His room was not his room, the house was not the house he left, and when his mother had said ‘welcome home’ he’d felt nothing but empty.
The flight had been fine, and mostly he’d slept with his hat tilted down over his eyes, smiled at the stewards and stewardesses, and been generally polite. The pair of little kids sitting in the seats in front had spent as much of the flight as they could between films staring at him over the back of their seats with hugs eyes. He tipped his hat to them and gi