Just like years past, we left the mess from the game night until the next morning and made an “after event” out of it. All the scouts arrived at 8 am and we cleaned as we ate donuts and drank orange juice while dancing to music over the speakers.

It was my job to take the big box of games back down to the basement closet in the church. As soon as I arrived, I started collecting game boxes that other scouts had reassembled and put them in the box. At one of the last tables, two cub scouts were darting around the folding chairs and tagging each other. Their assigned table was a mess. I gave up trying to supervise and started cleaning it up. My dad sidled over and grilled me for not taking the games back down to the basement yet. He was supervising all of the scout volunteers to make sure we stayed on task.

“Morgan, what are we waiting for? We need those games put away so we can put all of the tablecloths away.”

I sighed exasperatedly and pointed to the Yahtzee box in front of me. “The dice are missing—thought I’d wait before putting it away in case they turn up.”

He got a peculiar glint in his eye that I couldn't decipher. A moment of panic over some dice? Then again, I know he’d been stressed at work lately. He was prone to overreacting when he was stressed.