For One Nen (24 page)

“Drinks are here,” called Scout.

With each cousin reaching out for a glass they stood in a circle as Chris said, “I’d like to make a toast.”

“I think we’d all like to say a few words,” Lena suggested.

“Who wants to go first?” asked Chris.

“You go since you seem to already know what you want to say,” Shane said.

“I know these past few weeks you guys have seen me a little out of sorts,” Chris began.

“Yes,” Lena said quickly as others voiced a, “yes,” and, “uh huh.”

“You guys aren’t supposed to agree with me,” Chris said with a chuckle.

“But seriously, I just wanted to say that…Damn it! I’m glad y’all are here,” Chris said with a laugh.

“There he goes again with the potty mouth,” Lena laughed.

“You know you were waiting for it,” Chris teased back.

“Damn it! It’s my turn,” Vincent said with a fake childish whine.

All eyes turned on him as he slowly began to laugh. “Just thought I’d move things along.”

“Well give him the floor, damn it,” Scout chimed in with a laugh.

Chris clapped Vincent on the back and said, “Toast away, man.”

Vincent pushed his black hair back and wiped the side of his face with his open hand. He tried to speak but instead, cleared his throat.

“C’mon now, cuz. Don’t make me regret giving you the floor by getting
all serious,” Chris said.

Vincent tilted his head and gave a smile but it didn’t help him get his words out.

Lena slipped her arm through his and softly said, “I’ll do it.”

She held up her glass and said, “Darcy should’ve come. She’s missing a hell of a time.”

“Heeeyyy,” Chris sang out a moment at the youngest member of the group following in his mouthy footsteps. But his laugh faded quickly as they all felt the absence of their cousin Darcy.

“We all feel her loss. She will always be missed.” She paused a moment and raised her glass, “This is for you, Darcy.” Before Lena took her toasting drink she added, “It’s just us now.”

297 AE

Aboard the EGRESS

From the crowd in the fallow field Molly stood to her feet and stepped quickly through the crowd and left the room.

“Should I go after her?” Merari asked Teltel.

“Maybe she just needs some time,” he said.

The others watched more of Eden’s people coming to live on the planet of Reen before Maven Sharla said the hour was late.

“We’ll have time tomorrow to watch more,” she said. “Some of us need to get some sleep. See,” she pointe
d to Bug, “some of us are already drifting off.”

The students laughed as Trina tugged at Bug’s long thin braid. “It’s time to go for tonight,” Trina said. She then flopped his braid across his face.

Bug opened his eyes wide, saying, “Huh? What?”

Trina held his hand as they followed the other students out the door of the fallow field.

Merari went straight to her room and opened the door.

“I found it,” Molly said as Merari stepped into their shared quarters.

“Found what?” Merari asked.

“This book,” she showed Merari the front cover.

“It’s the one I found in the big crate when we were looking for books of Chris. Look right there,” Molly said, pointing to a name.

“Darcy,” Merari read.

“Yes! And Trina said that word there says, ‘Arcadia’,” Molly said excitedly. “See, she came. She –came – too! The cousins didn’t know it but she came on the second ship, the Arcadia. I’m going to take this to Tala and see if she can read it.”

“But I think they are headed for bed,” said Merari.

Molly bit her lip, which made her frown as if someone had just snatched candy out of her hands.

“We can see them in the morning,” Merari said with a comforting grin. She slipped off her shoes and giggled.

“What’s so funny?” Molly asked as she peeled off her t-shirt and grabbed her dark pink pajama top. She pulled the top over her head and straightened her disheveled bangs.

“Oh, not funny really,” she said with another wide grin. “It’s just…don’t you think those two look splendid together? I hope…” Merari stopped cold like she’d been clubbed over the head.

Molly’s face was turned away as she pulled on her pajama bottoms. Yet the abrupt break in Merari’s speech made Molly jerk her head around to see what had happened to her friend.

“I just forget most of the time, you know,” Merari said growing pale. “I forget that our lives are almost…”

Molly closed the space between them and wrapped her arms tightly around her friend, “Damn particle wave.”

Merari whimpered for a moment as Molly tried to comfort her with words.

“You easily hope. That’s what I like about you. Just keep on hoping, and praying, and dreaming of a future.” Molly could still hear Merari softly crying. She tried to think of something that would help distract her fear of the impending particle wave. They were just days away from what many believed was certain death.

Still holding her friend close Molly said, “So Teltel, huh?”

Merari pulled away with a laugh. “I know, I know. But…” she reached for her pajama t-shirt that Molly had once given to her. “He took up for me. That’s hard to explain.” She shook her head as if trying to find the words.

“I get it,” Molly said. “You don’t have to explain.”

Before Merari awoke the next morning Molly had quietly left for the dining hall to wait for Tala. She had been awake most of the night with thoughts that swirled into excitement. She wanted to know what was in the book that held the name of Darcy. She had left in such a hurry that she left her hair down, which was not her usual look.

Molly had taken a seat in the dining hall where she could see the entire room. She didn’t want to miss seeing Tala when she came for morning meal.

The next thing she knew she was jolted awake by the shocking sound of breaking glass in the kitchen followed by laughter.

“Silly drunks,” Molly said to herself.

Molly searched her surroundings a moment and tried to remember where she was. She watched as the signs of the last days of life surrounded her.

The couple sitting a few tables away argued until one shouted, “I should never have settled.”

At the elevator door came a small child. A mother scooped him up into her arms and cried like she would never let him go. The child tried to escape such a tight squeeze but only did so after aid from a man that held both mother and son softly and spoke gently to the mother.

Mol
ly watched all of this and shuddered.

Gaining her wits she saw Tala sitting with Deni softly laughing. Molly jumped to her feet and raced to their table but before she got there she grew very nervous. Tala’s beauty could make anyone self-conscious, especially a young girl
just coming into her own identity as a grown woman.

Standing silent a moment
, Tala graciously smiled and Molly was put at ease. Pulling the book from the back pocket of her jeans, Molly held it out to Tala.

Without a word Tala took the book and opened the thick
, soft cover.

Molly pointed to the name on the inside.

“This is a biography; Darcy’s biography,” Tala said as she turned several pages. She didn’t explain why it was a different language than the Chris books.

“So she did come! I knew it!
The cousins thought they would never see her again, but she came!”

Tala smiled at Molly’s excitement. “Sit, sit,” she said to the teenager. “Let’s see what this says.”

“Really, you’ll read it to me?” Molly said with her heart thumping.

“Well, we could read it to the others too,” Tala said.

Molly’s exuberant expression fell.

“How about you
find a quiet place for a while,” Deni suggested to Tala.

Molly smiled at the women talking.

Tala gave Deni a look of secret as her blue eyes widened.

Deni verbally answered, “Sure, I don’t mind.”

Molly wondered a moment if Deni was Antip because Tala seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

“I’ll bring it to you,” Deni said.

Tala rose to her feet and said with her alluring voice, “Come with me.”

Molly didn’t hesitate or question. She followed
Tala from the dining hall past the elevator, and into the gardens.

Tala didn’t stop at any of the planting stations. In fact, she went in t
he opposite direction from the door to the fallow field. They walked almost 170 meters; the entire length from the garden door to the end of the garden rows.

At the end of the middle row was a
nother door. Molly had never seen it before.

Tala turned the knob and said, “Welcome.”

Molly spied soft chairs and paintings on the wall. There were four books arranged in a way that was appealing to her eye.

“This is beautiful,” Molly said as she gazed about. I didn’t know anybody lived in the gardens.

“Well, it was actually an office until Aiden allowed us to…well…it’s our room now. Deni and I share it. She wanted to keep working and I wanted to be near her. We just want to spend as much time together as possible, you know.”

“Oh,” Molly stumbled with her response.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be talking about such things with someone your age but even at your age you must try to spend time with your friends and those you love.” Tala’s words slid from her mouth with a kind of serious softness. “Why would you want to know about something written so many years ago?”

