The divorce proceedings were pure hell. She was going to end up with everything, including his German Shepherd, Shadow. But despite all the bitter words, the fighting, the emotional outbreaks in court, he still loved her. Every time he looked at her, he always saw that beautiful, rain-soaked, blue-eyed girl with the broken umbrella. So when she called him and asked him to come over for dinner so they could “chat simply, without the blood-sucking lawyers,” he only asked what time he should be there.

He ladled gravy over his second helping of meatloaf. She made the most amazing meatloaf, considering she was Vegan. “Sarah, thank you for this. The invitation, the dinner. I can only hope this is a prelude to us trying to work things out. I could care less about the house and cars and everything else. I just want us to be together again.”

“By the way, where’s Shadow?” He glanced around not noticing her look down at the meatloaf, smile and say “he’s around here somewhere.”