Impossible Geometry

Stranded in Parallel [Chapter 3]

Life kind of goes by quickly when you never know what to expect next. One night, you’re sleeping on the couch because your normal sheets, even your normal mattress, are going on a truck early the next morning. The next night, you’re sleeping on that same mattress, except it’s bare, because labeling moving boxes is beyond an afterthought. It’s also eating cereal straight out of a box because the bowls and spoons are packed. Later that night, it’s eating fast food from the nearest place still open because it’s too late and too dark to remember where the grocery store is. The very same grocery store my mom was supposed to transfer to.

What about being woken up suddenly because you and your mom both overslept and you’re about to be late for your doctor’s appointment, and you were both exhausted from just moving? At least this time we didn’t have to drive two hours to get to it. That was the whole point of moving, after all. At least we were able to get to the hospital without getting lost. At least the appointment was under two hours that time, and there wasn’t another long drive to get us home.

“This is your first time moving, huh?” My mom had asked the day before as we trailed the moving truck on that final long drive. She said it like the answer wasn’t obvious. “I thought I was going to live in that house until the day I died, honestly. Heck, your Aunt Winona lives in the house we all grew up in with our parents. That’s tribal land, for you. But… maybe a different subject. Grand Forks is gonna seem like a big city for us. Lots of things to do.”

That was the sort of talk meant for someone who was chasing an opportunity, not escaping their misfortune.

After that second round of treatment at the hospital, I felt helplessly sluggish. It was almost the same as how I felt when I was coming down with something. It may have been waking up suddenly without warning. It may have been the fatigue from moving stuff around just the day before. It may have been the junk food. It may even have been the treatment doing something to me. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to complain. Loading up my mom with another worry was out of the question.

That night, I managed to sleep in my own bed, freshly set up in the new room in the new place. I was hoping to sleep off whatever I was feeling, but once more I was awoken earlier than my body wished for.

“Natalie,” hissed my mom as she nudged me awake.

“Huh?” I rolled over, eyes barely open. “Another appointment?”

“No,” Mom sighed, seeming to realize the panic she had induced in me. “It’s just me this time. I’m heading into work for training.”

‘Training?” I laid back and looked up at her, staring down at me. “Don’t you already know how to do your job?”

Mom smiled and chuckled. “Let’s hope so. Probably just standard stuff they have to do. Learn the layout of the new place. But I’ll be back sometime in the afternoon. Don’t worry about unpacking anything that isn’t yours. There’s not a lot in the kitchen, but you can eat whatever. I’ll bring back something for dinner, and we can sort out more of our stuff after we eat. If either of us are up to it, that is.”

I blinked up at the ceiling past her and nodded. “Yeah.”

With one last stroke of my hair, Mom stood up and slid out of my room. A few minutes later, I heard the front door downstairs click and lock.

Any other time I would have simply shut my eyes and been off to sleep again, but everything in that moment was wrong. The window was on the wrong side of my bed. It had yet to get any curtains, and the morning light was beginning to leak in. Somewhere on the other side of one of the walls, I could hear people— our neighbors— doing whatever they were doing. Outside, more than the occasional car puttered by. When my feet touched the ground, the feel of the carpet was wrong. Before I knew it, I was shuffling about the house, trying to find out whatever else was wrong.

I had either been too frazzled or too tired to properly look at our new place up to that point. I explored the second floor first, a space completely alien to someone used to living in a house with only one floor. Everything was as narrow as it seemed livably possible. On one end was my room, with my mom’s room on the opposite side, with a hall, bathroom, closets, and a stairwell running down the middle between them.

The bottom floor was a similar layout, just with a front kitchen and back living room instead of bedrooms. The walls and cabinets on both floors were made up of dark wood paneling, probably made for someone who liked living in a cave.

In the kitchen, I opened the fridge and cabinet doors. Not because I was hungry yet, but just to feel how they felt. The absence of anything besides a box of cereal and half a jug of milk didn’t make me feel particularly hungry.

What we didn’t lack were boxes. Most of them hadn’t made it out of the entryway, there by the kitchen and dining area. Despite what my mom had said, I was going to have to open them up and move them about to find out which stuff was mine.

