"Inventing the Future"

Author's Note: I had an idea for how the character of Meredith's mother would be portrayed, but I think the character had other ideas. She's more sneaky than I wanted her to be, but I think it will work out for future chapters. I promise, she's not a bad person!

"Chapter 19: An Understanding"

The next morning, Jaming sat on a high stool at his work table with one foot propped up on a chair rung as he made repairs to Julia's vacuum cleaner. Just an hour earlier, he and Meredith had been chatting over breakfast in his tree house. Just eight hours before that, give or take a few minutes, he had shared his bed with a woman for the very first time and had found the experience to be quite enjoyable.

He was just thinking to himself that nothing would be able to spoil his day when there was an uncertain knock at his garage door. 'Maybe Pau is finally getting the idea.'

"Come in," he called, not looking up from his work.

But it wasn't Pau. Jaming heard the soft 'click-clack' of a lady's flat-soled shoes, and the gait sounded hesitant. He looked over to see who this stranger was, and his relaxed expression hardened. It was Sarah.

"Good morning. Jaming, isn't it?"

He bobbed his head once and turned his attention back to the vacuum. "Ma'am."

'She can't sense what happened last night, can she? Whatever you do, Jaming, you keep a straight face! No fidgeting, no blushing, no guilty behavior!'

"I think I remember asking you to call me 'Sarah'."

The woman's voice was friendly, almost amused, but Jaming was having none of it. "So you did, ma'am."

"I came to apologize to you. I'm sure you witnessed my argument with Meredith last night."

"Indeed," Jaming wedged a screwdriver behind the vacuum's brush attachment and began to pry at something. "However, I do not require an apology."

Sarah closed the garage door and walked over, indicating the other stool. "May I sit down?"

"Certainly," he said without tone or inflection, and added, "If you are thirsty, you may also help yourself to something from the refrigerator."

"No, thank you," Sarah sat down and took in his body language and facial expression. "You don't like me very much, do you?"

Jaming finally pried a mangled barrette out of the vacuum, then looked mistrustfully at Sarah. "Your daughter was in tears last night. Did you know that?"

The older woman shook her head, clearly very surprised by this. "No, I had no idea. Did she say why?"

Jaming held the vacuum hose in front of his face and peered into its depths, then put it down again. It seemed that there was nothing else wrong with the vacuum, and he was reluctant to accept Julia's payment of dried papaya. Still, he pretended to be very busy with his task to avoid having to make eye contact with Meredith's mother. "I believe it was the mention of her father. She...seems to feel his loss very deeply."

After a long silence, Sarah shook her head and said almost to herself, "I didn't even think. No wonder she won't speak to me." She looked over at Jaming, who was checking various parts of the vacuum, and asked, "I suppose she also told you what we were fighting about?"

"She did," he pushed the vacuum away and toyed idly with his screwdriver. "I fail to see the point of your discussing this with me, though. I won't try to talk her out of staying here, if that is what you want from me. Nor will I influence her to do so. The decision must be hers alone. Do you see what I'm driving at?"

Now Sarah gave him a rather peculiar look. She could tell that Jaming very much wanted Meredith to stay in Veniccio with him, so it surprised her to hear him say that. "You care for her, don't you?"

The first hint of a smile began to show on Jaming's face, but he suppressed it. He didn't trust this woman, and he hadn't quite sussed out her motives yet. However, he knew that being rude to his girlfriend's mother would be a very bad idea, so he fully intended to play nice. "Very much."

"Then...don't you want what's best for her?"

Ah, so there it was. Jaming put down the screwdriver and turned to face her, draping his forearm over the edge of the table. Manipulation had worked on Meredith until this past year, as he had learned the night before, but Jaming could not be reached in this way. That ship had sailed when Gaspard piloted it away from Shigura Village, and Jaming himself had been forced to reevaluate his life. "I am going to tell you something, and I want to make myself perfectly clear."

Sarah leaned back a bit and raised her eyebrows, clearly scrutinizing his every word and move. "Yes?"

"Ma'am, I love your daughter. And, whether or not I deserve it, she loves me. I tell you now, if she truly wanted to leave Veniccio and go to Palm Brinks, or Sindain, or wherever, I would go with her without question. I am not holding her back, and I am not interested in getting in the middle of this. But please do not imply that I don't want what's best for her." As he finished, he tried to hide how intimidated he was by her.

"You truly think that you can take care of her?" Sarah asked, her expression giving away nothing at all.

"We take care of each other," he replied, refusing to quail under her eagle eye. "It's what we do."

And, finally, Sarah smiled a genuine smile and nodded as if he had passed some sort of test. "My daughter chose well. It seems we've gotten off on the wrong foot, Jaming. I hope we can still be on friendly terms."

"That is possible," Jaming acknowledged, and when Sarah said goodbye and left, he was troubled by something. As he mulled over the conversation he had just had, he thought to himself, 'Now, there goes a woman who knows how to get what she wants, and who will use almost any means to get it. She might be well-meaning, but I think I know why it took Meredith so long to break away from her. Such a formidable will is difficult to face...'