At Halcyon Hill a dying sun slipped behind the trees as Frannie strolled in the garden with her only confidante.

"I don't know what's happened to Edgar," she said, sipping disconsolately at her Mai Tai. "He used to care about things...about us... You know, it's funny, but when Eddie was in France during the war, I used to miss him terribly. He wasn't with me, but he was, you know... Now he's with me, but he's not...and goddammit, I like missing him the other way more!"

Her eyes were brimming with tears now, but she didn't brush them away. She was lost in another time, when loneliness wasn't barren but beautiful, when snapshots and love letters and the honeyed voice of Bing Crosby had eased her gently through the most difficult winter of her life.

But now it was summer, and Bing lived just over the next hill. Why hadn't things worked out?

Tales of the City