After the party, Evan unexpectedly found himself with a few free days. He promptly did what he always did lately when he had free time and informed his mom’s caregiver of his impending arrival. She had been less than impressed by him missing his appointment last year, but after hearing his explanation of having had an accident, followed by not one single missed visit, she warmed up to him. She greeted him with a smile as he entered. “How is she today?” He asked as walked over to her and knelt down. “Hey mom, I had some time in my schedule open up, so I took the chance to come visit.”

The nurse shook her head sadly. “Worse and worse, a little bit further gone every day now. I fear she doesn’t have long now.”

Evan nodded glumly. “I understand, It’s a small miracle she made it this long if I’m being honest. Did anyone ever tell you what happened?”

“No sir, not particularly, heard a few rumors, but I don’t care for rumors generally. Nothing but hurtful lies most of the time.”

Evan nodded in agreement. “Hey mom, want to watch some TV?” He grabbed the remote and turned it on, to drown out their conversation, it always made him uncomfortable to just talk about it right there next to her, but he wasn’t willing to leave her side until he had to on the days he was able to visit. “My dad was killed by a hit and run driver. After that, things got pretty hard, she struggled with depression and alcohol abuse. Then as she was finally getting through it, getting herself clean, her doctor called. Cancer. Gave her six months to live without treatment, she decided then and there that she couldn’t go to be with my father, not yet, not until she knew I could take care of myself.

“So she starts taking the medicine the doctor gave her, but it doesn’t do anything. I did a bit of digging, and it turns out they stuck her in a study on the sly, and she was in the placebo group.” His voice turned angry at this part, just as it always did. “The worst part was the medicine they were testing actually worked. The patients in the test group got better, every. Single. One of them, but when I started to raise a stink, they kept throwing red tape and excuses in my way until enough time had passed that they could call the trial a success. They proceed to happily start treating the placebo patients with the real drug, only problem was that her condition had gotten past the stage their miracle drug could work.”

He took a deep breath before continuing. “My mom though, she was strong. She was stronger than any other woman I have ever met except one, my newest friend. She had her problems, her weaknesses, but every time she decided enough was enough and fought back she won. Every. Single. Time. And she had decided, she would do her absolute best to stay with me until I turned eighteen and able to care for myself. It didn’t matter if I told her I could already take care of myself, that she should rest, take care of herself instead, but she ignored me every time. Just smiled and said, ‘What kind of mother would I be if I couldn’t even take care of my baby boy?’ For years I watched as she withered away into the fragile shell of a woman you take care of today, defying all the doctor's projections on how long she could live.

“For years, I watched, raging at the injustice of the world as she coughed up little flecks of blood into napkins and tried to hide it from me behind a loving smile I watched as her mind started to fade, and she grew forgetful and listless. Until one month before my eighteenth birthday, we got our miracle, her cancer went into remission. No explanation, not even the slightest guess as to how or why all the different aggressive cancers eating her alive suddenly gave up. Suddenly she was here she was with me more completely and solidly, and real than she had been since the day my father was killed.

“That was the happiest month of my life, bar none. I was on cloud nine, she was getting stronger every day, recovering at a miraculous pace, driven by her newfound joy in life, and pushed even further by my own happiness at finally having my mom back. By the time my birthday came around, she was healthy enough to leave the house for the first time in more than a year. We agreed that it was only fitting that we go and visit the site of my dad’s accident, that our family should be whole again, at least in spirit at least one last time.

“So we walked down there, Mom refusing any help, insisting that she had to do it herself, inching along with her walker. After the longest most wonderful walk I can remember taking, because my mom was finally walking with me again, we finally reached it. It’s nothing special to anyone else, of course, just a banged-up light post the city has always been too cheap to replace since it hasn’t fallen down or stopped working. To us though, that banged-up pole meant the world. It and that mystery driver conspired that night to kill my father.

“We said a prayer, we talked to him, and then my mom just crumpled to the ground, all the fight leaving her all at once. She stretched out her arm to the pole and said something I will never forget. ‘My love, I miss you so, and I’m so very tired. I kept my promise,’ then she looked at me and smiled, ‘our boy is all grown up now, into the strongest, kindest, most caring person we could have ever imagined. Can I come and stay with you for a while? I just don’t have the strength to fight on without you anymore.’ She looked me in the eyes, told me she loved me and that she was sorry, and then before my very eyes she simply went away.

