Puzzle Pieces

LAYTON

For some reason, my hands started trembling as I clicked in and selected a program to open the video with. Get it the fuck together, Layton.

The picture that came up on my screen was of my father’s office in his building in Boston. There was some movement, as if he was setting the laptop or webcam down where he wanted before sliding in behind it.

On the walls behind him, I could see several works of art that had moved with him from home to every office he’d ever had. There was a painting of a sailboat sailing into the sunset. Without being able to see it on the video, I knew the name printed on the back of the boat was Jolene. My mother’s middle name.

There was another painting of a lion, one he had commissioned from a photo he took while on safari in Africa. A blueprint design of his first jet hung next to the lion.

An unexpected wave of emotion hit me in the chest when I thought of those frames sitting in an exhibit dedicated to him that I hadn’t even visited yet. It intensif