It was bad enough that things were always breaking down and that Chris had left to take that position at the Westchester ammo factory, leaving him saddled with a greenhorn to train. It was bad enough that his day was plugged sewer lines and rusty outflows rather than the electrical work he’d actually signed on for. But the worst part was that he had made exactly zero headway at getting his mother off of his back about getting himself out there and giving her some grandkids.

Yes, he knew that he was the only child of only children. Yes, he knew that the whispered last wish on the lips of all four dead grandparents and his father had been for the family line to be renewed with many children. Even if he had been able to forget, Mom would have been quick to remind him. Her aging faculties might have meant that each comment about him meeting a nice girl and settling down was the first she could recall, but for him on the other end it was a never-ending torrent.

And how exactly was he supposed to do that, Mom? Working a 40-hour week doing maintenance at the hospital often blossomed into a 50 or 60 hour week because lives were on the line. He needed a job with some stimulation, where every day was a little different, but the flip side was that it left him bone tired every night, and once he’d seen to the care and feeding of mother, the world’s biggest pet canary, there was precious little left over for anything, let alone dating.

He gave it his level best, of course. He tried to flirt with the nurses, the younger receptionists, even the barista with the accent he couldn’t quite place. Hell, even the occasional patient, if they seemed like the might be into it. But it didn’t work.

And, frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to work. What was wrong with a little quietude and time to himself? The occasional hunting or fishing trip with the guys he’d known since high school? Where, other than in the plan Mom and her dead ancestors had laid out, was that a bad thing?

There was an ice machine and a water line that needed fixing. Lives were on the line. He could worry about peer pressure from the dead, and the soon-to-be-dead, another time.

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