Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Forty-Eight. The Renewal

Part Forty-Eight.  The Renewal

 

Even though they’re kinda fixed, things are still a bit awkward.  I still haven’t really apologised for any of what I said, and I have to.  I mean, I kinda did, but some stuff I kind of have to… well, some of it was worse than the rest.  Momma might say insulting things sometimes, but she’s never told me she wished I wasn’t her daughter.  That was wrong.  And I’m really tempted to just pretend I didn’t say it because I know she won’t bring it up or anything.  I have to take responsibility, though.  And if I show responsibility, maybe she’ll finally give me a job. 

No.  Probably not.

“Hi Momma,” I say, and as usual she looks up from some work-related thing.  I think it’s the greenhouse blueprint again.  I never really get to see what she’s working on, because if I get close enough she generally puts it away.  Which is something I kinda forgot she did.  She always makes time for me, even if she’s working.  She used to send me away more often, but then again that was when she had that secret project.

“Good morning,” she returns, sounding a little guarded.  She kinda has good reason to be.  I’ve been pretty difficult lately.  But I know what I’ve been doing wrong, and I’m gonna fix it.  I want to have all my mom’s good habits.  Though both my mom and dad are kinda short-tempered, so I don’t think I’m getting out of that one.

“I’m just um… seeing how you’re doing,” I venture, not really sure how to apologise, just like that.  I shouldn’t have let so much time pass.  It’s getting really hard not to just ignore it.

“I’m fine,” she says.  “Just getting some work done.”

“The greenhouse thing again?”  When she nods, I ask a little hesitantly, “Can I see?”  It’s kind of nosy of me, and if she asked to watch me draw something I would have said no, but she only nods again and moves over a little.  When I see what she’s got I feel my spirits drop a little.  This is the most amazing, detailed thing I’ve ever seen.  She’s got these weird plastic, transparent kinds of papers with grids on them, and she’s drawn on all these separate sheets of it in different coloured pencils or markers or something and then overlaid them.  I don’t think I’ll ever be this organised.  I’d get all my lines messed up and start drawing something on the wrong layer.  “Do you always do it like this?”

“No,” Momma answers.  “I usually do it on one of the monitors.  But I haven’t made anything by hand in a while.  So I decided to try this.”

“Is it better or worse?”

She shrugs.  “It doesn’t make a difference to me.  It’s a little more work.  Because this has to be scanned now.  Separately.”

“It’s nice,” I tell her, and it is, even though I’m not entirely sure what all the layers are for.  I guess I can ask.  “What’s… what are they?”

She laughs.  “Now who doesn’t see the whole for the parts?”

“Whoa wait.”  I turn to look at her.  “This is what you see?  Just a lot of lines sitting there?”

“That’s probably as close a description as you’re going to come up with.”

“Well… explain it to me then.”

So she goes over the sheets, and each of them has a different system on it.  There’s one for Surveillance, one for Maintenance, Electrical, all that stuff.  I’m just staring at the paper wondering how she remembers to put all that stuff in there.  When I ask, she says, “It’s not a matter of memory.  It’s a matter of logic.  I need lights, for example.  Therefore the power has to come from somewhere.  Which would either be from the existing system in the Depository, or from the room above.  I’ve gone with the existing system here merely because that makes more sense than pulling down through the ceiling.”  She picks up an orange pencil.  “Though I didn’t add this.”  And she draws some lines on one of the sheets, but I can’t remember which one this is.  I must look confused, because she adds, “The management rail.  I don’t really maintain those anymore, so that I did forget about.”