not long , as it turned out . neither of my parents had kept in contact with their families . when i screamed , it was the same sound that i had made at ten , when he would come home from work , and find something , anything that i had done wrong , even if it was something so simple as not moving out of his way fast enough . parker had been at the office since six in the morning , and it was going to take everything he had to sit through the long meeting . 