Keys chapter 2
Chapter 2
Cent
Joe held me as I cried. He rocked my shoulders against his chest slowly and let me get it out, my nose stopping up and tears running down into my lips. I hate it when I cry.
Dad had read me the riot act from ground to sky, talking about all the people that get hurt; get killed when we are forced to break cover. And he's right, of course. People that can't jump and are caught in the open when we are pinpointed by the enemy and are just cannon fodder for the fuckers that have been after us for years. It was a major miracle that both Dad and Joe agreed that I could keep a boyfriend, and Joe had been my rock ever since we had to move back to the Yukon. I didn't get to see him very often; he had a life to maintain back in New Prospect and he had to pretend that I didn't exist... and even that other girls didn't exist, for my sake. I made it up to him when I could; we surfed off Walmea Bay in Oahu, snowboarded all the time with no lift waits, got into concerts all over the world of bands that he loved. But I knew it was hard on him all the same, not having someone with whom you could go out with friends for a good time.
For now though, he held me, and that was enough.
Davy and Millie
Millie was softly crying too, her hands folded quietly on her lap, watching her husband. She'd been listening to the kids present their ideas and not noticing how Davy was reacting too long, and had cringed as they let the beast out of the bag. She should have stopped his outrage, his fear at the idea long before it had reached the crescendo it had, and knew she now had to rein her family into the fairly healthy group they normally were. There was more to the plan than Cent had said, she knew it as strongly as she knew that Cent was of her blood; but Davy had blown up and that had been that.
Davy was pacing in front of the fire, something she was used to seeing. She knew that he was someone that could think clearly and quickly both sitting or active, but she also knew that if there was a strong emotion involved, he wanted to be doing something. Building, walking, bicycling, it helped him get over how slow he was to admit his feelings. She sipped again at her tea before putting down the cup and saying, "Sweetheart? Ready to be rational yet?
"Rational? You heard her! Even after having her life in danger, her friends' lives, losing everything to those shitheels…" He stopped and ran both hands through his hair, eyes squeezed shut in consternation. "I can't believe she has been thinking about anything like this. It would mean regular and constant exposure to hundreds, even thousands of people that we don't know and don't know we can trust." Davy looked at his wife, pleading with his eyes and frightened to the core.
"You reacted. I understand where it comes from, and your daughter is no fool, she knows you almost as well as I do. She wouldn't have said something like this unless she had a lot of planning and thought behind it, love. If you respect the job we've done raising her, if you respect her intellect, her heart, and her caution, then it wouldn't do any harm to hear her out. If it's as foolhardy as you believe, she loves and respects us well enough to listen. I'm going to remind you once again. There are no chains of any kind on her and you can't put any on her. She's unique and has more freedom than any young person in the history of the world. If you can't convince her, you can't stop her."
Davy sat and just held his head for a while. Millie went over to him and put one arm over his trembling shoulders and with the other gently moved his hands from his face. She put every ounce of love and patience she felt in her voice and said, "We owe it to ourselves to either convince her to give this up or help her. There is very little middle ground. It may change our lives beyond anything we can imagine, but how is that different than any other family? Let her talk, let US talk. It can't do anything but let us see her plans and see if we think she can survive them."
It took another hour of soothing, but he nodded at last, as Millie knew he would.
Cent
When Mom came upstairs to ask me to come back down, Joe was gone. I shrugged and said, "He had homework. We forgot to bring his books this time so he could work on it here." I looked at mom carefully in the face and asked, "Is Dad calm now?"
Mom sat beside me and spoke gravely. "He's still going through this… paradigm shift. He and I both grew up with a certain view of how families worked, about authority issues between adults and children need to be resolved. It didn't help his outlook that his own father was abusive and an alcoholic. Cent, you need to remember that in a normal family, children are dependent on parents, need them more than, well, you and,"
I interrupted loudly. "Not need you?! Are you kidding me? You and Dad saved my life not long ago, mine and people I care about. I KNOW how much I need you, how much we need each other." I stood up. "I need to finish what I have to say to both of you." I jumped back to the living room abruptly, facing Dad who was still sitting on the couch. Mom appeared and I took both of their hands, sitting on the floor in front of them.
I looked back and forth between their faces, gathering their attention, and I hoped, their approval… eventually. "Both of you have been through life changing experiences that made you evaluate your risk by what you valued. Mom, you chose to use jumping to help people all over the world when emergencies happened. You might get caught, you might get killed, each time you go out there it might be your last. But you made a reasonable decision that it was worth the risk. That the contribution to the world was worth what it might cost you and people you love."
I turned fully on my father. "You did the same. Any one of those terrorists you caught could and would have put a bullet in your brain. But you thought it was worth it… and you think what mom does now is worth it. There is risk in what I want to do. And I don't just think it's worth it, I think it's the very best thing I can do with the gifts the two of you gave me."
I shook my head slowly, willing them to see my commitment. "We've given this a lot of thought. We think we've addressed the major issues that you'll object to. If you can shoot holes in them, that's great… because I'll make you sit down and help me think up better ways. Dad… I can see this as my life's work. Something that will benefit the entire world. Something that I can look at and be proud of."
Dad was clutching at his chest, at the scars under the shirt there. I knew what he was feeling, and felt the anguish that I was causing him. I also knew that some part of him just wanted to jump away from this, flight reflex in full effect. And finally, I knew that he wouldn't. And that he would help me. Because he loved me.
He nodded slowly at last and drew me in close.
