”But mom…”
“You’re not going. And that’s final, young man. I don’t want to hear another word about it!”
“But you know it’s different now! It’s not like it used to be when you were…”
“I said I don’t want to hear about it! Not now, not ever! This family has already given more than enough for that stupid war! You’re not going!”
“Fine. I’ll be outside. I think garden needs some water…”
Marie watched her son’s retreating back through the window of their small cabin. So much like his father had been. Same features, same build, same stubborn streak in him. Sam was now twenty. Man in the house. During those twenty years that had passed many things had changed in her life, and surrounding world. Most profound change was perhaps attitude towards mutants. It had taken a step towards tolerance when there had been an attack from outer space. People had reasoned that a threat from outside was far more formidable than the one that mutants posed. Even the eternal war had changed. Instead of being just an expensive meat grinder, originally plotted and developed to wipe out the whole mutant race, both sides turned against aliens, first time in over hundred years united. Men fought side by side with mutants.
“Sam… I’m sorry. It’s just… I can’t let you go. I can’t let them take you from me.”
“Fine.”
“You have to understand. After everything I went through…”
“I said fine.”
“Sam?”
“What do you want me to say? Yes, mom, you’re absolutely right? I can’t do that! Because you’re wrong! It’s my duty to defend Earth, not slave my ass off so that we could have something to eat next winter! If you could just let me go, I could make some money and send it to you. You could move in to settlement and forget this crappy little hut and crappy little garden!”
Sudden slap on the cheek silenced Sam. He just stood there, towering head higher than his mom and rubbing the red blotch on his skin.
“This crappy little hut is our home. This crappy little garden is the only thing that has kept us alive all these years. This piece of land is mine. If you want to throw this all away like a piece of trash, be my guest. Go and pack your things. Go get yourself killed. I’m tired of this shit…” Marie hissed turning her back to Sam and walking slowly back to the cabin. Sam had never seen his mother like this before. Shoulders slumped, head hung low and back bent. She wasn’t even forty years yet, and now she looked like she was closing sixty. He really felt bad for her. But he had never lied to her, and he wasn’t going to start it now. For as long as he remembered, they had been dead on honest to each other. Arrangement that had lead to many heated fights, but at the end of the day it was worth it. They had nothing to hide from each other, and it had lead to much closer relationship between them than most of his friends could say about themselves and their parents. Sam could count on her mother to be there for him no matter what. And he had made a solemn vow years ago that he would be there for her.
Sam was a good boy. Many ways probably much better person than Marie herself, she often thought. Even now. Even when he seemed to be scornful, he wasn’t thinking about himself first. He was thinking about what he could give to this world. And what he could do to improve the quality of their life. She was the first to admit there was room for improvement. Garden gave them vegetables and fruits, and Sam hunted for meat and pelts. She had learned how to process those pelts, and once a year she left their little haven to go to the nearest settlement to sell clothes she made out of them. Money she used to buy things they couldn’t hunt or grow themselves. It was hard life. But it was a good life. Kept them away from troubles when Guards and Hunters had still been capturing mutants. And even now kept them fed and clothed for most of the time.
She knew she was being unreasonable. Sam was a grown man. She should let him run his own life. She should cut the strings that tied them together and let him go, to find his own corner in this life. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had been mulling that over for several years now. Every year she decided she would do it the next year. Every year it got harder and harder to let Sam go. He was the only thing left from the man she had once loved.
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