddering violently, “Oh, Oh, Oh,” coming from her mouth.

Until, like before, it was over, our children would probably find our bodies in a few days, still coupled together, our last hurrah on earth. What a fucking way to go!

Minutes later, lots of minutes, I realized we were both still alive, both our bodies drenched in sweat, Dani underneath me, making rambling noises, then, “That was ... better than Alan ever did it.”

Again, I wondered ... If not, Dani was a damned good actress!

The next morning, I was up before her. She was still sleeping when I got up, her long hair flared out on the bed, looking so gorgeous, her body naked. I wanted to run my hands over her, feel her soft skin, especially between her legs where her bareness was still so new to me. Instead, I snuck out and showered in the guest bathroom to not wake her. It was hard to believe that what I remembered from the night before had actually happened. I almost wondered if it could have been another dream until I saw the clothes, Dani’s new ones scattered on the living room floor. I picked them up, amazed that she’d even worn them, much less that trip to the park. I chuckled to myself, remembering the couple that had caught us making out with my hand inside Dani’s blouse, the people that had seen Dani’s near-naked tits.

I had a thought, wondering about something Dani had said. Her senior yearbook was still on top of our dresser, not yet put back up. I sneaked into the bedroom and picked it up, trying hard to not wake Dani. When I was back downstairs, I opened it to a picture of the football team, checking out the names underneath. There, standing next to Alan Ryder was one Vincent Colby. Dani had mentioned a name, the boy who had finger-fucked her at the imaginary party, ‘Vince’.

I stared at the picture wondering the significance, then went back to the portraits. He was a nice-looking kid, curly brown hair down to his shoulders, a cute dimple on his face. At least, I guessed it would have been cute to a girl.

I went back to Dani’s clothes that I’d picked up, her panties, sniffing them. God, I couldn’t imagine her wearing something like that with a skirt that short. Those people who’d walked past us, making out on the park bench, would have had to be able to see them, as bright as it was with the stars and moon out. They still smelled like Dani’s arousal, like she smells when I have my tongue in her pussy; a little crusty, too, where her juices had dried. God, my dick was starting to get hard all over again. I freakin’ couldn’t believe any of it! Dani and I hadn’t had sex like the last couple weeks since ... ever!

I peeked back in the bedroom, Dani was squirming, waking up, so I went in and sat on the bed next to her, running my hands through her soft, beautiful hair. She let out a contented little sigh and opened her eyes, smiling at me. I wondered, now, in the light of day, what was she thinking about last night, what we’d done.

I leaned over and kissed her gently then asked if she was ready for breakfast in bed. I wasn’t ready to ask her about Vince just yet. She told me she was and started to get up to go to the bathroom, “Oh God, I’m not going to be able to even walk today,” she said, “what did you do to me last night?

Then she smiled at me and, without waiting for an answer, very gingerly walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I took that as my cue to go fix my bride’s breakfast, popping a couple potato patties and sausages into the air fryer, and three eggs in a frying pan.

She was back in bed, sitting up with a pillow propped behind her back when I took in her breakfast, “Thank you,” she said when I handed her the plate and a diet Pepsi, Dani’s drink of choice on sleeping-in mornings. I nodded, smiling at her, then started back downstairs to my breakfast. “Love you,” she said just as I was leaving her room.

“You, too,” I answered, having a hard time reconciling the woman of this morning with the one from last night. Not that I was going to complain, far from it.

I ate, cleaned up my little mess, then checked on Dani. She was up, in the bathroom, so I picked up her plate and finished cleaning up. Dani came downstairs several minutes later, still walking gingerly, dressed in a loose-fitting blouse and pants. The first thing I noticed, other than how carefully she was walking, was her ponytail, the first time I’d seen that for at least a decade, probably lots longer. “Love your hair,” I told her.