Alicia came down the stairs in her night clothes when she heard Rick enter the house. "I've been so worried about you. Do you know what time it is?" she said in that motherly tone that ignores the fact that every teenager in the world has a cell phone with him twenty-four hours a day and always knows what time it is. Nonetheless, she answered her own question, "It's after two in the morning!"
Rick completely ignored the issue of how late he was out. He had no interest in wasting time with the pretense of a parent-child psychodrama about staying out late when there were literal issues of life and death to discuss. He got right to his point. "I have to ask you something. About my father."
She turned away from him and supplied her usual response. "You know how talking about him