“I can’t really explain it any other way, one moment she was there, smiling at me, the next she was a blank slate, same as she is now. I used the trust fund they set aside for my school to pay for her care, and worked three jobs to pay for the part of my college the scholarship didn’t cover. Interesting side note: did you know that ‘best school in Europe’ actually translates to horrifically expensive? I did it though, top of my class, earned every medal and honor they could find to heap on me, got myself certified as a bonafide genius, then promptly rushed home just in time to get in a stupid fight with an old high school bully, then fall into a really, really deep hole and miss my first visit in years.”

The nurse let loose a sobbing laugh. “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard, how could you end it like that? I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.” She paused. “I’m curious though, who could you possibly have met that is stronger than her, to struggle through so much pain and suffering with a smile…” She trailed off.

Evan smiled at her sadly. “Her name is Lisa, and she is the single most powerful woman on the planet. There is only one thing, one single irrefutable fact protecting us from complete and utter annihilation in the face of her wrath, and that fact is that she doesn’t have any.” The nurse looked confused. “Wrath,” he clarified, “Not one single teeny tiny grain of anger in her entire being.” His watch buzzed and he looked down to see it covered in crying emojis and blush-face emojis. “And I really wish she hadn’t discovered the emoji.” Which only confused the poor woman further, but he didn’t mind.

A commercial for their game came on, and out of curiosity, he asked the nurse. “Do you play?”

“Sometimes, when I get the chance. I have kids at home I have to take care of too. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious, bucket or bolt?” Using the lingo that had popped up within minutes of the game going live.

“Bucket,” she said a bit sheepishly. “I would love to get one of the bolts, but I can’t justify it on my income with kids. Especially since the bucket at least can be used by the older ones, while the bolts are locked to one person.”

“Your kids play too? How old are they?”

“Oh it varies from year to year, I can’t have kids of my own so my husband and I run a care home for orphans. The older ones love Shard, and letting them play is the best way to keep them off the streets and out of trouble.”

“Why, I’ll be darned. Lisa, did you hear that? It seems I’ve been horribly under-paying one of the ladies that watch over my mom. How much do you think we should have been paying a bonafide saint to take care of someone that needs my mom’s level of professional care?”

The woman was utterly dumbfounded by the angelic voice that sang out from his communicator. “At least triple, and please never tell that story again, I’ve never cried so hard in my life.”

“Would you see to that, please? Backdated to the day she started naturally, lump-sum payment of the erroneously withheld funds by tomorrow. See that she gets a voucher for a bolt for her and her husband, and get someone to start contacting orphanages, I didn’t even think about the difference we could make there. Find out how many kids they have in the system old enough to play and find out if their homes would like a bucket, one for every kid of age, Hardcoded adult filters, of course, leave the gore though, they’re teenagers, and would probably get bored without it. Start with Mrs…”

“Freedman.” Lisa supplied. “She needs five, they are already on the way along with her bolts and we have her fitting scheduled for right after her shift, her husband can call and schedule his fitting whenever he is free. A car will be waiting for her to make everything nice and easy.”

“You’re an absolute angel Lisa. I’ll see you in a few, I’ve decided there’s something I want to take care of and I’m cutting my visit short.” He crouched down next to the sputtering Mrs. Freedman. “Ma’am, you might never understand this, but just you sitting there, quietly listening to my story, helped me in ways I can’t express. To then find out, through cajoling and teasing it out no less, that you try so hard to do good, to give lost children a loving home, to try to keep them off of the streets and out of danger. You, Mrs. Freedman, are precisely the type of person this world needs more of. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me.” He patted her shoulder gently, then left.

She sat there a while longer, trying to get her bearings, certain that that whole experience was some sort of stress hallucination. Then her phone dinged, and she stared at the notification blankly for a long time. A deposit had been transferred into her account. $300,000 dollars. With a little note attached to it that said: Apologies for the outstanding accounting error, please accept the additional seventy-five thousand as our way of making up for this gross injustice.