Chapter Sixteen“I can't wait to show you Jason's comic book shop. He reno'd it and it's awesome!”
My nephew Quincy was charged, not from the three-layer white-chocolate cake and marshmallow-heavy hot chocolate, but because his aunt was treating him to a day of pre-teen fun. Those thrilled smiles, in turn, charged me.
It was 9:00 Thursday evening. Mom was having a late dinner with a new man in her life, Wilton MacBream or MacBrill, or something like that. I thought she'd sworn off men after a short relationship nearly ten years back with Theodore the Duck Master—a “rather unconventional chap” per Charles Droolingham, a neighbor hailing from the land of crumpets and tea, thrones and crowns, and perpetual dampness. A Duck Master, we learned, was someone who not only fed and cleaned after th
