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Dad looked serious when he opened the door, that Saturday morning.

"Charlie?"

"I was uh...wondering if we could talk. Alone?" I had overheard Megan and Don talking about how Dad has given Natalie power of attorney. Why the hell did he do that? My brother seemed very upset, not only because Natalie wasn't family, but also because of his protective streak. Ever since I could remember, Mom had always told him that it was his job to take care of me. It made sense that now that she was gone, he'd be protective of Dad as well. Something told me that he and Dad had fought.

"Now?"

"As soon as possible"

"Uh..Sure. !Come say hi to Nat and we can go somewhere"

I came in and said

"Morning Natalie!"

"Morning!" she said gingerly, while sitting on the couch with messy hair and drinking coffee that Dad probably made her.

"Charlie invited me for some father/son time..."Dad began.

"Okay! Great! Have fun!" She smiled. Soon, Dad and I went in our separate cars to a pizza place.

"What did you want to talk about?" Dad asked after we ordered.

"Your giving Power of attorney to Natalie" I told him.

"Don told you huh?"

"I uh…..found out from him"

"Oh..."

"He doesn't seem too happy about it"

"He'll just..."

I interrupted him "Dad! He's protective because of you and mom! You guys taught him to be that way!"

"Your mother and I taught him to take care of you, but you were a kid then" Dad defended himself.

"Being protective is an instinct for him, Dad. He can't just turn it off" I countered "Besides, he probably promised mom to take extra care of you."

"I don't need to be taken care of!" Dad argued.

"Hopefully it'll stay that way!" I said, but continued "But if it doesn't , wouldn't it be better to have your own son be in charge of that care?"

"Charlie, I don't want Don to be burdened and have to give up his life, like he did when your mother got sick." Dad tried to explain to me. "Besides, since Natalie lives with me, she'll become my main caregiver if something were to happen"

"How qualified is she to make decisions on your behalf?"

Dad began "She knows a lot about..."

I snorted "She's a vet! Unless you become a werewolf, what good is her knowledge?" I mean, there's a why you go to different schools to become a Vet or a doctor.

"Charlie..." He began in a warning tone.

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"Have you really thought about this?" Charlie asked me with wide eyes. What Natalie had pulled had wavered me a bit, but overall she's a strong, good person.

"Yes I have, and you need to trust me on this" I told him.

"Don's probably hurt that you don't trust him!" Charlie complained sourly.

"This has nothing to do with trusting Don" I told him firmly

"Somehow I doubt that..." Charlie insisted.

We argued some more while eating, and went our separate ways. When I came home, I found a note from Nat. It said.

"I've gone to walk Rocko. Cat's still in her room

Nat'

I did some work and thinking. Maybe I shouldn't have underestimated Don's reaction to this. I knew that he wouldn't like it, but not that he'd react so strongly. Charlie was right in that respect: my wife and I did teach Don to be protective, though some of it he got from her father.

Eventually Nat came home. The dog was certainly happy.

"Glad to be out, huh?" I teased the dog and petted it.

"You're back early" she said neutrally.

"Charlie had papers to grade" I told her.

"I see."

"Nat.-.I know that you meant well, when you pretended to put that dog down" I began. "Your heart was in the right place, I just think that maybe there were alternate ways of going about it."

"Alan..." she began...

"Let me finish...when Donnie was three, his mother and I took him to a protest organized by Californians for Peace. " I began and sat down. Nat did likewise. "We both thought that it would be a wonderful experience for him, to see people fighting against injustice. Guess what happened? I got arrested. You should have seen the look on his face when the L.A.P.D hauled me off. The poor kid yelled 'leggo of Daddy!' a few times. I think he still remembers that. His mother and I should have known that the police would interfere . What if I had gotten one of those violent, psychopathic cops, who would have started to beat me ? Donnie would have been traumatized!"

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At that moment, I understood Alan's point of view a little more.

"I understand" I told him. "You're trying to tell me that good intentions can blow up in my face"

"Yeah." he asented and continued. "Promise me that you'll find an alternate way next time?"

"I'll make more of an effort" I said.

Little by little, over the course of the weekend, tensions between us, cooled off a bit. Monday, however, was to bring a shock to our lives.

TBC