[SESSION id=0.22]: System Restore
The weight of the stool was far more than I expected. I had to assume I was losing some of my strength to the meds. A form of penance. Not for being cross-coded. That wasn't a sin. For being an idiot. For ruining everything. For pushing Jazz away.
As the stool found its balance on all four feet, Jazz's hand settled on my shoulder. She didn't speak.
"She knew. She called me by the name you gave me." The weight in my stomach was immense. The weight in my heart almost caused me to fall again. "Right before she. Right before —"
Jazz pulled me close, resting my head on her shoulder. No words again. Just holding me. Her back was getting drenched with my tears, and I just let it happen.
We stayed like that a long time. Me sobbing, weeping, unable to speak further. Jazz able to speak, presumably, but silent. When I finally caught my breath, she pushed me away. Just enough to meet my gaze. Still no words. Only those beautiful green-ringed yellow eyes of hers.
"Supper time. Soup. I left the sink running." She turned toward the sink. "Mother stood to take care of it. And then she was gone. Everything was gone. All at once." Her gaze returned, soft, understanding. Still no words.
I picked up my mother's bowl. The food had hardened. It was inextricable from the ceramic of the bowl. "This is all that's left of that moment." My free hand pushed Jazz away. She didn't fight it. I took the other bowl in hand and walked to the sink.
My feet carried me to the couch. I lay on the floor to look under it. The lost spoon was there, waiting peacefully to be saved. Once I had it, I grabbed both cups and brought them to the sink.
"You know, Lillian," Jazz's voice was soft, dry, "you don't have to do this now."
"I do, though, Jazz." I looked at my hands, then the dishes I'd moved. "A SIGSTOP demands a SIGCONT, and this session cannot TERM until I do this. She'd want that as much as I would."
"Then I'd like to help. How can the Future-Mrs. Thorn help the current Miss Thorn?" She came to my side and bumped her hip against mine. "We can discuss your penance once we find your peace, Lillian."
"For what it's worth, Jazz. For what it's worth, J.N. Flowers." I met her gaze. "If I had known what you two were planning, I would have waited to create Flower_Princess. Not an excuse. Just a fact. But that doesn't change how I reacted. That doesn't change what I did to you. To her. To everyone around me."
She didn't smile. "Two words, Lillian. Say them. Now that you know."
"I'm sorry, Jazz. For taking my mother away from you. For taking our future away from us." I took her hand. "The time didn't take that from me. I did. And now I have it back. And I feel evil. Because I broke the very first rule in 'On Erasure'. A crack should be beautiful first, helpful second, harmful never."
She smiled at last. "You did indeed. Now. Let's clean this place up. And then we'll get you back to our shared space." She squeezed the hand I was holding. "By the way, some of those clothes are salvageable and look really nice. Your mother had good taste."
"Yes, she really did." I released her hand, and we started the long process of properly laying that home to rest.
"A puzzle for you, Lillian," Jazz's voice was gentle, kind, reaching for me despite being right in my ear. "How do we honour your mother? How do we finish this process in a way that does a proper service to our shared memory of her?"
"What do we keep? What do we toss? Where do we go from here?" I was sitting in her lap. She in turn was occupying the armchair. It was a new take on 'isolation' that would've made my mother laugh. "And can we salvage her mobile workstation?"
"Excellent questions, my love." She tapped my nose with a single finger. "We keep your art, for certain. All of it."
"There's more than you saw, Jazz." I thought of my room. "Much more than you can imagine."
"Nonsense," she giggled. "Your mother sent me pictures of your walls. It was how she introduced herself. She said 'this is the kind of person you've been courting, J.N.' then she said 'by the way, this is L.A.'s mother'. I laughed for hours before responding."
"What did she mean by that?" I tilted my head. Confused.
Jazz held up a hand and began listing things off, counting with her fingers along the way. "Obsessive. Observant. Brilliant. Artistic. Beautiful." She set the hand on my head. "And I told her as much."
"Did you tell her? About my name?" I knew the answer. I had to ask.
