Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 4 (Patreon)

“Excuse me,” Eric said as he stood up from the table. “I have to take this.” Hands shaking, Eric stepped outside his office. Taking a deep breath, his finger missed the talk button on the first try.

“Hello?”

“Hi Eric,” Cheryl said. “How’s your day going?”

Eric looked over his shoulder through the glass door of his office. It was a good case, as far as cases went. A new mother with no job and not sufficiently educated about how to raise a child. Problems he might be able to fix, and with luck they might even stay fixed.

“Pretty good. Yours,” Eric asked.

“Fine. I think your day might get better. We have a match.”

Having signed the paperwork three weeks ago, Cheryl’s thrice-a-week calls were just check-ins. The initial excitement had faded to the background. A jolt went through Eric; his stomach tightened, his heat beat faster, his vision sharpened, his skin felt sensitive. Everything seemed instantly distant, and then instantly present again. Fight or flight response.

“Eric? Did I lose you,” Cheryl asked in the silence.

“What? Uh, no, I’m here. What do I do? I’m in the middle of something.”

“It’s already 4:30, and I know you’d be a wreck waiting until tomorrow. Why don’t we go to dinner again? Same place? That’s convenient for you, right?”

“Sure. Uh, thanks for … thanks. See you at seven again,” Eric said. He hung up his phone and let his hand fall to his side. What now? Nothing is really decided until the last moment, a precaution but one that was provoking yet more stress. How many times have I made this decision, Eric wondered.

Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he stepped back into his office. “Sorry about that. As I was saying …”

______________________________________________

Eric got to the restaurant even earlier. He’d already had a drink at the bar before getting a table, and a Xanax before leaving home, yet he was still anxious. Of every decision he’d made in his life, so many hadn’t really been decisions at all. And none of the real decisions amounted to this. I could be gone from here tomorrow, he thought. The wonder of it, the hope of it, was balanced by the terror of it.

He’d left where he was from, and then he left where he had gone to, but he hadn’t left Earth. The sky is blue, grass is green, people don’t get much taller than six feet, puppies smell beautiful and awful at the same time, crickets sing in the mild evenings and the hot, you can smell water when you’re thirsty enough. Everything he knew firsthand, and everything he didn’t, it was all more familiar to him than the other dimension. It was home. Eric had focused so much on the reasons to leave. What about the reasons to stay? He hadn’t thought about nostalgia or the possibility of homesickness.

Cheryl looked great when she walked in. Either she’d stopped at home or else wore a dress to the office instead of the jeans Eric had always seen her in. Eric smiled, an odd smile, as if to say ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

“You’re looking lovely tonight,” Eric said.

“Sometimes you just feel like it, right?” Cheryl answered. “How’d the rest of your day go?”

“Short. I finished up with the case I was working on and went home.”

“Hard to concentrate?”

Eric let out a guffaw and stifled it down to a rueful chuckle. A little more light in his eyes than most days.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “It’s just that … an understatement. Everything, the last few weeks, month really. Being on edge is like a second job these days.”

A waitress appeared and took their order.

“Do they have chicken sandwiches there,” Eric mused.

“Uh, yes. They have most of the same things we have,” Cheryl answered. Clients at this point often started asking these questions. It reminded her of her days as a hospice volunteer, the questions people would ask, knowing there weren’t answers. She learned which patients wanted an answer and which just wanted to talk. To those who wanted an answer, she learned to lie. To say whatever made it easier for the person to stay calm if not composed. So many of the questions were the same that she became more and practiced at the lies. He’s waiting for you there; he wouldn’t want you to be scared. Everything will be better soon; close your eyes.

She even pretended to be other people when her patients started to hallucinate. She had been many daughters, many granddaughters, many wives. She had been a guardian angel twice. She had been the child someone lost.

And sometimes when the patient stopped breathing she was the only one there, and then sometimes she lied to the crying family about how easy and peaceful it had been.

Some lies she could tell easily. Others, she could only hold the lie long enough to get somewhere quiet so she could lose it without alarming anyone. Every time she lied to a child, she had to leave the room.

So Cheryl knew Eric was thinking in the same vein: a departure into the unknown. But it wasn’t entirely unknown. She couldn’t lie to him, and she didn’t need to.

“They know how to satisfy our appetites. Some things we both like, and some things they make just for us,” she said softly. “What are you thinking right now?”

“That I may not like it there.”

“It takes a brave person to take risks,” Cheryl responded. “I’ve been there. I liked it.”

“I mean … what’s it really like?”

“Physically, their planet is pretty much like ours. Water is wet, the sky is blue, the leaves change colors in the fall.

It’s a little smaller than Earth, so you’ll weigh a little less, which actually feels great.

Their day is longer; you’ll be very tired when you first get there. You’ll catch up eventually, but never quite all the way, just because we’re different animals and need more sleep compared to them.

I think I told you already, they live longer than we do, and so do we in their dimension. You’ll age more slowly.

The amazons are about two, two-and-a-half our size on average. Otherwise, on the outside they look just like us. All the buildings and furniture and all of that is bigger, obviously.

Not every animal is bigger there. They even have most of the same ones we have. They breed dogs and cats just as pets for littles.

Their cars don’t fly. They don’t have robot maids. It’s not the Jetsons.”

“If you like it, how come you didn’t stay,” Eric asked before realizing it was a stupid question. “Sorry … I guess I’m just trying to wrap my head around it.”

“That’s okay. It is a scary change. You wouldn’t be very smart if you weren’t scared.” Cheryl sipped her wine. “What else do you want to know?”

“Is it safe, for us? I mean … you know what I mean.”

“If you mean because we’re so small compared to them, yes, it’s safe. They’re very gentle with us. Itali people take better care of us than most of us take care of ourselves. If you mean because of the black market for us, Itali takes a lot of steps to keep us safe.”

“Like what?”

“Well, to start with, three escort craft will accompany your craft from our side of the portal all the way to Itali. You’ll receive a microchip, like they put in pets, so you can always be found. They’ll record your finger prints, foot prints, teeth, and DNA.

Itali doesn’t allow travelers from the worst countries. Penalties for kidnapping or smuggling littles are harsher than the penalties for kidnapping big children. Itali hasn’t lost a little in fifteen years. Frankly, it will be safer for you to wander around there than it is for me to take a walk alone at night,” Cheryl quipped.

“What will I do all day?”

“That, I can’t answer. Depends a lot on your big. They might just let you play all day. What did you do all day when you were two?”

Eric smiled a bit, thinking back on his past. He didn’t remember a whole lot, but he remembered he was happy when he was that young.

“There’s a smile,” Cheryl said. “Do you want to know about your new family?”

“Uh … I’m not sure.”

“You can still look and decide if you want them.”

“I know if I look too much I’ll overanalyze it. How’d did we get matched,” Eric replied. Now he was nervous again.

“Let me show you. I won’t show you everything,” Cheryl said as she slid into Eric’s side of the booth and took out a folder from her bag.

“The computer matched up your preferences with the preferences of people looking to adopt. I interviewed some of the best matches to decide if they were a good fit for you.”

Cheryl had the folder open on the table to his preference sheet, except it was transformed into a matrix, and he could see where he matched with his new family. It was pretty close.

“Can you tell me a little about them? Just a little?” Eric asked. Part of him wanted to dig as deep as he could, and the other part of him was thinking it must be just like this for all the kids he ever sat down to tell them he had found a foster family. Some wanted to know; some were so numb to the process they took it in stride, knowing they couldn’t change it anyway.

“Let’s just say that I gave them the third degree, and they passed,” Cheryl chuckled.

“Why’d you do that,” Eric asked.

“Like I said, I care about you,” Cheryl said as she took Eric’s hand in her own. “I want everything to be perfect for you.” Eric blushed.

“So what makes this family so perfect for me?”

“A lot of reasons. They’re smart, empathetic. They’ll be able to spend a lot of time with you. And when I showed your picture, the look in their eyes. You know when you know.”

Eric sniffled, and Cheryl saw the tear on his cheek and wiped it away softly with her thumb. “I trust you,” he said, audible just to her. He didn’t mean to whisper. “Why did you do all this for me?”

“Because … because I’ve never met someone like you, someone who has so much good in him.”

“I’ve had … some … no one has ever done anything like this for me. Or made me feel … I don’t know if I deserve it.”

She opened her arms, and Eric let himself rest against her with his head on her shoulder. Eric couldn’t remember the last time someone patted his back, or shushed him, or just held him.

In a hush only he could hear, Cheryl whispered back, “You’re such a sweet boy. I wish I could keep you.”

Eric sat up so he could look in Cheryl’s eye. “Do you want to, just for tonight,” he asked.

“Just for tonight, take me to your place.”

It was the only night, but Cheryl and Eric spent other times together, more days than not, as intimate as lovers, as chaste as dear friends.