But at that rate, unpacking them regardless of contents was going to be the obvious thing to do. I think if it looked like I made an effort in sorting out my things, then mom wouldn’t think that I was just bored at home all day. That way, she could worry about something productive for once.

Beneath my mom’s clothes and books, and kitchen gadgets, I found a box that was lighter than the others. When I saw the colorful jumble of fur beneath the cardboard flaps, I knew why it weighed so little. My collection of stuffed animals had come with me, despite my desire to just leave behind the dregs of my childhood. After all, most of them had been given to me by my dad during or after one of my long bouts of sickness. But they were here anyway, and they had to go somewhere.

The one room I had yet to even give any attention was mine, likely because it didn’t even seem like mine. At that moment, the only sign of my stake in there was my bed. But obviously, several people, families, had probably lived in this narrow little apartment before me and my mom. There were a few scuffs on the wood paneling, a faded stain on the carpet, a reddish pen mark near the baseboard, worn-down edges on the closet door from being tugged open and closed countless times.

If I had been a few years younger, I would have been afraid to open the doors of a dark, supposedly empty closet for fear of something hiding in there. But the only thing hiding behind the wide, dark sliding door was the faint odor of musky clothes that had long been cleared out. It was more than big enough for all my clothes, plus it had a shelf for storing things out of the way. The lonesome stuffed animals surely needed to be out of the way.

I lifted the box of old memories up as high as I could and tried to shove it in, the view above my line of sight. It met something partway in, refusing to go any further. Even with some shuffling, the box refused to slide all the way back. I managed to find a workable spot a little ways down, but the blockage was still there. With toes pushed into the carpet like a ballerina, and hands flailing against the shelf above, I was able to graze the edge of something slim and rectangular. With a slight jump, my fingers were able to finally rake it forward. With another jump, I managed to fling it out and down to my feet, a standard composition notebook.

Apart from a little dust on the dark cover, it seemed completely unused. I sat back down on my bed, wiping it down before flipping it open. Maybe it had a name written inside. Instead, a few pages in, my eyes fell upon the curly symbols, concentric circles, scribbles of numbers, and a handful of letters that didn’t seem like English or anything like it. About a quarter of the pages were filled in with these writings before abruptly ending.

I flipped through the pages again, looking for anything else that could have identified an owner, but found nothing. With hunger suddenly coming to me, I tossed the book back on my bed and headed downstairs.

Antibody

Stranded in Parallel [Chapter 2]

Dad didn’t make it home for dinner or for dusk or even at some time in the night. I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think it was any sort of accident. Those next few days, Mom alternated between crying softly on the couch and making phone calls to different people. My mom’s side of the family all lives in or around the reservation here. Everyone knows everybody. But Dad came here long ago for work, and we didn’t really talk to or about his side.

All the calls Mom was making didn’t seem to amount to much. A few people came knocking on our door as well. Those meetings on our front porch mostly amounted to hurried, solemn greetings, whispers, shrugs, whimpers, and quick goodbyes. Overall, it didn’t seem like there was any progress in finding or contacting Dad.

The only thing I could focus on, and don’t think badly of me for this, but I was glad that all the attention was away from me. It went from Mom constantly doting on me to having to take care of myself while she spaced out or made more calls. I mean, I did that a lot when I was feeling well and Mom was working. Dad had worked long hours for as long as I could remember, so relying on him being around the house wasn’t an option in the first place either. It was almost like nothing had changed.

I even made it to school the next week. Mom drove me like usual. She stared at me for a moment as we pulled up.

“We forgot to pick up those meds the doctors recommended. And a mask for your face.”

I shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll stop by the drugstore today.”

“There are only two more weeks of school,” I said with a tongue click and a shrug. A lot of things ran through my mind as I said that.

Only two weeks. Two weeks to not stick out. Maybe I didn’t want to be noticed. If I suddenly came with my face covered in a medical mask, I would either be avoided like some sort of plague-carrier or pitied and idolized for being brave enough to finish out school despite being gravely ill. More than usual. I certainly hadn’t been paying enough attention to be able to explain what I was going through.

Only two weeks. Two weeks to be forgotten. When you’re out sick enough, you don’t just miss out on the learning part of school, but the people part, too. You just become someone who only shows up occasionally, not enough to make friends, but not so scarce that people forget your face or name, and you become a stranger. Can’t forget that someone perpetually sick doesn’t invite people over or get invited to other people’s places. Don’t expect that to change just because it’s summer.