She shook her head. "That was her very next message. 'why do you call my child your girlfriend'. She knew because she read our conversation, so I was honest with her. But that meant she already knew about 'Lillian', Lillian."
I felt a blush overtaking me. "Have I always been this completely oblivious to the obvious?"
"Yes. And I think that's why you started asking questions." She smirked. "And why you never should've stopped, Miss Thorn. Ask the right questions, get the right answers."
"Both of you like to torture me." I poked her abdomen. "Okay. Fine. We keep all my sketches and drawings and art. We toss those bowls. They're done for."
"I don't know. We could turn them into museum pieces." She giggled. That drew a giggle from me. "I'm keeping those two cups with lipstick stains. I love them. They're your mother's lip prints. The last little bit of her we can share."
"Wouldn't have let you toss them." I pointed to the table, where the book and mobile workstation were still sitting. "If we can power that on, we keep it. Otherwise, we toss it. Either way we toss the book."
"No. That book is something I can hold over your head and say 'see, I'm better at something than you', so we keep it."
My tongue was out of my mouth a second before she gently nipped it with just her teeth. "Rude. But fine. The note from her?"
"I'm framing that. Your mother and I agreed about your fragility, Lillian." She pulled me close. "And we could both use a regular reminder that she loved her daughter but wasn't willing to take away your anonymity."
"Furniture?"
"That bed's in good shape. I'll have it sent back to my place in [city[0]]. Everything else is up to you."
"Keep the armchair. Toss everything else."
"Sounds like a plan." She looked around the room one more time. "You ready to let this place go finally?"
"Not really," honesty was the best choice, "but I think it's time."
"Good girl."
Our task was a challenge, but we made it through. Each drawing pinned to my wall came down. One at a time. I took care to unpin them in the appropriate order that I wouldn't rip them. Jazz found a notebook for storing standard size sheets, and we filled it with all those drawings.
When we finished that, we collaborated in taking down the actual art in my mother's room.
"You know, Lillian," she said softly, staring at the one of her, "I find it odd that you made me do all the illustrations for 'On Erasure' if you could draw like this. She's so beautiful." Her hands barely touched the frame as she lifted it from the wall. "It's hard to believe she's me, if I'm honest. Or I used to be her."
"That's how you've always looked to me, Jazz," I admitted. "Radiant, despite your plain features. Stunning, because of your flaws. Everything I want to hold onto."
She stared at it as she moved to my mother's bed and sat on the edge. "When's the last time you drew anything, Lillian? Really sat down and created physical art. Not just the incredible things you do to The Source."
"Do you want the truth, Jazz?"
Her hands trembled. She knew the answer. She was holding the answer. "Seriously? It's been that long?"
"I was a bit distracted living three lives and trying desperately not to let my heart send me back to you." I put on my best authoritative face. "Very busy, you understand."
Jazz threw something at me, but we both laughed. We continued the task, packing all the art in boxes. She planned to hang them when we got back to [city[0]]. Right with all the cracks she'd saved.
Once all the other tasks were finished, we sat back in the living area, and I gathered the parts of my mother's workstation.
"She was writing about us, you know," Jazz whispered. "She sent me drafts every so often in the supercycles before you came home. I couldn't keep in touch, but she never stopped messaging me. And then one cycle, everything stopped. And I knew it had happened, but there was nothing I could do to help you."
"I can see it now. 'On Doomed Romance: An exploration of a self-sabotaging idiot and the absolute moron who loved her'." We both laughed lifelessly. "She always told me it was her story. Something told me she was lying."
"To be fair, any story about you is indirectly a story about her." Jazz's smile was soft and kind. "Once you grab that, the only other thing is to get the cups."
"Well, then I guess we're ready, Jazz," I stood, all the pieces in hand. "We can leave now."
"No rush, Miss Thorn. I wouldn't want you to feel like you can't stay a bit longer." She stood and moved to my side, bumping with her hip again.
"It's time. Like it or not."
We stepped out the door with several boxes between us. The door pulled shut with a muffled thump. My key turned smoothly into the lock, and I left with my past inside and my future beside.