In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

you had a super time. When's the grant review, are you prepared?"
He peered at her through thick grimy glasses - his eyes never
quite met yours, just scanned the area. His receding hair was buzzed as
always in a white crew cut. More hair stuck out his ears and eyebrows
than grew on his head, and his argyle cardigan was on inside out with
the buttons in the wrong holes. He had shrunk and looked more like a
three hundred year old leprechaun than the Man from the Future that
her starry-eyed mom had fallen for.
"I wrote a lot these last few months, I hope they like it," Penny
said as she washed out the coffeemaker and filled the basket with
Chock Full O' Nuts.
"Well you can't be going off and getting all artsy-fartsy, you
have to earn your bread and butter. You know, you should reconsider
teaching, it's very rewarding, when you get students who aren't
complete morons, that is."
He bent over his calculations. He wasn't using a calculator,
didn't need one, he said.
That was going to be it until dinner, so she went to her room.
Stripped bare of her things, the room looked like a motel room now.
She went up to the attic, maybe he had stashed everything up there, her
antlers, her rock collection, pressed leaf collection, her collection of
wild bird eggs, drained and packed in cotton, everything labeled and
organized in see-thru plastic boxes, her box of spare electronic bits
from when she'd built a synthesizer from Radio Shack parts. Nope!
Gone, her whole life! The boxes of her mother's were gone too, even
the photos.
She ran down the ladder and into the kitchen.
"Where's my stuff, Dad? I looked everywhere."
"I had Stu help me clear it out, too much clutter. You're an
adult now, time to leave the nest. Never wanted kids. Pain in the neck."
Same old story.
"But mom's stuff!"
"Sentimental claptrap, all of it."
"What happened to my room?"
"Stu's been staying there, helps me out."
Her dad always had some student recruit to fill that son spot in
his life. Now he had them moving in. And this new weirdo had him
building a flying saucer! Probably needed a ride back home to
Betelgeuse.
"Okay, well, I'm going to check out the Carvers, be back―"
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