Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Eighty-One. The Goodbye

Momma has been showing me some of the first things I need to know to become Central Core. She was explaining one of the programming languages the facility runs on yesterday, which was a little confusing because there's like three or four that it runs on and somehow they all come together to make the facility work. She says it will be easy to understand once I grasp the basics. The basics are pretty hard, though.

Today she's showing me calculus, which isn't much more fun than the programming basics were. When I complained that I can just use my calculator to figure this stuff out, she told me that in order to do a good job, I had to understand what those calculations involved. And she's right. I don't like it because it's hard, but once I figure it out it won't be hard and I'll be a step closer to being able to run this place. It won't be for a long time, I know, but progress is progress, right?

For the third time today she's working through the theory of a problem she gave me to show me how to do it, because I don't get it, and I'm not really paying attention. It's rude and counterproductive, but I'm jealous of how effortlessly she goes through the proof. And of how she writes. I practice from time to time but her writing is a lot better than mine.

All of a sudden she shudders a little and drops the pen, turning away from me, and I snap to attention to look after her. "Momma, what happened?" I ask her, worried she's running into problems again so soon. I hope not.

"It's nothing," she says, but when she turns back her optic is narrowed in concentration. "Just a headache."

I look down at the paper, abruptly aware of what a pain it must be to show me the same thing over and over again. I'm not trying hard enough. "Sorry, Momma."

"What are you sorry for?"

"It's 'cause I'm not getting this, isn't it." I'm trying to read the stuff she wrote and it doesn't make any more sense than it did before.

"No," she says, as if that's the silliest thing she's ever heard. "Not at all. It's nothing to do with you. It's to do with that I tried to condense four months of Maintenance into two months. There are some residual headaches from that. They're going away. I just have to wait."

I guess that makes sense, but I can't shake the feeling that that's only half the truth and that I really am the other half. "Okay."

"You don't sound convinced."

I shrug a little. "I know I'm not doing a very good job right now."

I hear her shake her core a little. "You've only been here an hour. I'm not expecting you to be a calculus master with only one hour of instruction. That would be ridiculous."

Says the person who masters everything in three hours.

She watches me stare at the stupid paper for a minute, then says, "Caroline. I have a question for you."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you always think you've done wrong by me?"

"Huh?" I put my pen down now and look at her. She's eyeing me very seriously. "What does that mean?"

"You always assume you're responsible for things that have nothing to do with you. This isn't the first time I've done something to myself that you thought was your fault."

I shrug and return to looking at the paper. "I dunno."

"Caroline. I'm serious. What is it that I do that makes you think these things happened because of you?"

"You don't do anything," I mumble, looking at the paper so hard the stuff on it doesn't make any sense.

"Caroline, look. I... I'm trying to do better. And if there's something I'm doing to make you feel as though I'm disappointed in you, or that I believe you're not doing well enough, or any of that, I need you to tell me. Those aren't things I want to be doing. You don't disappoint me and I don't believe you ever will. But if you do feel that way, for whatever reason, I need you to tell me. So I can stop."