“Hello to you too,” she said when he pulled back “Sit and eat. Some of us are on a schedule.” She lifted the lid off the lunch box.
About half an hour later, they had lunch reduced to salad containers, sandwich warm-wraps, and a couple of empty ice cream cups scattered on her desk. It wasn’t until then that he realized Jolynn was just looking at him.
“What?’
Her eyes sparkled, and he heard her unspoken accusation.
“I am listening,” he said indignantly.
Jolynn snorted. “Maybe.” She set her spoon down next to one of the toy cats. “Shall I tell you what’s wrong?”
Michael leaned back and folded his hands. “Please do.” He’d known this was coming. He hadn’t wanted to talk during lunch. He’d just wanted to be here with Jolynn in her quiet, cluttered office, away from everything else. He knew she’d notice his silence, but he still hadn’t been able to get himself to make more than brief answers to her remarks about her day, their children’s upcoming tests, and the intramural soccer tournament.
Jolynn bunched one of the warm-wraps into a ball and stuffed it into her empty ice cream cup. “What’s wrong is that Grandma Helen has left you out of the loop and you are not doing anything about it.”
How does she know? How does she always know? “I don’t know that there’s any loop to be left out of.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re not asking.”
Michael sighed and tapped his spoon against the edge of the desk. The plastic ticked sharply against the metal. “Jolynn, why did you come back?”
“From where?” She stuck one of the ice cream cups inside the other.
“College. On Earth.” He tossed the spoon into one of the empty salad containers. “You went, just like the rest of us. Why’d you come back here?”
“Because I couldn’t resist the lure of all this glamour?” She waved both hands at her cluttered, windowless office and smiled. “I don’t know. I couldn’t get the hang of Earth, I suppose.” She paused, and her gaze focused on the wall, but Michael knew she was seeing her own thoughts. “I could have been a school administrator on Earth, anywhere I wanted, but I didn’t feel like it would mean anything. My roots were all up here, everybody I really knew, everybody who really knew me, and…I guess I was just more comfortable with edges to my world.”
“Edges?” Her words nibbled at him, reaching toward meanings inside himself that he had been trying to tease out all morning.
Jolynn nodded. “We’re all stuck together up here. Everybody’s got a place and something to work toward, and Grandma Helen’s at the top of it all. As long as she’s there, there’s somebody else to make sure the world’s all right. It’s not all on you.” She dropped the ice cream cups into the lunch box. “That’s kind of a scary thought. I came back because I want to be looked after.”
Michael nodded in agreement. “But it’s there, isn’t it? I think every v-baby’s got it As long as Grandma Helen’s around, everything’s going to be okay.” He met Jolynn’s eyes, her beautiful warm eyes. “So, what do we do if something goes wrong with Grandma Helen?”
“Tell me,” she said.
So, he told her about Josh’s letter and his talk with Philip and how, on the face of it anyway, Helen herself was the logical first place to look, and how he didn’t want to believe that.
Jolynn smiled in sympathy and took his hand. “You said it yourself. Us v-babies, we want Grandma Helen to take care of us. We don’t want to think about her not being there or being flawed. It’s as bad as the day you find out your own parents are just human beings.”
Michael gently squeezed her fingertips. “Yeah, it feels like that. But—”
“But nothing.” Jolynn dropped his hand down onto the desk and pushed her chair back. “You go looking where you need to look and you don’t come home until you’ve got the truth.”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” Michael pointed at her. “My wife is always telling me what to do, that’s what’s wrong.”
“Divorce lawyer’s a com burst away,” she returned calmly. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Michael stood up, took her face in both hands, and kissed her gently. “I’ll be home for dinner.” He started gathering up the lunch litter.
“Good.” Jolynn grabbed up the cups and dumped them both down the solids chute. “Chase has sociology homework. That’s your bailiwick.”