I had just turned seventeen years old. I was in the second semester of my junior year in high school. I was somewhat of a loner, although I did get together in a study group regularly with four girls from my advanced classes. That was pretty much the focus of my social life. I was an only child and very close to my mother. My father had a job that took him out of town for weeks at a time. So most of the time, it was just...

I grew up with a loving and affectionate mother, but an absentee father. Dad worked all the time, and most of it involved travel. I didn’t learn that he had cancer until after he died. I was eighteen years old at the time. Fortunately, he had a very good life insurance policy and had invested wisely. He left Mom and me independently wealthy. My mother was thirty-six, twenty years younger than my father when he passed. Bec...

I’m married and we have two houses. One is in a suburb of Chicago and the other is on a lake in Wisconsin. When we first bought it, we went frequently. We became friends with the only neighbors, Jim and Barb. We had a good time with them, but after two years, it became clear that their marriage was on the rocks. Shortly, they got a divorce. After that, the three of us would get together, but it wasn’t the same. Jim is a t...