It was so easy to believe all the things they told her. "You are so lucky," her mother said, in that huffy way she spoke in so often. The way that foretold a storm, looming just over the horizon, if Juliana Blair did not get her way in whatever matter was at hand.  "Yes, so you have said," Roxanne murmured calmly. Not appeased, Juliana cried, "You are such an ungrateful child!"

     Sighing with resignation, Roxanne rose from the hard wooden pew in the back of The First Assembly of God Church and approached her mother, not without some trepidation. "Mom", said Roxanne cajolingly, "I am going to marry John. I have said that I am going to marry him! What on Earth are you still worried about?" Eyes damp with unshed tears, her mother sniffled delicately before saying, "I know, don't ask me how, I just know that something terrible is going to happen. Just like what happened to me all those years ago..." Roxanne hurried to wrap soothing arms around Juliana, trying to reassure her mother that such worries were needless.

     "Mom", Roxanne asserted calmly, "Nothing can go wrong. The wedding begins in twelve hours and fifteen minutes, all our plans are set, and everything is going exactly as it is supposed to go! What happened to you is not going to happen again. History will NOT repeat itself today."

Bitterly, Juliana laughed. "I know you think that you are leading the charmed life, darling, but life has a funny way of turning the tables on dreams that are coming true. I  never thought that I would be a wife and a widow, all on the same day, myself! But that's exactly what happened."