The crackling of the fire began to fade as the cabin slipped from view. I rolled over in the bunk, kicking the tattered blanket off from me. This hat...d part of night was neither dreaming, nor waking. It hung to the jagged edges of reality, whispering haunted promises of what might have been. All I wanted to do was to fall back asleep… to shut out the noise… to shut out the regret. Each night was the same. For a while, I had I blessed escape of my dream. Then came the waking: Toss. Turn. Squirm. It went to the basement, and had always been locked in the past. We had asked him about it a dozen times. Every time he came up with a different answer. It got to be a game for a while. We'd get there and ask "Why is the basement locked? What's down there?" When we were young, he said there were monsters down there and it was locked to protect us. Mom yelled at him that time. After that he said he kept a unicorn down there, but that he wasn't allowed to show it to us. Mom didn't care for that. And thank you for the hotel room. That was nice of you.” “My pleasure. We just had to run up here quick after the ceremony and now we’re headed to meet everyone at your dinner,” says Rick. Wait…we? My heart stops. Who’s the other person in the we? Kyle picks up on this too, but he comes right out and asks. “We, huh? Who are you here with, Uncle Rick?” “Leslie,” says Rick. “She wanted to come see you too. She has known you since you were a baby, after all.” That surprises me. Rick’s ex-wife left. " You're welcome." he replied, as the gal took his arm to restart his exit, they had to go. And they did. But I had shaken his hand and said what I needed to. It was enough.The sorrowful son of a mathematicianMy father got a doctorate of mathematics at a large mid-western university, where he met mom who was studying chemistry and got her bachelor's of science degree. Like the boy in that tale of Asimov, I also had a sister. Basic nuclear family in the atomic age. Intellectual genes perhaps,.