My mom was a single parent, and I was her little boy, and I still am, in her head.”I shook my head again, “My arguing with her now is worse than u...eless. She thinks she knows best even while acting out her teenage years and my wife and I are the fuddy-duddy adults standing in their way. My daughter idolizes Mom for what she’s done, despite the cards being so stacked against her, and loves that Mom is thinking, feeling and acting like an eighteen year old does! The two of them are besties, thick. I think I know why, last night, this morning?” I nodded again.Tommy tugged on my hand to get my attention and when I looked at him, he continued, “We’ve never shied away from each other, either seeing each other naked or touching. Remember when you started budding and we laughed, as we prodded the new lumps on your chest?”“Yes, Tommy, we weren’t even teens then, we were totally naïve about what we were doing. Last night, more so, this morning,” I swallowed, “this morning, I should have known. As far as I was concerned, I had seen all I wanted to see of the mess made by the gamma-rays. What I wanted to do now was to try to clean up some of the crud left by an unfeeling nature.The other seven in our party agreed with me that we should do what we could to help the people left behind by the disaster, but we were at a loss as to how to go about it. Of course, we could help individual groups like the Arlo to better their lives, but there had to be more groups of people here than we could. I didn’t give you any choice about it because I knew you would say no, out of fear.“Well, now that experience is over. And the choice is yours, Nadine: if you want, you can go back to trying to be that person you were pretending to be when I walked in here. Say the word, and I’ll walk out of here and never bother you again – and you have my promise that no one else will ever hear one word about what happened between us. “Or you can choose to be who you really are – and I don’t mind telling.