“Wow, I’m so glad we’ve finally made it back. Your necklaces caused that border guard to look right at his folder with our picture, look up, forget what he was doing, and wave us right through,” Jen said, as they were pulling their luggage off the conveyor belt at the San Francisco International airport.

“I can’t believe it took me almost the rest of the trip to finally get the psych skill, and even now I can only message you.” Sam complained as they were heading to pick up the rental car outside.

Jen looked at him sympathetically and said, “Boomers just aren’t good at learning new things, old man.”

On the long flight back to the US, Jen had created an itinerary, training schedule, and a packing list for when they got back. Sam could tell that Jen was going “all-in” on the theory that they could improve their odds of survival, and that she wanted to be ready. Unfortunately, Sam knew that her hyper planning and training was to keep her mind off her shithead family.

Sam was contemplating Jen’s situation while they were standing in line for a car rental. Jen’s family refused to take her calls or respond to any of her emails over the last few days, and she was pleading with them to meet with her. Sam thought, “I wish I had enough time to go kick the shit out of them.” But Sam knew he was going to spend every moment with Jen, doing anything she planned and keep her spirits up. She was the only real family he had left. In a very selfish way, he was happy that this would give him more time to spend with her before their time was up.

They both agreed it was worth the risk to go by Kelly’s grave, but they were not willing to risk going back to either of their homes. They didn’t want to spend their last days with reports and debriefings on their escape back to the U.S., and they certainly weren’t going to tell the agency they were Lottos.

After praying a promise to Kelly’s grave that she would take care of Sam, Jen wiped her tears and went back to the car to give Sam some privacy. Sam was holding a lock of Kelly’s hair against his cheek as he sobbed and spilled his heart out. Sam knew they couldn’t stay there all night and was trying to pull himself together. “It just never gets easier missing you.” He sobbed a little longer.

It was a quiet ride to Sam’s hidden bug-out cabin; they both needed time to heal some of the emotional wounds they had just re-opened from visiting Kelly.