Transient - Complete Book One (Episodes 1 - 4) (Transient Serial) Page 9

  “Not shorter than me.”

  “True, but that’s my point - I’m getting to my point. Bob found out he only had a few more years, and after a few weeks of adjustment, and after his wife and him talked it over with the counsellor, the fact that he had only a little bit of time seemed to solve a lot of their problems. His wife was going to leave him, and now she’s sticking by him and Bob’s the happiest he’s ever been, and it’s all because of the cryptograph.”

  While he was speaking, her mother stood frozen with the casserole dish in her hands. Now she started serving around the table.

  “Maybe therapy, then,”she said to Rae.“We could get you a counsellor or a therapist, someone to talk to.”

  “I don’t need a therapist.”

  “But it might make it easier. It’s a tough transition, and not just because you’re trans—God, I hate that word. I mean, not just because you’ve got two years left. Whatever the result was, it would be difficult. It was for me and even your father too when we first got ours.”

  Her dad nodded.“That’s true. At first. You don’t want that number, even if it says it’s a hundred, it’s still a cold hard fact. And facts need to be dealt with. And no one likes dealing with facts. Especially the cold, hard ones. Honey, can you grab me another beer from the fridge?”

  “Of course,”her mother got up and went to the fridge as she talked.“What I’m trying to say Rae is, your dad and I are here for you, but maybe we’re not the best people to talk to about this. We love you and care for you, and we’re here for you, but you’re our first child, and we haven’t been through this before any more than you have. Maybe a family counselor would be nice, maybe that would work, so we can all talk about it.”She handed a beer to her husband. You’d go with us, wouldn’t you, dear?”

  “Of course I would. Anything for my angel.”

  “It not just for her, honey, but for us. It’s not easy on a marriage, losing a—I mean, even if you know in advance, it’s not the same as her going off to college, is it? This isn’t something we ever planned on. We planned on college. That was going to be hard enough, but she’s not going to college, she’s going somewhere else, and maybe we should start going to church, I was thinking about church.”

  “Oh?”he said, skeptical.

  “Yeah, I was thinking that might be the thing. Maybe a family therapist, or going to church.”

  “You saying I have a choice?”

  “Of course.”

  “No church,”her father said defiantly.

  Rae’s father had had gone to Catholic school and hated it. She didn’t know much about going to church, though her mother went sometimes, and had taken Rae and Carl when they were younger.

  “No church, then,”her mother conceded.“But I’m going to start going again. You wouldn’t hate that would you, if I started going, just for me?”

  “Do want you want,”her father said dismissively. It was an old argument, and one he had conceded long ago.“No skin off my butt.”

  “Honey, not at the table.”

  “My apologies,”He raised his beer bottle.“Not at the table.”

  “So it’s decided then,”her mother said.“I’ll look into a therapist. It doesn’t have to cost that much. Mary has a good one I think, and she can’t afford a lot of extravagances. I’ll ask Mary.”

  “Don’t worry about the cost,”her father said.“This is for Rae, and I’m sparing no expense. And besides, we’ve been tucking some money away for her college fund, so there’s that.”

  “What about my college fund?”Carl asked.

  “You have one too, but they’re separate accounts, and what I set aside for Rae, is for Rae. We can use that for therapy. Although, if you ask me, it might be better to spend it on a vacation or something. That’s a kind of therapy, isn’t it? Get out of town for a while? Rae?”

  “What?”

  “Getting out of town, maybe? Is there some place you want to go? Europe or something?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well, think about it. Make a list. That’s what I do, for business stuff - personal too. Make a list of everything you want to do this year, and for the next five—I mean, two years. You know what I mean. Make a one-year plan, and a two-year plan, and we can talk about it, and if there’s something you’d like to do, like go to Paris or something, that’s not out of the question. Not at all. And I mean that. I’ve got a college fund set aside for you, and we can use it for Paris. Or for something you want to do. Maybe something fun we can all do together. But you’ve got to tell me sweetheart, and we’ve got to plan it out, and think about how best to use the time you’ve got left.”

  “It’s not school, I know that much.”

  There was a silence across the table.

  Her father nodded, took another pull on his bottle and nodded again.“I know what you’re saying. I understand that. I’d feel that way too, I know I would. That’s an adjustment, though. Not going to your graduation, wearing the cap and gown, picking up your diploma, that sense of accomplishment, but like I said, we’ve got to face facts. And school is—important. But maybe it’s not the most important thing.”

  “So you’re okay with me dropping out?”Rae asked.

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Can I drop out, too?”Carl asked.

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve got a long life ahead of you, young man, starting with school. And until we know any different, until we know your cryptograph, you are to study and learn as if you’ll live to be one hundred. Do you understand that, young man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, Rae. Your mother had something else to discuss with you.”

  “I did?”her mother asked.

