[...] Unable to shake the residual sentimentality of his weeks at home, he decided to allow himself a frank assessment of his thoughts and, well, feelings on the subject of his father’s deteriorating health. Ray did not consider himself a cold person, immune to human emotion. He was just by nature very careful not to let any of it corrupt the linearity of his decision-making. But now, his decision-making being on a dismaying hiatus, bluish waves of feeling found no rational cliff to dissolve against and there he was, looking at the ocean, thinking of his dad.