Why That School and That Course

“Your mother wants an apology.” Ansom Brothers was talking to his daughter and wondering how the sweet little girl she’d been had turned into the leather jacket wearing adult she was now.

“The problem with that,” Maillard pointed out reasonably, “is that I’m the injured party.”

“She feels you made her look bad in front of the rest of the family.”

“Her own choices made her look bad in front of the family.” Maillard leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Besides, how would I word an apology so that it wouldn’t sound ridiculous? Obviously I can give her all the information in the world but I can’t make her read it or listen to me.”

Ansom sighed. “Well, I’m just as guilty of that as your mother.”

“I was trying not to go there.”

“And I’m sorry about last summer. I’ve never known anyone else who’s done their tertiary study somewhere that the education scheme doesn’t cover trips home at least once a year and as you can’t leave for Christmas holidays, I just assumed…” he trailed off in embarrassment.

“Well, I picked the place,” replied Maillard reasonably, “and it was originally a secret Arctic research facility so you wouldn’t expect it to be easy to get to.”

“I’m not really sure why you decided to go there in the first place,” her father said slowly.

“They have the subjects I want to do and at the time I was angry over the whole graduation thing. I decided to give mother what she apparently wanted, and put myself far enough away that she wouldn’t have to put herself out to include me in her social life.” Maillard uncrossed her arms and shrugged. “Besides, I get to work with giant robots.”