Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Forty-Four - The Puzzle

Part Forty-Four.  The Puzzle

 

I can’t figure them out!

My mom acts like she doesn’t even like my dad, but she gets anxious when he’s not around.  She likes to pretend she’s not, but I’ve seen her.  Even if she’s working she’ll stop every now and then and lift her core, go through all the cameras until she finds him, and then continue working.  I’m not even sure anymore if she actually cares about him, but just thinks of him as some sort of possession of hers.  I don’t like that thought, I don’t like it at all, but it’s not common for her to demonstrate any caring at all.  And if I ask Dad about it, he just shrugs and says, “That’s how she is.”  He’s obviously okay with that, but I don’t know why.  I don’t like thinking this way, but… I don’t think she cares about him the way he thinks she does.  I mean, I don’t see everything they do, but… can they really do that much in private that would change my mind if I saw it?

I hope they do.

I don’t know what to think about it.  Dad doesn’t like that I’m trying to find them in books, but none of the books has anything like what they are.  And I’m sure that the people in the books are the ideal sort of couple, but none of them fight for pretty much half the day.  My mom and dad are always fighting about something, whether it’s about where Dad’s allowed to put his piece during a game of Payday or whether it’s about Mom not sleeping enough.  The second kind is the worst.  They’re not doing it for fun then, they’re doing it because both of them refuse to change their minds even a little, and those fights go on the longest.  But what’s weird is that Dad changed the way he fights with her.  He used to get really emotional and start yelling, and eventually he’d leave the room so that he could calm down, but now mostly he matches her as best he can: he looks her firmly in the optic, keeps his voice calm for the most part, and does not stop pushing his point home.  And he’s been winning the arguments more often, strangely enough.  It seems that if he makes Mom understand how serious he is about something, she’ll back down.  But right now, neither of them have budged. 

“You’re the one who decided you were gonna, uh, gonna sleep more, remember?” Dad says, still not looking away from her.  “Why’re you changing your mind all of a sudden?”

“Because I thought of something I have to do,” Mom says insistently.  “I can do it during the day or I can do it at night.  I was trying to be considerate, but apparently you don’t see it that way.”

“And what is this… thing you have to do,” Dad asks, a bit dully.  Mom looks away from him.

“It’s part of that thing I can’t tell you.”

“Oh.”  Now he sounds mad.  “That thing you said you were finished.  Turns out it’s not finished, is that it?”

“It was finished.  I thought of something I have to add to it, and the more I think about it the more I need to add it.”

“And what is it?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Why not?” Dad shouts, chassis shaking.  “I do not understand what is, what is so important that you can’t tell me!”

“I can’t tell anyone, not just you.  If I talk about it, I might be heard, and that will be the end of… well, possibly everything.”

Dad just stares at her.   She shakes her core and bends to look at him seriously.  “Look.  I know that sounds insane.  But I’m not making it up.  It is truly a risk to tell anyone.  I told you before, every minute I think about it is a risk.  Wheatley,” she says, her voice a little softer, “do you really think I like giving you this answer every two days?  I don’t.  But you don’t know what the consequences will be, and I do.  I can’t tell you.  And if I think of ways to improve it, I’m going to act upon it.  I’m not doing this for fun.  It’s for our safety.”