Only two weeks. Two weeks to just feel normal, possibly for the last time. It was obvious all the doctors and nurses were going to start treating me like a porcelain doll, simply because there was a new word, a new name for what I was experiencing. Was my health suddenly more at risk simply because a diagnosis had been offered?

Only two weeks. While other people were looking forward to their vacations to distant places, I could only see doctor’s visits on the calendar at home. So with the same old sporadic, translucent presence, I nodded goodbye to my mom and marched to first period.

A few days into summer vacation, we were off again to Grand Forks. We were back in my mom’s car. The ride was nice, if not hideously boring. The radio worked in her car, but only the fuzzy talk stations could reach us across the seemingly endless expanse of North Dakota grasslands. It only crossed my mind slightly that the car could break down.

The hospital welcomed us again. It was a different wing of the building we had gone to before, but it still contained the shiny floors glaring under pale lights, people shuffling, going about their own challenges and odd smells that hinted at meticulous cleaning.

Before we even talked to anyone or even found a seat in the waiting room, Mom was digging through her purse. She produced a mask, one for me, followed by another for her. They were those ones made out of a paper-like material with all the folds and thin little straps that go behind your ears.

I looked up at her face and probably thought something along the lines of ‘do I have to?’ Mom nodded back, probably reading my mind. “Just so they think we’ve been taking this seriously. I mean, we are.” And so I stretched it over my face as desired.

I don’t know what they were putting in my body through that needle in my arm, dripping from a clear bag of liquid hanging on a stand. It felt cold, but not enough to numb the dull ache of the needle tucked sideways up my arm.

The chair was nice, at least. A chair with some sort of leather covering, in which you might see someone sit to read a book, which is also covered in leather. My mom got a less nice chair to sit on beside me. She had brought a book (one without leather, of course) to read during the whole thing, but it just sat on her lap. She rotated between glancing at my face, then my arm, then her stack of papers— more of her notes. If there was one good thing about the mask, it was that I didn’t have to fake a smile. There was little telling if my mom was trying to force one, either.

Two hours post-arrival, zero pages of my mom’s book had been read, and I was feeling about as healthy as usual. Which is to say, healthy enough to make it to the car, tear off the mask, and then fall asleep against the car window for the two-hour drive home. Except my mom was on the phone as soon as we got out into the parking lot.

“We just got out,” I heard her say. “It’s not too late, is it? Okay, perfect. We’ll meet you there. Yeah, I have the directions.”

I was presented with a printout from one of those map websites as soon as I was buckled into the car. “What’s this? Are we meeting someone?”

“We’re going to look at a place,” Mom responded, turning the car’s ignition. “Just… bear with me, and I’ll tell you… my plans… our plans… on the way back. Just… I just need you to talk me through the directions. Can you do that for me?”

I sat up stiffly, body heavy. “Sure. We’re starting from the hospital here?”

“Yeah, just give me the road.”

We ended up a decent way away from the hospital, staring up at a line of houses… maybe they could have been called apartments. It was like someone had used a cookie-cutter to produce all these narrow, two-story boxes with the same three front windows, single door, and variations of beige and off-white paint. Someone stepped out of a car as my mom turned her engine off.

“That place seemed nice enough,” Mom said during the drive back. “Cheap rent, at least. But it isn’t about the money, of course. You know I would do anything, pay any amount to make sure you’re healthy. This is more about being… practical. I’m sorry that I didn’t discuss this with you before, Natalie.”

“What about the house? I mean, our house?” I asked.

Mom glanced at me and shrugged. “It’s been paid off for a long time, for one. You can thank your grandpa for keeping it in the family. And of course, your Dad… for working so hard so we have plenty of savings.”

“And what if Dad comes back?”

Mom kind of clicked her tongue. “He… has our phone number. And your aunt Wynono is going to take care of the house. So it’s not like we’re going to leave it bare and empty. We can even… leave a note. But, oh, we’ll bring all your stuff. Clothes, bed, TV, stuffed animals. We’ll make this new place up real nice, just like home. It will be our home, really.”

“What about the rent? You’ll have to quit your job.”

