A Lady in Waiting 8

Back at her office, she dug into her paperwork. Perhaps it was some element of desperation, but that was fine, because whatever it was had given her the energy to catch up and even get ahead prepping some other bureaucratic junk. In the back of her mind, she had tried at least a dozen times to balance out the most obvious two warring halves of her and write Rod an email.
Finally, something new reared its head. She called it “resolve” and simply wrote what should have been obvious: Rod, I appreciate the time you take helping me understand your writing. As you suggest, it really is helping me understand myself. For that reason, you need not fear I am faking any interest in our conversations. Don’t stop now.
Whether her resolve was simply the backside of desperation no longer mattered. Whatever it was, it was worth making a fool of herself. She would take whatever Rod was pleased to offer of himself. At her age, it was wholly unlikely she would permanently lose her grip. Some part of her would eventually snap back to reality as it had in the past. Or, she’d go off the deep end and it really didn’t matter any more.
Digging into the storage closet, she pulled opened a few of the game boxes supplied by the system for community holiday gatherings. From one game she grabbed a single standard die, and from a trivia game she got a pair of calendar dice. She brought these back to her desk.
She found an inactive blog Rod had left standing. Six years of posting at least once daily. The volume was massive and she wanted a feel for his less formal writing. Using the collection of dice, she selected random dates and read however many posts he made that day. She got lost until lunch time, but somehow seemed in better control of herself. At least, it seemed so. She got up and caught Sam on the way down to the cafeteria.
It was too late to pretend she was going to return to her self. If this was madness, it was fine. She discussed with Sam some of the oddball mix of stuff Rod revealed in the less focused writing for which most people kept a blog. It had become more apparent to her how Rod got his job. He knew how to state some issues with frightening clarity. The thread of logic was obviously self-consistent, but the underlying pattern was as alien as Sam had suggested. Still, while Rod’s books were focused on thinking itself, his blog posts addressed a full range of social commentary. She knew Rod would be gone all day and chatted comfortably with Sam.
Her primary question had to do with Rod’s comments about romantic mythology. Lacking Sam’s background, she was at a loss to make sense of it. Becky had never felt she was any part of feminism, but found Rod castigating things she had always thought were common sense. Some times it could be pretty harsh, almost offensive to her eyes. She wasn’t put off by it, just wholly surprised by it. He clearly cared about people and was rather gentle with human weakness, never seeming to deny his own.
Sam shook his head sagely. “I take it you’ve heard of the various forms of Men’s Rights movements, fighting to regain what they claim is an unjust bias in the family courts against them.”
No, not news to Becky. She figured there must have been some truth to it, but was cynical about the courts in the first place. She figured kids were getting the worst of it either way, but most people had no clue about marriage and family in the first place.
Sam half-smiled. “We agree on that much. The Men’s Rights bunch often say the same sort of thing. An extension of the same men thinking about things in general gave birth to a more deeply philosophical consideration of the social structure of romantic relationships. They convinced themselves, with some validity perhaps, women were mostly self-deceived about their own wiring. Further, women have projected this self-deception into society in general. The whole study goes in depth into human sexual response, some of it written at a genuine scholarly level. All too much of it is drivel on how to pick up women. They show some success, so it attracts a growing audience.”
Becky decided she needed to zero in on this aspect of Rod’s blog posts. Might as well know what to expect if she was committed to finding out if Rod had, or was in any way likely to have, any real interest in her. So after lunch, it was the first thing she attacked in the Internet search engines.
That’s when she discovered Rod was a widower.
Of course. Any man worth having was probably married at some time or other. Any man worth keeping usually stayed married, but this explained why Rod seemed single. His personnel folder said “single,” but everyone knew that meant whatever the subject told some human resource bureaucrat. All it meant was not claiming any benefits from being married, none of which applied to Rod’s contract in the first place. Becky noticed he had worn a ring once on his left hand, with that unmistakable imprint in the flesh.
But there, in all its glory, was an epitaph he wrote for his wife. How could Becky describe something so short, yet so full of meaning; something so deep and emotional, yet so full of life and quiet, dry-eyed resolve? How do people write such things? There were no pictures and Becky wasn’t sure they would mean anything to her if there were.
And unless she was more hopelessly lost than ever, she finally understood. Unless Rod was the ultimate deceiver, he loved and cared for his first wife like no one else on this earth. But he always thought of her as a loan from God, the most valuable tangible element in this world useful to him. She was his best friend and partner in searching for truth, but whatever it was that took her life placed her far closer to that truth than he could ever hope to see in this life. He missed her, but she was better off where she was. He longed to see her again, but had to finish his mission.
Then, at the very end, he seemed to say he would keep his promise to her and not try to finish the mission alone, but someday find a successor for her.
Rod was an alien, though it had nothing to do with silly science fiction stories. Whatever he was, Becky wanted to be that. She decided didn’t much care about this world either, wasn’t too awfully thrilled about her experience with it so far. She knew instinctively there had to be something better, but all the answers thrown at her so far were manifestly false, in one way or another. Rod didn’t pretend to have any answers, just a plan to pass on through to some other place, some other kind of place. Madness or not, it made better sense than anything she had seen. It wasn’t religion, but so obviously, self-consciously spiritual, she had to know more.