I was talking to my dad about this conundrum, and he actually suggested I speak to Dr. Paterson about it, which I found funny. Even my father was pushing me toward him! So I went over to the doctor’s clinic after he stopped seeing patients, which were mostly arcanists or wannabe arcanists getting healed up after their training. Only his brawny, too hairy assistant was there when I entered the little health center. While doctors were still highly respected, they were somewhat less necessary when machines could do most of their work just as effectively and at a cheaper price. Still, no machine could work on your vida, which was George’s specialty. Along with many other women, I found a man who could help heal your soul sexy as shit. I met the doctor looking over some test results in his office at the back of the clinic.
He shut off the holoscreen on his desk and said, “Hello Odet. Please, have a seat. I understand you’ve hit a snag in your future. I’ll be happy to lend my ear and a word or two.”
With feigned anger he had no trouble picking up, I said, “You should be ready to give me your undivided attention. The snag was placed by you.”
“Excuse me? And how, pray tell, did I place this snag?”
“You’re the one who suggested to look into being a zoologist.”
He searched his memory a moment. “Hmm, I did, didn’t I? I apologize. My intention was not to further confuse you.”
“You can rectify your mistake by helping me now. Sooo, what do I do?”
“Let’s see… Yes, if I were in your position, I would go with zoology… What? Not good?”
“Um, no. I just wasn’t expecting you to be so direct.”
“I did preface that by saying if I were in your position. My reason for choosing zoology is due to its stricter sense of definiteness. There are multiple branches in zoology you can go into, of course, but music has quite a few more branches. You say you want to find a career in music, but you don’t seem to have a definite job in mind.”
“True. I just want to be involved in the music industry in any way I can. I thought that would give me a lot of jobs to choose from, but I guess that does leave open the possibility that the only jobs available might not be what I had in mind.”
“Exactly my thinking. I personally believe music is your forte, but perhaps you could lean on a more specific degree in the meantime while you narrow your choices down. You could secure a good paying job in zoology for the short term, keep learning what you can about music, and eventually transition into your dream profession when the opening occurs. Music is also much more competitive than anything in biology, so zoology can always act as a fallback.”
“I can’t argue with that, doc.” Ugh, I hated how childish I just sounded. Hoping to regain an air of maturity, I asked, “And what about you? Did you ever want to do anything besides healing?”
“Never. Since I was a child my favorite net games were those old surgery simulations.”
“You sound like you were a weird kid.”
“Very much so. I’ve yet to grow out of that weirdness.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the most non-weird person I know.”
“So most non-weird doctors have as much trouble finding a date as I do?”
I felt a warm hue of redness grace my cheeks. I lowered my head a little. “You really shouldn’t have any trouble, Dr. Paterson. Uh, I mean, you’re a doctor, you’re kind and smart, and, you know, other stuff.” A chuckle made me look back up.
An octave softer than his usual tone, he said, “That’s kind of you to say, Odet.” For the first time in my life, I saw him a bit out of sorts. He shifted in his chair and continued with, “If I may return the compliment, I too believe you are a generous young woman. You have grown up so quickly already. Your parents are very proud of you, Odet. They tell me often.”
“Oh, they tell me that, too. I was lucky to be adopted by them. They’ve given me a good life, a life that…”
“Odet?”
I re-lowered my head, and in a near whisper, said, “A life that led me to you…”
I couldn’t look back at him for the longest time. It could have just been for a second, of course, but “the longest time” was how it felt. When I did finally look up, with some of my hair obscuring my view, he was still pondering over my words, my admission. He was stoic, especially his eyes. I had never seen them so icy black before. When I positive he could start hearing the shouting of my heart, his lips began to move.
“I’ve known you virtually all your life, so I know what you just said wasn’t a flippant thing. Or am I wrong?” I could only shake my head a little. “I do care for you, Odet, maybe more than you know, but what you said can’t be unsaid. For the sake of not just our friendship, but our bonds with your family, we must handle this delicately. As soon as people find out that I dabbled in psychology, they have found it appropriate to tell me the trouble in their lives, so I know of many examples where simple misunderstandings between two hundred year old friends have ripped them apart. I don’t want that to happen to us, understand?”
I was a soft clay in his kneading hands. I was even more terrified than in his last question, but with this one I could squeak out a “Yes.”
“So you know I’m quite serious when I say that I truly do want what’s best for you?”
Words disappeared again. Just a nod.
“Then I will not-”
His assistant blurting out “Do you need anything else, boss?” paused my future. I literally wanted him dead at that moment and the moment after that. I imagined his disemboweled guts being eaten by rabid dogs as he screamed at me for mercy, since I further imagined I was the one holding a bloody knife. Anyway, the doctor dismissed him before he returned his attention back to me.
“As I was saying, I will not insult your intelligence by dismissing your feelings as that of a mere youth. You are a young woman now, a woman I know to be more pragmatic than others, so you will understand if I have to call upon this pragmatism. Even now I know I’m blathering because I’m taken aback. I honestly don’t know what to say. Maybe I should dismiss it now, but I can’t find the power to do so. You must give me a day to think things over. Will you allow me this?”
