still on Lyndora time. Jason slept silently in his bed as I gazed at the ceiling from his sofa trying to take everything in. I dreaded going home and I loathed thinking about what life at home after dad would be like. In a strange way, I felt closer to dad now than I had since I was a boy. I thought about the photo of him and me at Conneaut Lake, and then I thought about the time we spent together at Nui Coc Lake in Thai Nguyen. Even though I miscalculated by a thousand miles, the connection felt remarkably strong. What would mom be like without dad to provoke her? Would she soften in her widowhood or had I already driven her into an embittered state by dragging up old wounds and going against her wishes? I wondered how my life would ever go back to normal, and if I actually wanted it to. I couldn’t imagine showing up at the stockroom with much enthusiasm. The thought of unloading hand mixers, TVs, gardening soil, and boxes of Tylenol seemed absurd. Is that what my life had really become?