  “The hospital.”

  “Hospital?”Rae asked.

  “Oh, right,”her mother said.“I made an appointment with you at the hospital.”

  “What for?”

  “A check-up.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “I know, but the results of the cryptograph were you know, less than conclusive.”She fidgeted with her hands.

  “They seemed pretty conclusive to me.”

  “The date, yes, but as to the cause…”her father put in.“We know the date but not the cause. That’s all your mother was saying?”

  “What does it matter?”Rae asked.

  “It matters.”Her mother jumped in.“The point is, the cause of death, the reason, I mean, what happens in your future, to you—Rae, this is so hard for me to talk about, you understand that, right?”

  “Then let’s not talk about it.”

  “We have to talk about it,”her father said.“We have to get this out in the open. That’s what the test is for. Knowledge is power. If we have knowledge, we can act on it.”

  He sounded like one of those reps from OBK on the TV ads.“But there’s nothing to act on,”Rae said.“We can’t change the future. The test is never wrong.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Well…”her mother began to say and her father shot her a look.

  “Honey. Don’t start. The test is reliable. One hundred percent reliable. It is always accurate and always has been. If we start thinking we’re the exception to the rule, that we can change the future, put off our expiration date, through prayer or incantations or diet or exercise or whatever other mumbo jumbo someone wants to sell us—well, that’s just a dead end. A waste of time and money. And it’s not about the money, it’s about time. You can always make more money. But time is time, and those days and weeks and years aren’t coming back. And to spend the little time you have left—that we all have left. It affects all of us, everyone. To waste that time is stupid. Just nuts. That’s what I’m saying. No one has an endless supply of time, and time runs out the same for us, at the same pace. It’s just the end date that’s different. And the cause.”

  “Natural…unnatural…I don’t see what it matters,”Rae sa
id.“If I’m struck by lightning or a car or cancer. We know when it happens, and I can’t change it.”

  “Quality of life,”her father argued.

  “That’s right,”her mother put in.“It’s actually very different if it’s natural or unnatural Rae. Don’t you see that? If it’s an accident, then there’s nothing to it. You live your life the best you can, and do your best to maximize your potential, your time. Make something of what’s given. But if it’s illness, like cancer or—”She was starting to tear up again.

  Her father held her mother’s hand.“What she means is it’s different for you, and for us, if you spend your last year in a hospital.”

  “You mean it’s more expensive,”Rae said darkly.

  “No, that’s not what I mean, exactly. Yes, it’s more expensive. But it’s harder. Harder on you. Harder on us. It’s the pain and the treatments and the worry. We don’t want to see you in pain. And if it’s illness, if that’s what your future holds, then that’s something we can do something about.”

  “How? You can’t insure me.”That ship sailed as soon as she became Transient.

  “No, we can’t. But we can find out the best hospitals, the best care. We can plan our finances, family finances, and yes, money comes into it ultimately, and how hard I have to work, and if your mother has to take on more clients other that the magazine.”

  Her mother had recently cut back on the number of clients in order to do more paintings for herself that she could show in galleries and maybe sell.

  “Okay, I get it,”Rae conceded, sighing.“I’ll do it.”

  “You will?”her mother said, sounding suddenly cheery.

  “Not for me. I don’t want to know about any diseases. I don’t care. In two years, I’ll be dead, and won’t matter to me. But I’m not the only one it affects, I know that. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Dad, I want to make this easy for you and mom and Carl. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. I never did. I hate that. And this is a burden, isn’t it? As much as paying for college would be hard, this is harder; I know it. I’m sorry, and I can’t help thinking this is my fault, and I’m sorry to put you all through this and it’s not fair, none of it’s fair—”She wiped her eyes, and her mother embraced her.

  “None of it’s fair honey,”her mother soothed.

  Rae sniffled, and wiped her nose on her sleeve like a little girl.“But we have to agree on something first.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll go to the hospital and a therapist too, if you think that’s important. I don’t care about that. I’m not doing it for me. But it’s better to know, because of Carl especially. He won’t be tested for a while, so if there’s something medically wrong with me it’s better to know now. But there’s something I want in return.”

  “Anything,”her father said.