My ready to spring muscles wanted to say no, to suddenly become resolute for an answer right then, even though I knew that would only hurt my chances. I fought the powerful influence and gave him the time. He told me to return at the same time tomorrow for his response.
The day up until that time was a searing mist where people were amorphous, translucent blobs I simply walked through, and any external words sounded much like cats trying to quack. If I was prone to exaggeration, I would say those hours between meetings had me feeling exactly as though every cell in my body were being squeezed of their life supporting fluids. I felt giddy at first that he couldn’t say no to me at that moment, but I then started to feel stupid. If I had already gone so far as to force him to think it over, then I could have kept my mouth shut for a few months longer! Another year and he and I would have been a sure thing! No hesitation at all would have happened. Still, there was solace knowing I was close. Even if he rejected me now, who’s to say he would reject me again a year or two later? I prayed to the Sacred Seven, asking that if his door were to close on me that day, for it not to close permanently.
He messaged me an hour before I was to go to his clinic. He asked if I didn’t mind going over to a dojo to talk to him, as an obligation had come up that would prevent him from going to the clinic that day. I answered that I didn’t mind and went over to meet him. The auto-cab dropped me off at the edge of a large park at the center of town. I walked about a hundred yards under shedding trees and walked on and over their piles of red and orange leaves. The air was cool and the gusts brisk. I was glad to be given another reason to shiver under my fall coat.
I eventually reached the open-air dojo, where only a red roof protected budding arcanists from the elements. There were no students there yet, only the outline of my love sitting on the raised edge of the
concrete-floored arena. He was looking down at a holopad, so I had to walk a little closer for him to notice me. He stood up and waved me over with a soft smile. Moving a bit faster, I soon climbed up the three steps to reach his level. Neither of us knew what to do when we were in arm’s length of one another.
He pushed past the awkwardness by saying, “Sorry for making you come out here, but a friend asked me to personally attend to his students in their training sessions.”
“It’s fine, really. Um, what do you do, exactly?”
“As you know, I can sense vida better than most, so I can sense if a trainee is heading in the right direction. I can also offer up some of my own vida to them as a boost in energy.”
“Oh, okay.”
He smiled on realizing neither of us wanted to talk about his work.
“Listen, Odet, I’ve given this a lot of thought.” He sighed. Then, looking as though he had discarded a prepared speech, said, “Remember when I said I should be more proactive when it came to my love life?”
“Yes.”
I could feel him on me even before he closed in. I could see us kissing before his lips met mine. It’s like we had done it countless times before. His warmth enveloped me just before a cold wind could impact my body. I was a new person when we stopped our first kiss. Without knowing how it happened, we were now sitting beside one another.
In what I could tell was a smile more genuine than any I had ever witnessed, he said, “I’m drenched, Odet. Since you said those words I’ve been under a flood of feelings. I’ll admit, after you left my office, I couldn’t help laughing. Not at you, of course, only at my own inability to comprehend that a beautiful young woman was interested in me. Every time my brain tried telling me that it was a fanciful idea to be with you, my heart would put a chokehold on it and tell me not to let this chance slip away. I also couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you dejected because of me. But you must promise me one thing. We will take this slow. I don’t think either of us want to upset your family by announcing anything now. We will take it slow, and if a solid foundation is built, we will go to your family for their blessing.”
I embraced him. “I just needed your blessing.” Pulling away, I said, “Of course, the blessing of my family would be a nice bonus. I’ll show you George, just watch. I’ll show you that I’m not just feeling a girlish little crush. I’ve had crushes before, and this is nothing like them. I would, yes, I would take a bullet for you.”
He gave me a very solemn look that scared me. “Shhh, no talk of death from you.”
“Who said anything about death? I said I’d take a bullet for you, not die from it.”
He laughed. “So you did. That’s very good. Soldiers could learn something from you. Just in case, I’ll be sure not to go in front of too many bullets.”
He kissed me again. It was shorter than the first, but, now that I more or less expected it, I felt more feeling from it.
“Do you wish to stay with me while I work?”
Some twenty potential arcanists arrived over the next half hour to train under their mean looking master. Some friends and family of the arcanists joined me to watch the students, who would work out rigorously for a while before going into their meditations. It was as they meditated when George went to work. He would go up to someone and place a hand on their shoulder to sense how active their vida was. There were times when he seemed to be in deep concentration when his hand was on them, and that’s when I knew he was giving some of his own vida to bolster their own. How I envied them! I wanted him to do that for me, but he would later tell me that I would need to awaken my own vida to actually feel his gift without him draining most of his own life force. It was something to think about.
The weeks came and went blissfully. We saw each other when we could. Between my classes and his job, it wasn’t as often as I would have liked, but it did force us to go the slow pace he wanted. When my absences from home visits became noticeable, I did have to admit to Mom that I was seeing somebody, though I didn’t expose him. Ann was highly suspicious, but some puppy-dog eyes from me forced her not to pry. I ended up taking his advice about starting with zoology and some of our most intimately fun times came after he helped me study for an exam. I was jelly in his hands, but he treated me as though I were a prominent politician or priestess whose words meant as much as his own. I was sure he was humoring me, but there was a hint that he truly trusted my stance on something.
We were ready to tell my family after a year had flown by. The looks on their faces were priceless, except for Ann’s, who was on the brink of laughter. Mom took it quite well, probably loving that her daughter was dating a dashing doctor. Dad always had a comment for every spontaneous occurrence, but when his eighty-three year old friend proclaimed his love for his daughter, he was dumbstruck. It required several assurances from the both of us that we were really and truly in love and that our year long relationship was only to get more serious. He recovered quickly enough and we celebrated with some wine. As time went on, I believed Dad was happy with the idea that I was with such a well-respected man whom he trusted. So with my classes going well and my family happy for me, we were free to take bigger strides toward our happiness.
We married after my graduation. It was a wonderful occasion, only dampened by the fact that he did not invite his own family. He had mentioned them only in snippets when we were going out, eventually explaining that he was not close with them. They had a serious falling out due to his family’s close associations with a criminal syndicate. What actually started his early travels was his desire to separate himself from them and that life. He said he harbored no ill will toward them, but he could not think of involving ourselves with an unnecessary worry. The sensitive subject had him speaking as sadly as I had ever heard him when he told me some of the history, such as how his strict father used his brothers in criminal acts, and how his poor mother was too timid and afraid to leave the situation. I someday hoped to meet the people he could only show me through holopics and a few vids, but I decided there would be time enough later to plan out exactly how to go about it.
In any event, we soon didn’t have to concern ourselves with far off people, as we were on the move ourselves. I was offered a job on a small colony world to help study the indigenous creatures. The planet wasn’t very inviting looking, but that mattered little to us. We were happy anywhere. In fact, we were almost eerily happy. We rarely fought over anything, and it wasn’t as though we didn’t have differences of opinion, he was simply wasn’t someone prone to angry outbursts. Our fights always had me raising my voice and calling him terrible names, while he merely kept his same placated expression and tone. In fact, one of the few things that annoyed me about him was that calm attitude when I was in a bad temper. It was almost like he enjoyed seeing me mad. I swear he sometimes found something to annoy me with just to get me going. At any rate, however annoyed I got, our makeup sessions were always fun. Our love life was never more satisfying than after a good disagreement, not to say the other times weren’t crazy good as well.
We had been married eight years before I knew it. I continued studying music in my spare time. In my spare time’s spare time I started working on awakening my vida. I cared nothing about becoming a capable arcanist, but I did want to feel his soul pouring into mine. He was no master teacher, but he knew enough to help me with the basics. It was exhausting, patient work, neither of which was my forte, but I awoke that Sacred gift just after our nine year anniversary. Gods! How his healing hands felt on my soaked skin as he melded his essence with mine! He gave me little pieces of his soul that energized our lovemaking. If I only knew it would feel that delightful, I would have quit my job just to focus on training. My husband found time to train with me, so by the time I awakened my vida, he had learned to warp a bit of fire to compliment the water he could already warp with some skill.
We spoke of having children, but he wanted a better environment than our small, fairly remote colony world, so we decided
to wait until one of us found a another planet that would suit us both. At one point, as I combed through job opportunities in either the music or zoology sector, I came across an opening in Shiria’s zoo. The zoo thing didn’t really interest me, it was the fact that the world of Shiria reminded me of George’s family. He had said that most of them still resided there. It began to gnaw at me that we could have children that would never know half of their grandparents. I would intermittently slip something to that effect as delicately as I could in conversation, but George was alert to such ideas and would not hear of us reconnecting to a life he wanted to leave behind forever. The fact that our future children could interact with active criminals did frighten me and forced me to agree with him, but it did not extinguish it completely. I couldn’t believe that all of his former family could be dreadful lawbreakers. Combining my own lifelong conversations with him with those of my parent’s knowledge of George’s old life, I was able to surmise that he had often played with cousins that were born from aunts and uncles unassociated with the underworld lifestyle. What would they tell me of George? Wouldn’t one of them love to hear from him? To hear of his happy wife and future children?
I couldn’t help myself. I knew I would be going against his wishes, but a little bit of snooping couldn’t hurt, especially when we were close to moving to another planet altogether. There was also the impression that a reunion with some part of his family would be a good ten year anniversary present. So, looking up some names I knew through the net, I was able to find a cousin of his named Pearl Paterson living in Shiria’s capital city, Meltin. I sent her a quick message asking if she remembered George. Wanting as speedy a response as possible, I paid the fee so that the jump-buoy would send the message instantly instead of having to wait a few hours for the long queue to decline.
Generations (The Nimbus Collection Book 3) Page 15