Marco's back from the Nexus, with a man who's much better dressed than he is in tow. As they make their way from the pretty-nice park where the Nexus spits them out to the pretty-not-nice side of town where the apartment is, Marco fills the Archbishop in on the basics - Mom drowned two years ago, Dad never got over it, they're about one more late
(
Read more... )
And he'll nod to Marco before the boy scampers off, and then give the man in the chair a good look. "Good evening, Peter. I'm Father Timothy," he begins simply.
Reply
"Mmm?" He looks up with his eyes a bit unfocused. He doesn't know how this man got into his apartment, but he's not too concerned. Marco's still out, isn't he? So if this man wants anything - and it doesn't look like he does - his son won't be around to see them get burgled. But would a burglar introduce himself, and know his name?
Peter suddenly feels even more tired than he was before. He closes his eyes for a few seconds.
"Oh. Hello. Did you want something? I know the lock's broken but..." He sighs. "Anyway, did you want something?"
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
He doesn't want to answer to a third party about this. Doesn't want to explain how weak he feels when he can't muster up the energy to leave the apartment. Doesn't want to try and justify against the fact that he feels like such a failure, in every regard.
"You can sit." He nods his head at the armchair, pushed up uncomfortably close against the couch because there's no other room in the tiny apartment. "What exactly did you want to talk about, about my son?"
Reply
Reply
"Look, I know it looks bad," No, Peter, there's that whine again, and it is bad. "It's not that I don't try, it's just that...that ( ... )
Reply
Timothy cannot believe someone is continuing to supply pills to this man without anyone's regularly checking up on him -- and clearly no one can be. Dr. Yardley would have a fit at the idea of someone's being continuously medicated without anyone's looking to the consequences of the dosage.
"You'll have to pardon the personal question, Peter, but what was your trade when Marco's mother was still with us?" While the diction might be excessively English, Timothy's still choosing his words carefully. Marco's Mother. Not just his wife. There is someone else at stake here. Somebody else lost something.
Reply
He knows that he sounds like he's making excuses, but he just feels so incapable. Why would he choose to be this hopeless? Except that every day is so overwhelming, every task is difficult, and it's been like this since she died, and instead of healing with time it's only gotten worse and harder to dig out of.
"I'm a...I was a computer engineer. Before." For the first time in this conversation, he feels lucid enough to pick up on the strange dialect, and wonder a little bit where this man is from. He still hasn't devoted all that much thought to how he got here.
Reply
"And no one's saying a man would completely consciously choose to crawl into a hole and orphan his son."
And after that abrupt statement. "Handy things, computers. Not my field, of course, but it seems they can figure out anything as long as someone tells them precisely what they should be figuring out. In some ways, it must be much easier than being alive."
Until some crazy human manages to 'release' a true synthetic sentience, of course, but Timothy's sure they're dealing with the regular sort, here.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Peter honestly does not remember how Father Timothy got in. He just remembers watching some rerun of some show and some channel and suddenly Father Timothy was there. "The lock on the door broke last night. You let yourself in."
"I'd have to look at my prescription and see how many refills I have left. It's probably been more than a year."
The uncertain waver in Peter's voice betrays that he thinks he didn't give Father Timothy any of the correct answers.
Reply
"Two more questions, Peter. Would it be possible to schedule an appointment soon to have the medication changed -- because dear God and His Mother, what good is it doing you in its current form? -- and where do you believe you went wrong the night Marco's mother was lost?"
Letting up? What's that? Sounds like something the French would do.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment