Jumping Off the Planet by David Gerrold

Author:David Gerrold [Gerrold, David]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, High Tech, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780812576085
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2001-03-27T17:00:00+00:00

INTROSPECTION

It wasn't just a choice between Earth and the stars, because that's a no-brainer. That part was easy. The hard part was that Dad was asking us to choose between him and Mom.

Mom wasn't bad. She was just angry all the time. And if we went back, things wouldn't be much different—just more of the same, probably worse. Like that time I stayed out in the hills too late. I was afraid to go home because I knew I'd get yelled at for not coming home, but I didn't want to get yelled at, so I stayed where I was, but I knew I'd have to go home sometime, and the later I stayed the worse the inevitable yelling would be. So I only stayed out until hunger and cold outweighed my fear. This time, though, the yelling would go on forever. I could hear Mom already. It'd be like that phone call, only I wouldn't be able to switch her off.

One thing I knew: me and Weird and Stinky, we were a family, no matter what. We had to stay together. Except that Weird wasn't going to go back, and Bobby couldn't go back by himself—so it was sort of up to me to decide what was right for both of us.

And if I went back without either Bobby or Douglas, or without both of them, what would Mom say? She'd probably blame me. She'd bawl me out three times over, once for me and once each for Bobby and Douglas. And I'd probably have to listen to all the stuff she wanted to tell Dad as well, except he wouldn't be there to listen, so I'd have to stand in for him too.

And I really didn't want to listen to any more of her angry rants about Dad—or anyone. I was getting awfully tired of all the ranting, no matter who it came from. And that was sort of what clinched it for me. I could think of all the reasons why I shouldn't go with Dad, but I couldn't think of any reasons why I should go back to Mom.

But even if I could sort everything else out, there was still the fact that in my own way I did love Mom, and if I was never going to see her again I was going to miss her badly. This was going to hurt. A lot. And probably in ways that I still hadn't realized yet. There were a lot of good things about Mom: the way she made spaghetti and the way she laughed when one of us kids said something really funny and the way she said "attaboy" when one of us did something good. Dad was right, Mom wasn't a bad person, and we shouldn't think of her that way—even if it would make leaving easier. Because we'd probably end up feeling a lot worse in the long run.

I guess what I really wanted was just to be able to say good-bye to her. And have her say it was all right for me to go.

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