"Inventing the Future"

"Chapter 26: Boundary Trampling"

A few days after Jaming and Meredith had fully recovered from their illness, he spotted Sarah knitting in the shade of a large palm tree, and he decided to go and greet her. Sarah and Meredith were getting along fairly well these days, and the older woman had gone out of her way to be nice to her daughter's boyfriend. He thought it only right that he be civil in return, and besides, he had actually grown to like her a little bit. He might not agree with her methods, but he couldn't fault her motives.

"Good afternoon, Sarah," he said politely, offering a slight smile even though he still couldn't quite relax around her.

"Ah, Jaming. Good afternoon," Sarah moved her knitting supplies out of the way and waved him over. "Will you sit with me for a few minutes? I've been meaning to have a chat with you."

Uh-oh.

Jaming reached up and touched his monocle, almost as if to reassure himself that it was still there, and cleared his throat. "I was just on my way to ask Cap something...but he isn't expecting me, so I suppose..."

"This won't take long."

'But I have a feeling it will feel like forever. I know that look. My mother used to give me that look when I had misbehaved.'

"Very well," Trying to appear nonchalant, he walked over and sat down beside her. "What is it?"

Sarah resumed her knitting, the small bamboo knitting needles clicking like the pincers of some angry insect. "There is a rumor going around about you and Meredith."

"What sort of rumor?"

"Regarding the two of you staying closed up in that garage. Day and night." The emphasis on that last word was unmistakable.

His cheeks immediately grew warm, but his indignation was stronger than his embarrassment. He and Meredith hadn't even done anything the week or so that they were sick. And even if they had, wasn't it their business? "Well, this is what I was thinking. You might be right about those tree houses. Trying to climb the ladder when you are experiencing vertigo and confusion brought on by a fever would be extremely unsafe."

"That is beside the point. I worry about my daughter's reputation. Things have been hard enough for her as it is." Click, click. Click, click.

A hint of iciness entered Jaming's voice, and he was sitting very straight. "Ma'am...your daughter is thirty years old. People are going to talk about other people no matter what they do. Or don't do. I have no use for rumors or the ones who spread them."

"My name is 'Sarah', not 'Ma'am'. Don't call me 'Ma'am', it makes me feel old."

"I imagine that must be almost as infuriating as being made to feel like a child," Jaming shot back, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them. He was letting his temper get the better of him.

The clicking of Sarah's knitting needles abruptly halted, and she stared at Jaming in great surprise. He stared right back at her, unwilling to back down. "You must think that I'm cruel and controlling."

If she wanted him to disagree with her for the sake of politeness, he wasn't interested in playing those games. "I don't think that you mean to be. I know that you worry about Meredith's welfare."

"Hm...You might not want to believe it, but I have reasons for the things I do," Her knitting picked up speed again. "It's been quite difficult, Jaming. Watching your child suffer, and knowing that there is so little you can do to stop it. I can't think of too many things that are worse than that."

Jaming privately thought to himself that he could probably think of a few, remembering with great unease the devastation that was still taking place in the world as a result of Emperor Griffon's rampage. Then again, he wasn't a parent himself, so he supposed that he had no basis for comparison.

"Did you notice the way she speaks?" asked Sarah.

Jaming frowned, adjusting his monocle in what almost seemed to be a nervous tick. "I'm not sure what you mean. I always thought that she spoke very well. A little slowly sometimes, perhaps..."

"Aha," Sarah turned her knitting and started a new row. "Did you know that she used to stutter? Speaking slowly so that her brain wouldn't get ahead of her mouth and trip her up was one of the techniques she learned to control it. It took years of practice, though..."

Jaming remembered how some children, and adults for that matter, could be about such things. It seemed to him that anyone who was different from the norm was either viewed as a curiosity, or was made to feel inferior. The thought of Meredith going through any of the things that he went through made him feel sick. "I take it her peers were unkind?"

Sarah nodded. "That is an understatement. Oh, not all of them. Not even most of them. The group of bullies was pretty small, but believe me, they made up for it. The thing was...they tormented her so badly that for a long time she lost all trust in people. I lost count of how many times she came home crying. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Believe me, I tried."

Jaming hated what he was hearing. Despite the different situation, it was so familiar, and it broke his heart! And he realized that Meredith would hate for him to hear it from someone other than her. "Maybe you shouldn't tell me these things."

Ignoring this with the cool aplomb of a woman who was used to sidestepping the will of others, Sarah went on as if he hadn't spoken at all. She had a point to make, and she was determined to make it, boundaries be damned. "Those other children...It was a group of three. They could tell that she was afraid, and yet this only seemed to encourage them. One day...she came home...covered in scrapes and missing a shoe." She looked up at Jaming, who was horrified, and her voice turned bitter. "She said she had fallen down."

'I used to fall down a lot.'

Jaming took off his monocle and rubbed a hand down his face as if wiping the thought away. 'Ah, Meredith...'

"Do you know what that's like for a parent?"

Jaming shook his head, putting his monocle back on. "Not first-hand. But I do know the child's point of view. Look at me, Sarah. Take a good, long look. I'm not like everyone else. I barely even look human. My parents lived through a lot of what you lived through. It wasn't easy for them, either. It isn't easy for any of us."

Sarah nodded slowly, taking in Jaming's strange appearance. Her daughter was truly able to see something that few even bothered to look for. Jaming was prickly and reclusive because of the way he had been treated all his life, but every now and then his walls would lower a bit to show a glimpse of intelligence, kindness, and even a sense of humor. "Then you understand why she needs to come home with me."

Jaming felt a pang of frustration. He thought he was getting through to her! He kept it to himself, though. "I understand why you want that. You want her where you can keep an eye on things, so that you can go on protecting her."

"Exactly."

Jaming felt a wave of compassion for this woman in spite of himself. "May I speak freely?"

"You seem to have no trouble expressing yourself, young man," Sarah replied, amused but unsure.

"Well...My parents died several years ago. And, like you tried to do with Meredith, they sheltered me a great deal. As a result of this, when I lost them I could barely function in the outside world. I was homeless for a time. I took several wrong paths, and I made many mistakes. Meaning no disrespect, no one lives forever. The Meredith I know is kind, funny, and self-assured. And yet, you seem to feel threatened by this."

The color drained from Sarah's face and she began to look very angry, but she did not interrupt.

"Your daughter has made a life for herself here, and there is not one person here who wishes her harm. She is capable of minding her own reputation. That does not mean that she doesn't need or love her mother. But I think, and I'm sure that she'd agree, that she needs her mother to let her be an adult."

Sarah's lips tightened into straight, colorless line, and she gathered up her knitting and stalked away without another word.

Jaming watched her go, and he suffered a rather belated stab of dread. 'This could either be very good...or very bad.'

Well, it was too late to do anything about it now. He got to his feet once more, straightened his vest, and resumed his trek to Cap's shop boat. There was no way he was going to brave the Ocean's Roar Cave for something he couldn't even carry. Traveling around the coast by boat was a much better option. It was time to see a man about a platform.