. "Guys, you really need to look hard at this. The amount of energy released if you achieve fusion ... I mean, we're getting a new building, but I'd k...nd of like this one to still be standing when we get ready to move." Yeah," my Dan reinforced. "That whole fusion thing is about getting huge amounts of energy out of tiny amounts of hydrogen. You guys better run some numbers." Yeah," Dan 2.0 added. "This one might be outside the scope of things we build in the back room." Okay," I said, glancing. Perhaps, this is for the best. I decided to call it a night about eleven and go to bed. As I climbed into bed, I realized that a year had passed since my first encounter with Beth. Somehow, it had not seemed that long ago.The phone woke me up the following morning about nine-thirty. I looked at the clock, surprised at the time. I answered the phone, it was my mother-in-law.“Merry Christmas, Jeff.” She said, “Dad and I love you.”“Merry Christmas Mom, I love you too.” I replied.It was always hard. More than that, noneof them cared - their chatter remained light and friendly; noreservations, no eyes darting away to share a silent joke about me. Justa quartet of women chatting absently about a Christmas dinner they wereexcited to dress up for.When the day came I presented myself in a flowing, plum coloured dressand high-heeled, open-toed shoes, feeling almost as nervous as my firstday at work after coming out. After all, these were the people who sawme every working day in tunic and. "I nodded; none of this was new."Do you understand what Dad's situation is now?" Craig asked."Mom told me he has Alzheimer's. That was a couple of years ago, and that he had to go into a nursing home after Grandmother died two years ago."Craig nodded. "My parents, Tom, are, were, people of their time. Dad was thirty when I was born, thirty-three when Ellen was born. He's in his 70's now. His first years were rather heavily colored by the Great Depression, then the Second World War. So were.