Mom sighed and shrugged, barely taking her eyes off the road. “Asking the big questions, just like your dad. Grand Forks has the same Grocery Market, I can get a transfer easily. But none of that is for you to worry about. I’ll handle everything, promise. So let’s just make it home for today.”

Asymmetry

Stranded in Parallel [Chapter 1]

Have you ever imagined living another life? Like, growing up in a different town, state, a whole other country, even? Maybe a world completely different than this one? Some people probably have imagined being a different person entirely, one without the problems they currently have. I think you’d just end up with brand-new problems, no matter who you were. Everyone has problems.

Like, I get sick a lot. More than other people. I probably spent more days out of school than in it. My last three years at Middle School, I’ve been a little bit better, but I still get sick more than my fair share of the time. So that’s my problem.

My mom’s problem is that she has to worry about me being sick. And when she worries, she lets stuff not get done. When she gets less done, my dad then has to worry about picking up the slack on top of all the work he normally does. My mom and dad would probably say otherwise, but all of my family’s problems and worries are probably my fault.

If I could be someone else, I would be someone who gets sick less. My mom probably wished she were someone who didn’t give birth to someone so sickly like me. My dad probably just wished that he had married someone else, or that he could have settled down somewhere else and had an entirely different life. I think that’s what he decided to seek out after that day.

My parents didn’t really fight, but because of the stuff I said before, they weren’t good at working together either. At least until it came to me. I had missed almost an entire trimester of school at that point and generally felt like garbage, unable to leave the house. They both agreed something needed to change. Along came a new doctor, new tests, and new questions needing to be asked. And it seemed like things had finally been figured out. Which is when things went downhill.

I actually don’t know what was worse: all the annoying tests, or my parents’ reaction to their results. Mom curled up and cried with me on the couch when we got back from the doctor’s office that day. I don’t think I cried then. I didn’t understand it yet. I had heard the word diagnosis so many times before that it didn’t even seem like a word anymore. Dad came home early from work after getting the call from my mom. He leaned down and hugged me and held me on my other side. He didn’t cry. He eventually sat back in his chair across from us and stared at the floor with his hands intertwined.

“The doctors said that this is treatable, Natalie,” said my mom between sniffles, her chin draped over my shoulder. “We’re going to do what they say and get you all better.”

Dad spoke up a little while later. “And what do they say to do?”

Mom pulled herself away from me and pulled the stack of papers out of her purse. They had been crumpled and rolled up to fit inside. “Grand Forks has a care facility they said. The doctor set us up with a… what was it?”

“A consultation?”

“Yeah, that’s it. A consultation. Next week.”

Dad nodded. “They can’t do anything at the hospital here?”

Mom clicked her tongue. “It needs a… specialist. Just to go over the test results and confirm the… diagnosis. Yeah. Don’t worry, they’ve already said the hospital there will accept the tribal insurance.”

“I figured so. But Grand Forks is a long drive.”

Mom clicked her tongue. “We’ve driven up that way before.”

Dad shrugged. “I’ve driven us up that way. It is just the interstate most of the way but… do you know how to get to the hospital there?”

“I’ll print something off the computer. Natalie can read off the directions.”

“If she’s feeling up to it,” Dad said, letting his eyes wander to me.

“We can leave early just in case. We’ll just have to pull you out of school that day, hon,” said Mom, stroking my hair before finally letting me go.

“That wouldn’t be any different than usual,” I muttered. Freed from my mom’s unrelenting grasp, I was able to sit up and hug my knees there beside her on the couch.

Dad sighed. “I’ll trust you with that, then. I’ll fill up your tank on Monday morning before I go to work. Not many places to stop between here and there.”

Mom nodded. “Doctor Lansa said that there are a few more tests… some monitoring… before they can move onto a treatment plan.”

Dad huffed lowly. “How often does that need to happen?”

“I think they said… I don’t know. Once a week? Maybe every two? Depending on what they find out, we might be up to Grand Forks a few times a month… before this evens out.”

Dad nodded and swallowed. “You should take the truck. This first trip, at least.”

“Huh. What? Why? Don’t you need it for your work? All your tools?”

Dad shrugged. “It’s less likely to break down. That’s four hours round-trip from here to Grand Forks. I’ll make sure your car gets looked at before next time.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I’ll figure out something with my tools.”