  “I’m dropping out of school,”she said with conviction.“I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want to argue about it, and I don’t want you to try to force me or trick me or even blame me. I’ve made my decision. There’s nothing at school for me now. It’s a waste of time, and I don’t have much of that. I thought school was important once, and it would have been if I had a future to study for, but I don’t, and the kids at school—I make them uncomfortable. I could see it in their eyes, and in their body language. I’ll have no social life there, except maybe Jenny, but it’s hard for her too, and I don’t want to drag her into my death row two.”She swallowed, trying to banish the image of Jenny and Logan comforting each other earlier.“If she hangs out with me it will hurt her socially, and I don’t want that burden either. I’ll never go to the prom and I’ll never be popular and even the teachers will change. I’ve seen it. They give easy A’s to Transients, because they’re so unfortunate. And all the other kids resent it - the teacher’s pet, the sad case, the kid who doesn’t have to work as hard because she’s got little time left and the teacher doesn’t want to push her. And no one expects her to earn it, even if she’s trying to earn it, and she’s ruining the curve for everyone else, for the kids who need to get the A’s for college. They don’t want to compete with a Transient, and they shouldn’t have to. So I’m dropping out and that’s it, and if that means going to the hospital, I’ll do it, or going to the shrink, I’ll do it but just don’t make me go to school, because I won’t do that. I won’t. And that’s that.”

  Her father nodded.“Okay,”he said.“It’s a deal.”

  Chapter 1 0

  The doctor’s visit and examination were much more extensive than Rae had imagined. The head doctor Dr. Peters, the one her mother first spoke with explained that they wanted to do a‘full run’, which basically meant she would be at the hospital all day.

  The first tests were the kinds she’d had before. They took her pulse and took her blood and checked her ear, nose, and throat. They took her temperature and her urine and made her read an eye chart. Then checked her hearing and reflexes.

  These all seemed very normal for a doctor’s visit, but what wasn’t normal was the way she was passed around from one doctor to the next. Not nurses, but doctors, and each one a specialist. She tried to remember their names, but then realized that she would be seeing too many, and the names wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t likely see them again.

  The more elaborate tests were in the afternoon. Rae was placed in a large machine, an MRI, for magnetic resonance. It was basically a big cave made of plastic and she was lying on her back and they pushed her into the plastic cave and made here wait there while they studied her brain.

  They x-rayed her body, every single bit of it, head to toe and back again, and then ultrasound for the soft tissues, and probed every part of her body that could be probed, not just with viewing instruments, but with long thin wires that had tiny cameras attached to them. And the cameras were inserted and shoved and manipulated and it was one of the most painful things she’d ever done, and uncomfortable as hell.

  And then they did other tests. There was the EEG, and a bunch of tests that were almost like homework. Writing things down, memorizing things, repeating numbers back to the doctors. They were testing her brain in as many ways as possible it seemed, not to see how smart she was, but what she retained, and how she thought, and how quickly. And they were giving her a polygraph test, only it wasn’t really a polygraph but a galvanic skin response that tested something about her emotional reactions to various words, some of which were easy words like“dog”and“car,”but some of which were violent or curse words. These were more like psych exams you’d get at a shrink she thought, but they had her fingers and arms wired up, so it was a kind of physical exam as well.

  They gave her some radiation tests and chemical tests. They made her drink different liquids, and monitored her reactions, and used machines to chart what the liquids did inside her body.

  The whole array of exams took the entire day, as the first doctor had promised, but at the end of the day, which was about four thirty in the afternoon, they were asked to stick around, so Rae went back to the waiting room where her family were. Her mom must have picked Carl up from school, because he hadn’t been at the hospital earlier in the day, but now they were all there, the whole family, waiting around for the results.

  Carl asked her a bunch of stupid questions about the tests. He wanted to be a doctor, or so he said, now that he was in a big hospital with doctors and nurses going up and down the hallways.

  He just likes the uniforms.

  Her brother might well be a doctor someday, but he was interested in so many things at the moment that it was hard to predict if he was going to be a doctor, a fire fighter, an astronaut, or a garbage man. When Carl was three years old he liked to wake up early to watch the garbage men come by, and watch their trash bin being lifted high into the air and dumped into the garbage trucks. Carl had announced he wanted to be a garbage man when he grew up, and her mother had tried to talk him out of that one, but their father said garbage men made good money, and if Carl wanted to be a garbage man,
he should be the best garbage man he could be. Their father had brought home a Tonka garbage truck for Carl to play with, but after a few months he got tired of that, so it seemed more likely that he would grow up to be a doctor after all.

  Rae noticed something about the waiting room and the hospital in general. There weren’t a lot of old people here. Some of the doctors were old and a few of the nurses, but most of the patients were kids or teenagers. This wasn’t a children’s hospital, so there didn’t seem to be a reason for so many kids, as opposed to old people. Rae tried to think of the old days, when she was five or six, and she recalled thinking of the hospital as a place for old people. But now the old people were no longer coming to the hospital.

  They know how they’re going to die.

  Ten years ago, not everyone was getting tested. Only the rich people and people who saved up their money took the cryptograph, because of the expense. But then the costs came down, and soon everyone was taking it.

  And now everyone has to.

  Before the cryptograph was common, old people came to hospitals to cure whatever ailed them, or to find out what their aches and pains were all about. It wasn’t that medicine had gotten much better, though Rae was sure it had. Instead, it was the cryptograph that had changed everything.