This fictional story could easily have been a chapter in my own life.  My high school science teacher invited me to go to Taiwan with him and his wife where he would begin a new position in a research lab.  He offered me a summer job as his lab assistant. My father and step-mother consented. I was also scheduled to rejoin my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in a year, so opted out of the overseas trip.  I often wondered how it might have changed my life had I taken him up on that offer.  Would I have had a more successful life and career as a scientist?  Or more than I bargained for.

Read it in Anthology Askew Volume 003 Askew Adventures for one possibility.