CNU-My daughter-in-law said Christmas would be easier if I stayed away, and my son did not even raise his eyes to defend me. So I stayed home, alone, exactly as requested. …

to Sacramento.

The first stop was IRS Criminal Investigation. I had spent too many years in federal buildings to romanticize them. Beige walls. Fluorescent fatigue. Badge-access doors separating public assumption from institutional process. A younger agent met me in a small conference room and took the binder with the guarded interest professionals continue reading …