May I do some additional testing on you?” And I’ll be damned if he did not move over and reach out his right paw, and put it on Dr. Tran’s right...hand!“Doc, I think that means he agrees” I said with a smile. He agreed, and said he thought they were going to be friends.After about 2 hours the interview ended, and Ms. Smith took our pictures. She returned about 15 minutes later as Dr. Tran was explaining what the requirements were at that time for being a Paladin. “Not much I am afraid. We hope to. He would do what he could to prevent a breakup, but he would let me go gracefully if he had to. He proved that by preventing us from driving home after drinking.I was afraid it was the beginning of the end as well. But I was handling it very differently than Jeff."Were you planning to come back to our place when school starts?" I asked."That's not actually a rhetorical question, is it? How could you not be certain of my answer?" There is no anger in his voice, just incredulity."Because I'm so. She couldn’t get her arms free to defend herself.”She laughed. “Figures!”“Anyway, our screaming in the next room wouldn’t normally wake you up.”“I went to bed early last night. I didn’t feel like...”“Oh! Okay!”We looked at each other for a moment – exchanging wordless psychic messages.I broke it by patting her thigh through the blankets and standing up. “I’m making breakfast. Bathroom’s free. It won’t be for long.” I headed towards the door. “I have to wake up The Parents soon – I think they. Not that long ago, he had been determined never to mess around with other people's lives. Now, it was Darlene, and Laura, and Jolie. Even last year, it was Dante. What was going on? Did he no longer think that interfering was wrong? Did he think that he had the answers for other people?Just a few days before Cheryl would come home for Christmas, Cal's aversion to messing in other lives was put to an even more severe test. During his talk with her, she said, with unmasked anxiety "You've got to.