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I shook my head at the supreme laziness of certain members of the Labrador breed and then began to flip through the album. As I knew, it was pictures of the family when the kids were teenagers, just before and just after Maggie did her flit. There she was, in fact, looking as arrogantly confident as she always had, designer clothes, big earrings, perched on the couch with Hannah one side and Daniel on the other, her arm round Daniel. Hannah was smiling, but only for the camera's benefit. Daniel had always been Maggie's favourite, Then again, he was male, the fact that he was her son was just incidental. I smiled wistfully as I flipped over the page to find a couple of the last pictures I'd ever taken of Rufus, my old Golden Retriever, lying out on the lawn, enjoying the sunshine, a dog in the autumn of his life but content for all that. As always, I felt the lump grow in my throat and the slight sting of tears in my eyes when I thought of Rufus, so I skipped the page and then – there she was!
Samantha. Sammy to everyone. Both pages I was looking at contained a montage of different photographs of Hannah and Sammy. Best friends and what a pair they were! Hannah, the slightly more serious brunette with fuller figure, in contrast to Sammy, with her strawberry blonde hair, deep blue eyes and slim figure.