Dad stood up after that, which meant he didn’t want to discuss it anymore. That tactic always worked with Mom. He shifted off in the direction of the front door. We saw him shortly after through the front window, out on the driveway, pacing around his truck and looking up and down the bed at his toolboxes.

Mom sucked in a long breath before standing. “Well, might as well get a start on dinner.”

I stood up after her. “I’ll help.”

“No,” she almost huffed. I had never heard her turn down my help except when I was bedridden. “Uh, just relax. It’s been a long day. Getting blood drawn, standing in front of scanners and stuff. Your body needs all the rest it can get during this sort of thing.”

Next Wednesday, I skipped school and took the drive with my mom. Dad’s truck didn’t have a working radio. It creaked and rattled. It was dirty too. Well-used. The seats and doors, and floor mats were coated with old mud and oil. It kind of smelled like smoke, too, even though Dad had said he had quit. All that aside, he had insisted it was more likely to make it than my mom’s little sedan.

After that, I just remember waiting. Waiting for the city to come into view. Waiting in the clinic’s lobby, where other sick people waited, wondering if they were better or worse than the others there. Waiting in the exam room, atop the table lined with crinkling paper. Waiting with held breath for more of my blood to be drawn as rubbing alcohol wafted up into my nostrils. Waiting more while people fumbled around outside the door, doing what they needed to do with that blood of mine.

An actual doctor eventually came. He was a native man like me and my mom. He sat down on his stool, a small stack of papers balanced between his hands. “Good morning, or should I say, afternoon,” he said, smiling at the wall clock, me, then my mom. “Natalie Howakhan, I presume? Test results are good. Basically, what your family doctor back at home told us. I imagine you were sick a lot when you were younger. Well, we might be on top of the cause here. Now, plain and simple… and you might have been told this already, but medical science currently doesn’t have a cure. But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep up with this thing and keep your quality of life as it is. A diagnosis like this, especially for someone your age, might make it seem like the world is ending, but I can assure you it is not.”

I hadn’t thought about it as my world ending thus far, but the thought came to my mind in that moment. Even so, it was just another diagnosis. After all, I couldn’t do much besides sit there and listen. Listen while the doctor explained what needed to happen. Listen while mom jotted down endless notes on the pad against her knee, pen scribbling and paper flipping.

Those notes ended up in my hands after the doctor left and we departed the exam room. We waited more, talking to the nice lady in her blue-green nurse outfit with tied-back hair while we scheduled the first of many further appointments. It was luckily after school got out for the summer, not that it mattered.

My mom and I didn’t waste any time turning back for the long drive home. I looked at the front page of notes my mom had written down. I could barely read them. Part of that was how fast they were scribbled down, the other part just being Mom’s handwriting.

“We can get the supplements they told us about back at the drugstore near home. And to see if they have a face mask, like doctors and surgeons wear. It will look funny, but you have to wear it. You can just tell people… well, I don’t know what to tell people, but they’ll understand. We can ask your dad for a few comebacks for any bullies that want to make comments…”

I zoned out as my Mom’s suggestions became less and less helpful. The next thing I remember was being shaken awake, my cheek glued to the seatbelt, and the view of our front yard outside the car window.

Dad was at home already, and he greeted us at the front door. “Drive okay?”

Mom nodded. “No problems. I’m… going to get washed up and get dinner on.”

Dad sighed and nodded. “I’m going to sort some of my tools down at the shop. Don’t wait up for me if I’m late. You, too, kiddo. I hope they can get you feeling better.”

He stroked the top of my head as he passed me and my mom out the door. And that’s the last time we saw him.

The Original Arrangement

No Space For Family [Chapter 31 – Final]

Grandma barely looked any different than before the accident had occurred. She even gave her famous eye squint as Dad described what went wrong, followed by a slightly modified version of how we saved her and ended up where we were. She was even able to get up on her feet (with a bit of help). After getting out of the hospital clothes, we wheeled her over to meet with Sakura in the administration building for a meal.

“So, where next, family?” Asked the Overseer over lunch.

Grandma, of course, was the first to answer. “Greenmire. My business still stands.”

“Worried about the lawyer?” asked Mom.

Grandma scoffed. “Yes. How did you…?”

