Annie tried to keep her feelings of distress from showing. Why was it so hard? For seventythree years she had been struggling to keep her feelings to herself. That was how she was brought up. "Don't make a scene, Annie," her father would say to her. "Show them you've got some backbone." And she had listened. No matter how much she hurt inside, she was usually able to keep her emotions bottled up. Only once had she failed. It was when Frank died.

Frank had been her life. Forty years they had been husband and wife. How quickly the years had flown by! They had raised three children together good children, successful children. So successful they had moved away from the tiny town where they had been raised. Each Sunday they would phone. Occasionally, one of the grandkids would get hold of the …