Mother of Magic

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Stephanie stood next to Le and looked up. "Jesus, Le. Did you grow some more?"

"Since yesterday? I don't think so." Le denied

"How tall are you now?"

"I don't know." Le looked down his legs. "These pants are only a couple of months old, and they are too short again."

Stephanie looked down at his ankles. "Two inches too short. Guess we are going to need to buy you a new wardrobe again."

Le looked very uncomfortable. "You pay for my school. You give me a place to live. You buy me clothes. I give you nothing."

Stephanie "I'm not asking for anything. You have part of me in you now, and I want to do more for you than just give money to the hospital. Charity is not a thing where you give money and walk away. Giving money is about scale. That's how you help a bunch of people. But personally helping someone is important too. There's no scale to it, but it's still important. You lost your parents, and have nowhere and nothing. I am in a position to help you, and you do not take it for granted. You are uncomfortable with it. Oddly, that's the right thing to be. You are making good grades, and your pitching and batting programs are coming along nicely. You are not living in luxury. You have the trailer next to mine."

"Not like you live in luxury, either." Le told her in rueful tones. "You and two cats in a medium-sized trailer. Multi-millionaire baseball star and you live in a trailer park."

"I like our trailer park."

"I do too, but you don't seem to get how unusual you are."

"I am what I am. Besides. I am going to build a lovely mountain lodge. I want my christmas's to be white: Looking out of tall triple pane windows at snow-covered mountains. Pine trees. Snowed in. A fireplace to keep us warm."

"Us?"

"Me and my cats."

"Oh. I thought you had someone in mind, but I have never seen you date anyone." Le explained.

"It's hard to find someone who is not attracted to my fame or money. I have no plans or needs to date until I know I have found the special someone."

"Makes sense. It's not like I'm finding a lot of girls interested in my geeky ways. Different problem than yours. I know there are girls out there that like a nerd, but so far, I have not found one that likes a tall, skinny cancer surviving physics major."

Stephanie decided to tease Le a little. "Maybe the problem is you need to widen your horizons."

"What? Date sheep?" Le asked

"No. You kept saying 'girls'. What about Women? Like older women? Or men?" Stephanie felt her tease backfire and so backpedaled.

"No women are interested either. The same problem I think. I guess when I get out of school and have a job I might be able to do better. I'm not ageist."

"And Men? Other men?"

"What about them?" Le asked.

"Date them?"

"Why?" Le asked confused.

Stephanie found his honest confusion both cute and a little out of step. "Men date other men you know. Marry them."

"Well, sure. But that is men that are attracted to other men. Right? That seems like a prerequisite. Right? Women who like women date other women. Men that like Men or Women date whoever. I would date women because that's what I like. Just none of them like me in that way. Yet."

Stephanie found that very enlightening on so many levels about Le. Aware of worldly things and innocent about them at the same time.

Le flipped the script on her "What about you? You said you have trouble finding the special someone. Are you looking at both men and women? Or are you missing out yourself?"

Stephanie realized she opened up that line of questioning so answered honestly "I am not limiting myself. I have never dated a woman, but in theory, I don't have a problem with that idea. But it's just an idea. If I look at a magazine with both men and women, I'm looking at the men. I have dated only men. My problem with it is that while I in theory prefer men, the men I keep dating always disappoint me somehow. I'll be thinking the date is going greater and then it comes out that they are a Conservative or something like that. I have a hard and fast rule: No Conservatives."

"Interesting. Why is that?"

"Are you a Conservative?"

"Oh, hell no! I was just curious why you have that rule."

"I'm a woman." Stephanie said as if that explained everything.

Apparently, it did. "I see. Makes sense."

"You knew I am a woman. Right?" Stephanie asked, given that extremely short and satisfied answer.

"Sure. Part of why they were surprised we were a tissue match. Not only are we of completely different ethnic backgrounds, but you are XY and I'm XX. Every possible thing was stacked against us being a match, but we were, and now I'm in complete remission and growing like a weed. The doctors think my height was held back by my poor health. Now I have never felt better."

"Come on, Le. Let's go to a store and find you some better-fitting jeans."