Dad chuckled. “I mean, our business there is long overdue, after all. Luckily, I’ve already contacted the colony there and gotten a flight path planned out so we can avoid overheating again. Not that we have any extraordinary cargo to keep cool this time around.”

“A shame, that is,” Grandma sighed. “You’re sure that your client isn’t going to be mad about losing the goods, Jefferson?”

Dad bit his lip to avoid laughing, disguising the lapse of conduct behind his napkin. “No, we’ve already… worked out an exchange during the time you were recovering. Worry not.”

“Well, that’s all good, then.”

“Jefferson has always been quite reliable,” commented Sakura. “Your daughter is in good hands, Mrs. Ankern.”

Grandma rolled her eyes. “After all this time and two kids in, I hope I won’t discover otherwise.”

“Mom,” my mom spoke up. “Since we’re here and you’ve had a chance to see it, we might see about this being a place for you. In the future.”

Grandma eyed Mom and Sakura. “I see how it is. Even being an old… friend, it seemed a bit strange for the colony’s overseer to invite us to an exclusive lunch. Amelia, did you set this up? Ms. Ishii, while this is a lovely place, it’s a little… out there. And on top of that, I’m not quite ready to settle down, either.”

Sakura chuckled. “Of course. As Amelia said, it could be a prospect for the future. Nothing is set in stone.”

Grandma wagged her fork at us. “I’m a third-time widow, you know. I figured that I deserve to spend this time of my life not tied down to anyone or anything. And assuming my lawyer back on Chandra hasn’t run off with my money, I can afford a little bit of luxury.”

“We’ll call that lawyer of yours once a route to Greenmire has been set,” Dad said.

“Perfect. In a decade or two,” shrugged Grandma in Sakura’s direction. “I may have changed my mind by then. If all the stress of this whole adventure hasn’t put me on the fast lane to my twilight years.”

Sakura lifted her glass to the air. “Let’s hope not. A toast to taking it slow and easy.”

“Cheers,” Dad reciprocated. “Though we are lifting off bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Dr. Pois met us out on the tarmac that following morning. “I’ll be remaining here,” she told us. “I’ve found it significantly more peaceful here than my previous station. And I’ll actually be able to help people directly.”

After goodbyes from the doctor and the Overseer, we climbed the back hatch and into the Ora. Grandma was still a little bit shaky on her feet, so Dad had to pull her up the stairs while Mom followed behind her, almost having to hold her up by the butt. Just as we were about to follow her in, Grandma let out a short scream.

Terren and I rushed up to make sure she hadn’t fallen over in the boarding process. She was still on her feet, but stuck in the hallway door, recoiling.

“Welcome back, family,” said Plip, lounging between two of our chairs in the common room. “I hope you don’t mind me sticking around for a bit longer.”

I heard Grandma hissing at Dad while she tugged on his sleeve. “You didn’t tell me about picking up some hitchhiker.”

“Ah, hitchhiker, no,” Dad said with a shake of his head. “Plip here is… an assessor for the insurance company.”

Our whiskered guest grimaced for a moment before jerking himself out of the chair with a fake smile. “Right he is. Plip’s the name. I’m an associate with Cycles ‘Go Round. Yes, the… damage to the ship here, as well as the loss of property, was quite unfortunate, but Mr. Umburter has a wonderful policy with us. I’ve been riding along to make sure he and his business get everything they need to be back to well, uh… business.”

Grandma nodded while Mom and Dad ushered her to another chair. “Well, that’s fine, I guess. Just as long as I don’t have to see you constantly. Jefferson, where’s he sleeping?”

Dad sucked in a low breath. “Ah, right. Sleeping arrangements. Family, we’ll have to have a talk after we jump to warp…”

I’m not sure if our sleeping arrangements were better or worse than before. Grandma was offered Terren’s room. You know, the room that my brother and I had been using together? Yeah, that one. I guess the lingering odor of teenager wasn’t as much of a deal breaker as Grandma getting her privacy.

Terren got to sleep on the floor of the common room, not far from Plip, who probably couldn’t have asked for more. I myself ended up joining my parents in the loft up the ladder above the common room. Grandma actually had invited me to sleep on a cot with her, but my parents were probably worried about me getting any unfiltered gossip from her. After all, the real version of her was probably on the verge of oversharing sooner or later.

