Running Dry by Jody Wenner

robbery in the lower flats.  "Oh!  I almost forgot!  How did the assignment go?  When do you move in to the runner's dorm?" she asks nonchalantly.
    "I'm not."
    She stops and looks at me for the first time since I came in the room. "What do you mean?"
    "I'm a Spy.  I leave tomorrow for the South."
    "What?  I don't understand.  There must be a mistake!"
    "Nope," I say. 
    She comes around the counter, wiping her hands on her work uniform.  She puts her arms around me, "Oh, my heavens!  Why didn't you tell me?"  She squeezes way too hard.
    "I didn't feel like talking about it."  It's true.  Why discuss something that can't be changed?
    "Well, I just don't know what to say!"
    "It's okay.  I think I've actually kind of come to terms with it."  Except my voice quivers a little when I say it. 
    When she pulls away, she looks at me and she actually has tears in her eyes.  "So, tomorrow?  I...if I had known, we could have gone out, some place fancy for dinner, like Ray's Place."
    "Nah."
    "It's all happening so suddenly.  I just..."
    "Can we just eat?  I'm starving."
    "Sure, okay," she says.
    I set the small table while she finishes unwrapping a few more bars of foodstuff to assemble a full meal and the two of us sit down together to eat like we've done a million times before.  It feels normal, and also not, because I know it's the last time.  I really didn't think it would bother me, but everything feels so off. 
    We hardly say anything, which is pretty normal, but Cheryl keeps looking at me and her eyes are glassy and wet.  I'm sort of surprised by it.
    "Will I be able to write to you?" she asks.
    "The packet says no.  I can send you something through my contact, but only a few times a year."
    "Oh.  Okay.  Well, I'd like that, to know you’re doing okay."
    I nod.
    "Will you ever come home?"
    "I don't know.  I don’t think so though."
    "Right," she says, pushing food around her plate.
    "Muma?" I say after a long period of silence.
    "Yes, dear?"
    "I guess, I just wanted to say thank you.  You know...for taking me in and everything.  I know I wasn't the easiest kid."
    "You were a great kid!  But now you are an adult, and I have to let you go out into the world, just like every parent is forced to do."
    "Well, I'm sure you probably wished you had gotten a kid who was a little more...I don't know, lovable."  I feel like there are things I should be telling her but I just don't know exactly what those things might be.  We just don't have that kind of relationship.
    She doesn't say anything for a bit and when she does start to talk again, her voice is different.  It's not her own.  It's not loud, like normal, and it's not goofy, and she actually sounds sincere for the first time I can recount.  "I think we were a good match.  I don't know of any other kids who could have put up with me."
    "Put up with you?  I think you meant, you don't know of any other parents who would have put up with me."  I'd never called her my parent before.  Not once. 
    She sets her fork down and looks at me with an intensity I've never seen in her before, "Well, we were both damaged from the beginning," she says, looking back down at her plate.
    "Damaged?  How were you damaged?" I've never heard her say anything like this before, but then again, we'd never had a real conversation before either.
    "I just...well."  She inhales deeply, like air was as scarce as water or something, and says, "I've never told you this before but I lost my husband just before you came to me."
    "You were married?"
    "I sure was.  His name was Lawrence."
    "Why didn't you ever tell me?"
    "Because I didn't like to talk about it.  I shoved it away, like you shove your problems away.  We are more alike than you know.  It seemed best just to act like everything was fine."
    I'm floored by this revelation and it's my turn to not have anything to say.  We both sit picking at the foodbars on our plates.
    "Can I ask how he died?"
    "He was in