He didn’t bring it up. Not until one month before I said I was leaving.
“So what’s your plan for this going out to Los Angeles-thing?” That’s what my father called it. The “going out to Los Angeles-thing.” He thought it more a pipe dream, one of my big-talk plans where I laced a fat juicy finger around the trigger but never succeeded in popping off a shot. Can’t blame him for it – it’s happened before. Not so often to call it a habit, exactly, but enough to half-anticipate it. Or to dub it a “-thing,” hyphen required.