previously: the adoption // which Madison does not support // Keri goes alone // Madison's new house
Madison was disappointed in her retirement. She hated the way her body had changed. She hated having all this time and no hobbies to fill it with. She hated that her daughter was gone constantly, and would soon be gone for years. She hated that her husband was still working, because it reminded her that she was not. She hated that her only granddaughter had a new "mother" now. There was a lot to be disappointed in.
Keri was stationed out in Washington now, deep in the snowy mountain forests on some military base. No cell signal, but she returned Madison's calls a couple times a week. She made a trip back home whenever she could, while she still could. But Madison might as well get used to her being gone. The big mission across the cosmos was always looming out there on the horizon, two or three years away. Like a mother given her child’s terminal diagnosis.
No, it wasn't that dramatic. Keri would be home alive again some day. Probably—an adventure like that was far from risk-free. She could only hope that she and Bryson were still alive to meet her when she came back. Five years was a long time at their age.
Madison just received the sad news that Micah Phoenix was dying—they went to high school and college together, they were in each other’s weddings. It was apparently that season of their lives now that their close friends would start to die off. Meanwhile, Madison's doctor told her that she was healthy as a horse—You have the heart and joints of a 25-year-old, you’ll outlive them all.
Sometimes that felt like a curse. So much time. What would she even do with it all?