It wasn’t too bad up in the loft as my parents often traded out shifts in the cockpit. I think at a certain age most kids stop sleeping with their parents, and I definitely didn’t remember the last time I had done so. All I’ll say is that I’m torn a little between the feeling of drifting off while being hugged by my mom and being awoken by my dad’s snoring.

The challenges in dealing with all these people while having less overall space made the days fly by. It wasn’t long before the bright glow of Greenmire’s two suns was upon us once more.

“Amelia,” said Dad, inviting my mom to the cockpit. “Let’s run those calculations we talked about.”

“I’m on it,” said Mom, settling into the seat across from him.

“What calculations?” I asked. “Is landing going to be trouble?”

Grandma hobbled up to the cockpit door, supported gently by my brother. “So we’re there, are we?”

Dad glanced back. “We have Greenmire in our sights. And no, unfortunately, we won’t be landing.”

I was confused, but Grandma spoke first. “I’m still not sure if this will match the exact terms my late husband wanted.”

“About sprinkling the ashes down to the planet?” I asked. “How can we do that if we aren’t going to land?”

Mom shifted back and matched eyes with all of us. “As long as none of us tell your lawyer otherwise, we’ll have done everything asked of us.”

“Fine,” sighed Grandma. “I do want to get home sooner rather than later.”

“Amelia,” Dad said. “We’re catching gravity here. Do you have the needed trajectory?”

Mom settled back in and stared at her screen. “Pitch it down… four degrees. That’s it. Ready to launch.”

Dad reached up to the controls above the seat and held his finger against one of the buttons. “Any last words, Aida?”

Grandma took a sole step forward. “Let’s see… may any further adventures of mine be as eventful as your life was. Farewell.”

“Good enough for me,” said Dad, pressing the button. With a low pop, one of the front thrusters fired with a puff of condensation, sending off a cylinder in the direction of Greenmire’s verdant horizon.

“Was that…?” I stammered.

“My third husband.”

Mom chuckled. “The canister will be able to sail through the atmosphere at a shallow enough angle to delay it burning up entirely. Or not. These sorts of calculations aren’t my forte. I’m no AI after all. But his remains will return to this planet, just as he wished.”

Grandma sighed and waddled back around. “Good enough. It will save these wobbly legs of mine for a little while longer. I can already hear the condo back in Chandra calling my name.”

“Setting course right now, Mom.”

“Chandra, is it?” Plip said, sauntering around Grandma and up to the edge of the cockpit door. “Never been there myself.”

“Yes,” said Dad with a glance. “I think we’ll stay there for a bit, actually. Repairs, refits… meeting up with the local branch of Cycles Go ‘Round there. But it is a place with plenty of other opportunities.”

“Alas,” sighed Plip, swinging himself around on the door’s metal molding. “That means I must depart upon our landing there. As much fun as it’s been.”

“So much fun, Plip,” said Terren, patting him on the shoulder.

Grandma was settling down in one of the chairs at the common room table. I ran up to join her. “What did your husband do… before… you know?”

Grandma smiled at me and put my palm in hers. “Well, he grew up a farmer here on Greenmire. But he climbed the ranks down there until he started managing their exports. I met him on Chandra, of course, as he was building a name for himself in interplanetary agricultural trade. You might call his life a tale of rags to riches.”

“Does a tale like that also have adventure? Like you said about your further adventures?”

Grandma smirked. “Let’s just say the word ‘adventure’ is a stretch. I’ll leave those sorts of things to you and your family.”

“Jumping to warp, family,” called out Dad from the cockpit. “Grab a hold of something, cause we’re out of here.”

END

Back to the Ground

No Space for Family [Chapter 30]

It was daylight before the Ora roughly touched down, our barely qualified hitchhiker at the controls. My dad said the absence of the cargo pod at the back made it easier. Plip readily jumped out of the back hatch that once was the door to said pod. He shook my dad’s hand before kneeling on the hard tarmac.

“At this point, Mr. Umburter, nothing could ever repay you.”

“Getting our ship back to us is all I could have asked for,” replied my dad. “But the lady captain might end up asking a thing or twelve more of you.”

“Anything.”

