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John, who had been nothing more than a bad idea a few months ago, will be born just in time to watch the world turn to ash. Yet Ingrid still greets the sunrise with a pen and a notepad.
After that she makes breakfast -- Eggs, over easy. Bacon. Coffee.
And then she writes her friends.
(Susan had texted out of the blue one morning, suggesting that she use this little lithium bomb for something other than building up a tolerance.
Ingrid's answering emoji was worth the migraine.)
Surprisingly? Ingrid has found her people -- literally and metaphorically. Turns out EHS wasn't total crock.
It also turns out Ingrid's one of the luckier ones.
She didn't have her Dad flaunt his phone 24/7 to "prove" she was faking it.
She never got a stroke because some asshole stuck her in an MRI.
She never took a job at a fucking tech company because the alternative was homelessness.
Some days, Ingrid wonders if it was really the AI that turned everything to shit so quickly. Some days, her chicken scratch to Janet devolves into a lament that things aren't going to be alright.
But most days, Janet responds with languid cursive. Mostly to say that things were never alright, but the point of life wasn't to dwell on it.
And every day, Ingrid finds herself grateful; she's one sunrise closer to meeting her John, whoever he may turn out to be.
(She wonders if the John she met is still weaving himself tighter and tighter into the thread of the past. Then she wonders why she wonders at all.)
So Ingrid pens, her musings knitting a tapestry her son will barely understand and wholeheartedly adore.