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Garin grappled with that thought as he scrubbed a plate. His mother couldn’t have a job. His mother couldn’t hold down a job. Once, sure, she’d held down an entire lab full of people. At least, that’s what Garin’s childhood memories told him.
But she hadn’t done that in a long time. Decades. And why was she trying? It was too much. She’d only just found a medication that worked. What if the effects were temporary? What if pushing too hard, too fast, ruined the gains she’d made?
And how had she done it? How did she even know how to get a job? She hadn’t socialized in years!
Garin loved his mother. He knew she was brilliant and capable. She just wasn’t when she was sick. And she’d been sick for a long time. She was still sick. She’d been sick for so much of Garin’s life that she was sick almost as a matter of definition.
“It seems to be going really well.” Beaty took the wet plate from Garin’s hand and wiped a towel over it.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Garin rinsed a bowl and handed it to her.
“Why not?” Beaty put the plate on the drying rack and took the bowl. “They have her on fission research. She was a leading expert once.”
“Yeah, once.” Garin shook his head at the naïveté, then yelled over his shoulder. “Ethan, Lucas, you better be out here in five minutes.”
“They’ll be done before that, Kevin.” Beaty took the cleaned forks out of his hand with a frown. Kevin. Garin gritted his teeth at the name, the sound of it compounding his grief with his irritation at them into resentment, spurred by the confusing realization about his mother and the frustrating situation he would have to fix. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” Garin moved on to the pot encrusted with something that had been cooked at too high a heat for too long.
Beaty sighed and passed him the heavy-duty dish soap. “Did you have a nice time at the gala?”
“Yes,” Garin half-lied. It had been a nice time. Then it had been an awful time. Then it had been a wonderful time. And now it was an awful time again. But that was all more disclosure than he wanted to engage in.
“Did you spend it with Sazahk? Did he look amazing?”
Garin glared at his sister, but she had her back to him as she put a plate away, probably on purpose. “Yes, of course. Everyone looked amazing.” Garin shoved his clean pot onto the drying rack. He wasn’t playing this game right now. “Ethan! Lucas! If?—”
“Kevin! Everyone is coming. It’s fine.” Garin’s mother rolled a bag down the hallway, fully dressed, her hair done, looking like someone he’d never seen.
“Well, they’re coming late.” Garin took her bag and placed it next to Beaty’s by the door.
“You know, Kevin, I think we all expected you to be a lot more relaxed after last night.” Lucas came down the hallway, lugging his bags.
“What does last night have to do with you being late? As usual?” Garin couldn’t count how many times he’d dragged the twins out of bed to get to school. He’d been doing it since before he’d left school himself. His mom certainly hadn’t been able to do it, just like she wasn’t doing it now. And where would they all have been then?
“Didn’t you spend it all with Sazahk?” Ethan passed their mom her purse.
“Not sleeping?” Lucas finished Ethan’s sentence in that way they still did.
“Sazahk doesn’t have anything to do with this.” Garin snatched Lucas’s bags from his hands and put them by the door. “This has to do with you needing me to do freaking everything for you, always, all the time!”
“Kevin! That’s not even—” Beaty cut herself off with a deep breath, and her flash of anger banked. “That’s not true, and that’s not what this is about.” Garin opened his mouth, and Beaty raised her hand and stuck her palm in his face. “Stop.” She swung to their mother, her hair flying. “Mom, can you please?—”
Their mother raised her hand more calmly and nodded. “I got it.”
Garin scowled and made for the door. “There’s no time to get anything.”
His mom caught his arm, her fingers surprisingly firm around his biceps. “There’s time. Boys, take the bags down to the transport bay. Beaty, go with them.”
“Mom.” Garin reached to pry off his mother’s hand, but she gave him a sharp look he hadn’t seen since he was a child, and he shut his mouth.
Ethan, Lucas, and Beaty filed out, shooting him looks that were more concerned than resentful, and Garin felt guilty for snapping at them.
His mother tugged him to the couch. “Sit down, Kevin.”
“Mom—”
“Sit down, Kevin. There’s time.”