My dad stepped up the rungs below the hatch to the inside of the ship, then lifted me by my arms to join him. He then sauntered out into the common room, glancing around. I joined him and tried to look where he was looking.

“Trying to find something?” I asked.

“No,” Dad chuckled. “Just trying to remember the last time it was so quiet in here.”

I smacked at his arm. “When the… real Grandma gets better, we’ll get to hear her voice again.”

“Definitely. Just not omnipresent. Which I can put up with.”

Plip poked his head up into the ship. “There is one thing I remembered, Mr. Umburter.”

Dad glanced back. “And that is?”

“She said she was going to leave a recording.”

A little while later, our whole family was up in the cockpit, ready to listen to the final recording that the digital Grandma had left for us. We were all on our feet, surrounding the main computer console.

“Here we go,” Dad said, finger on the screen and ready to play the file.

“If you’re hearing this, you’ve probably figured out my trick. Hopefully the people hearing this are my family members, and not those weirdos that have been stalking them. I’m not sure how much time I have to get this to you, but I can’t go without my final words. The one thing I want from you all… is to make sure you call my lawyer and tell him what has transpired. I’ve put a copy of his details into the ship’s memory alongside this message. And let him know that Amelia has every right to that inheritance now. Good luck out there.

…

No, there should be more. Amelia, brush you hair properly and more often, else your husband will start to think of you as a slob. Sola, keep that hacking business to yourself or you may find yourself in more trouble than you need. Terren, young man, put on more deodorant, or at least take one more shower a day. And finally, Jefferson…”

It seemed like everyone released their held breath at once as the recording cut off.

“I’m just going to guess she was going to tell me to keep being an amazing husband.”

I hadn’t seen my parents laugh like that together since… probably ever. Even Terren chuckled a bit before double-checking his armpit for any noticeable smell.

“The doctor and medical staff here say that she has a good chance at recovering fully,” Mom said, wiping the corners of her eyes with a smile.

“I’m sure we can help out here while she gets back on her feet too.”

The doctors there on Yuzumaru had said it would take three weeks before Grandma… the real, physical one, awoke again. A lot happened during that time.

Dr. Pois and the other doctors first helped stabilize Grandma as she came out of cryosleep and started treatment to get her better. It seemed she had some burns and frostbite, but the rest of her was just fine. She was kept asleep while her skin healed up.

The doctor obviously wasn’t in a hurry to get out of there. She said that if she went back to her employer— the people who had her develop Hows— that she would be in deep doodoo. I changed a bit of those last words, just so you know.

While Grandma was still stable and resting, Dr. Pois actually turned her attention to the inhabitants of the colony, the old people who were isolating because of the sickness going around. The doctor actually used her expertise to develop an algorithm in the colony’s computer mainframe.

My dad warned me not to bug her with too many questions, but it sounded like a way to keep track of any sicknesses spreading through predetermined groups of the locals if and when they we allowed to hang out again. It’s actually a lot cooler than it sounds. By the end of our time there, I saw some older folks out and about in the sun. Just as Terren had experienced long before, a few of them decided that I needed to hear how cute I was and discover how pinchable my cheeks were. Yes, Terren laughed every time it happened.

My family was quite busy too. Mom and Terren finished repairing the spacedock door and made sure it would hold for our long trip back. Dad tasked himself and me to make sure that none of the ship’s computer systems had been permanently altered by AI Grandma’s antics. It felt kind of sad, but Dad said it was necessary since the ship’s computer needed to be properly working to get back. Honestly, I would have rather been fixing up my old room so that I could eventually inhabit it again.

When it was finally time, Sakura called us. I’m surprised she wanted to help us at all after everything we had done there at the colony, but I guess she still decently liked Mom. We all went down to the medical facility with flowers and a fresh set of clothing for Grandma.

“So we need to remember this, family,” my dad instructed at the doors of the medical building. “We’re better off not having Grandma Aida know about her… other life as an AI.”

“That would take way too much explaining,” I said.

“Yes,” Dad sighed. “That, and she might assume we’d be trying to compare her against her counterpart.”

“Her highly advanced counterpart,” Terren added.

“Let’s say instead…” admonished Mom, tugging on Terren’s ear, “that that version was a completely different person. One that we don’t mention, like your dad said.”

“Got it, mom.”

“Understood.”