I could hear the sound of a conversation inside. Actually, just one side of a conversation; the man obviously being on the phone with someone who must have been extremely talkative, as he couldn’t seem to get a word in edgewise.

And there was a kindness to it.

His voice.

Yes, I know it seems possibly unsafe and maybe even stupid, but I knocked. Look, I was desperate. I really did need a job, otherwise none of the rest would work.

So you see, dear friend, my dreams were fulfilled when the gentle-voiced man, who happened to be a professor, actually did have a summer job for me. A wonderful summer job! A job that utilized my strong suit, which is daydreaming. You see, all I would have to do is watch the house.

Apparently, there was some sort of renovation to be done in the back. A guesthouse was under construction. (Although, let’s be honest, you could fit five entire families in the first house, but whatever.) And the price was not only right but beyond right. Right enough to pay my entire freshman year room and board, which, combined with my scholarship, would make this academic reality an actual dream come true.

I accepted immediately. It was blissful.

A moment of kismet.

Now, as I stared down that same dirt road, the house, which seemed large, yes, but normal, well-to-do-person large, seems like some kind of (pharoah’s tomb) mansion. And the other houses seem farther away . . . as though the road were longer somehow.

Maybe this was a mistake. I could say I’m sick, I thought. Ate some bad tuna. Or maybe a stomach flu. I could have missed my train. Or lost the address . . .

The myriad ways I could get out of this come cascading down through my brain like those 1s and 0s in The Matrix. But before I can drum up the will to actually turn my body and leave, there he is on the stairs.

The professor.

He waves to me. A showy wave in the shape and size of the arc of an umbrella. “Hey, there. You made it!”

Yes, I suppose I did.

Okay, fine. Human interaction engage.

“Yeah. I’m . . . here.”

“Very glad to see it!” He’s a tall man with a kind of outdoorsy charm. Like he should be eating trail mix, pitching a tent, and going on a hike. A nice guy. A wholesome guy. The kind of guy who gets really excited about a new lentil soup recipe.

Oh, to have a dad such as this! Or even a dad at all. What would I have become? How would the kinks in Daffodil Turner have been ironed out? Maybe instead of feeling this particular and insistent sense of doom, I would be making cookies. Or skiing. Or translating lost texts from faraway lands. Perhaps I would be an archaeologist, dusting off antiquities somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates, rattling off facts about the Mesopotamian era.