2.5 Family Dinner (3)

Miles was watching our awkward exchange, and decided to take mercy on me. “So, dad. You know those cameras that were installed around the perimeter. I noticed today there were a lot of blind spots, and huge gaps in coverage around the border. Why didn’t you have them installed to cover the entire perimeter when they were put in?”

“Oh, well, back then they were meant to just cover the easiest accesses to the pack. A lot of the land was covered in overgrowth too thick to get through. We thinned out a lot of the forest and dead trees to prevent wildfires, but never installed cameras to cover those areas.”

“Ah,” Miles nodded, taking a swig of his beer. The two of them started going on and on about the border precautions of the pack, and I easily fell back into the headspace I used to go to when they would talk like this, and I would sit back and feel left out.

It was never because I wasn’t interested in the past. I just didn’t feel worthy to join in on the discussion. Duties like border p