The Generators

13. Magdalenea

It's great to be back! Act Two will move a lot faster than Act One, thank goodness, and we won't hear from Taya for a little bit. This part of the story is important, and even though you (the reader) know what's going to happen, the characters have no idea. 

Thanks for all of your coming comments, and happy reading!

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It took time to get acclimated, but it did happen as the days ticked on, but Mr. O was never far from my thoughts. I woke up, took a shower and headed down for treatments, and just as startled as always as it was my mother who greeted me in the White Room instead of him. Mom brought me some breakfast and read a chapter of a new novel she'd picked up as I was sitting there, just as Mr. O always did.

"And as the girl settled down for her final sleep, she realized she would leave this world exactly as she needed it to be." Mom's eyes began tearing up. "I'm sorry darling-it's just. Does Mr. O always read such depressing books with you?" she asked me, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

I shrugged and scratched at my IV, "Depends. I mean, when we pick them, we usually don't know what the ending is going to be."

Mom rolled her eyes. "It's good to see you are sarcastic again Beanie, I've missed it. You know, even as a little one, you had that witty humor about you. You and, your father used to cause quite a bit of trouble. Pranks, jokes, the list goes on and on."

Dad was something of a jokester, and honestly at the most inappropriate times too. It drove my mother nuts; it didn't help now that she had my little sister to worry about, she was just the same as he was and frequently made her want to run for the hills.

"Well, now that we've finished all the books you've borrowed, do you think we should go to the library today?" Mom changed the IV bag and scribbled something down on my daily chart. She was getting the hang of this, of me. It wasn't so difficult once you realized it was the same thing over and over and over.

"Isn't Mr. O coming home soon?"

"Soon. Yes."

"Then I can wait for him.'"

"But-"

"Mom," I said meeting her desperate green eyes. "I don't mean to make you feel bad; it's just. Mr. O and I always got into the library together. We make an adventure of it; it's our thing. It'll be okay. We can...watch movies or something. You and me? We can have our thing." I reached to pat her hand comfortingly which seemed to do the trick; she brightened up immediately.

"I'd be delighted to have a special thing to share with you Beanie. We can think about it on the way to physical therapy this afternoon; maybe we can stop for ice cream takeout afterward, that could be it," she told me with a wink.

"I love ice cream." I agreed with a grin.

The day passed seamlessly, the routine ebbing and flowing as it always did. No hiccups. I dared myself to say that in the weeks I'd been with them, my parents had come a long way. I had confidence that they could meet my needs now more than ever, and we had a sort of unspoken agreement that wasn't there before. Such as, they didn't need to sit with me all the time. They had places to be and things to do, an international company to run. So during my oxygen treatments, I could be by myself, and they could get work done. It was thrilling, and I was never allowed to be alone. But they trusted me not to do anything completely rash and to call if I needed anything, and I trusted them to be there if I called. Our relationship was more of a give and take than anything, and even though it wasn't what it was like when I was a little kid, I still enjoyed it and loved them more than anything.