"I was of course very worried about Jeff, though why I do not know, except I had become so habituated to his emotional maelstrom that my life suddenly felt dreadfully empty without him. So the next couple of nights, I wandered around downtown Edinburgh looking for him in various pubs and bars. By Sunday I accepted that he was gone, and was finally ready to enjoy my liberation from him. It was Father's Day, so I phoned my dad to wish him a happy Father's Day. Even though it is his ancestral city, he seemed a bit perplexed and bewildered that I should call him. Then I did a walkabout in the city, found my way to a mall on the outskirts where in a drugstore I bought a pair of haircutting scissors, of such a fine quality that now, thirty years later, after daily use, I still have them.
"Monday morning I boarded the fast train to London, where I booked a room again at the King Henry the Eighth Hotel, where I stayed another four days, until I found cheaper accommodations nearby."
We have just reached the town, which isn't really much of a place. Just behind the gas station is the large garage where I have parked my car.
"Is that all?" says Carl to Aaron.
"There is a lot more, but we're about to go for lunch, so maybe we could save it for later." We all leave the car together. The worker, to whom I entrusted my car, has given me the okay. He is pretty typical of small town BC guys. Around thirty years old, slim with a potbelly, sunglasses and ballcap. Red and green plaid mac shirt covering a black T shirt with a Def Leppard logo. He is smoking a cigarette.
"The diner's just across the street", says Carl as I return. So the four of us, four persons most unlikely to have been thrown together even in extraordinary circumstances, make our way to a meal of burgers and beer in this Fraser Valley backwater, now a community, now a family...
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