Sometimes she would pull out her old albums long after Paul had fallen asleep. Drag them out of the cobwebs and stir the memories, conjuring up the past. Lazy summer days on the farm. Her sun-streaked pigtails, the Georgia sky bluer than any other sky on earth. Certainly bluer than in New York, with its sky scrapers and smog. And the flying lessons. Pa would take her out on his little old prop plane and sometimes he would even let her fly it over the fields, the stalks of corn waving in the wind like long arms.

She felt such happiness those moments, a joy as sharp as pain, digging its heels into her soul. The wind searing her face, making her eyes tear even behind her goggles.

When she turned 17 she left Georgia and went to Florida. She wanted to study aviation and business, maybe open up her own business someday and fly planes for a living. That equaled bliss in her mind. But then she met Paul and he turned her world upside down. So that she couldn’t tell sky from earth, left from right. Love from Hate.