Molly shrugged her shoulders and lightly ran her fingertips over a shallow metal box, filled with large dark red flakes and small black flakes that held a hint of purple. She picked up a fleck of red as it crumbled through her fingers.

Molly sucked in her breath in a slight gasp.

“It’s fine,” Tala said. She reached her slender ivory hand into the box and scooped up a handful and crushed them into smaller pieces. She waved her hand in front of her nose and said, “Try it.”

Molly did the same.

“Oh! That’s magnificent.”

“No, that’s beauty at its finest,” Tala said. “The magnificence is in the fact that the rose and the lavender,” she crushed another handful, “were brought by our foremothers on board the Egress. They must have thought it was important to add beauty to our lives.”

Molly picked up one single lavender petal and breathed in the fragrance long and slow.

“Sometimes I think some of them knew things…things we’ve forgotten. Important things,” Molly said.

“Is that what this Darcy book is all about?” asked Tala.

“Well sort of, I guess. I really want to know what happens when Chris and the cousins are reunited.”

“What if they are not?” asked Tala.

Molly pursed her lips a moment. “I would at least like to know. I mean she was Denizen. I’m Denizen. I wish future generations could know what happened to me. I would feel like I had mattered, like I had been creative enough to make a space of my own; then when I was gone it would leave a hole somewhere that only the memory of me could fill.”

Tala smiled with a radiance that not even a nova could duplicate. “What would you like people to remember about you?”

Molly squeezed the back of a soft chair and shut her eyes tightly. “That I loved being alive.” She opened her eyes and let out her next words with an unsteady voice. “I hope there’s something beyond the particle wave.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, cleared her throat, and continued her answer. “That I loved learning and experiencing new things. I want to be remembered as kind. Yes. That’s it. Molly was kind.”

Deni opened the door with her hands full of food.

“Let me help you, Love,” Tala said.

The women put the food on the table and sat down.

“Join us,” Deni said. “We’ll let Tala eat before the story begins.

Molly pushed aside her long bangs and wiped her teary eyes.

Soon after they had eaten, Tala was reclining on a soft couch and reading the biography of Darcy, a Denizen of the Arcadia; the second colonizing ship to  Reen.

Earth date: 2321 CE

Approximately 95,000 BE

EDEN COMPANION HOSPITAL, part of the sprawling complex
, which had supported the construction of the colonizing starship EDEN, located in the Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter

The first time Vincent talked to his sister, Darcy, about seeing their cousin Shane, she looked away. She gritted her teeth, and in the middle of the hospital waiting room, she cried.

“You’
re worried about Dad aren’t you?” Vincent asked softly. “That’s why I’ve seen you cry lately.”

She hid her face with both hands and sobbed. Vincent slid into the chair next to his sister and held her until her tears had crusted on her cheeks.

He stood and took her hand, “Let’s go get some coffee.”

Darcy wiped her itchy face covered in a layer of dried saltiness and followed her big brother.

Her black ponytail dangled as she walked down the long hall and into the hospital cafeteria. He deposited her at a table near a window.

Vincent got two cups of coffee and joined her.

“One sugar and three creams,” Vincent said as he sat the cup in front of her.

“How did you know that?” she asked.

“Because it’s just like Papa used to drink it.”

Darcy left the cup at the table and walked to a window where her tears erupted again.

She could barely see the asteroid that was being transformed into a colonizing ship.

Darcy wiped her eyes that were now bright red. “Sometimes I wish I could just g
et on that ship and leave this all behind.”

“Darcy,” Vincent said softly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Darcy turned to face him, “What are you talking about?”

Vincent took her damp hand and led her back to the table and their coffee.

“I didn’t just run into Shane, I’ve been searching for…for our cousins.”

Darcy’s tears were like an endless ocean that had come to shore without any sign of receding.

“Okay sometimes I can’t tell what you’re crying about,” Vincent said as he wiped his forehead uncomfortably.

Darcy laughed through her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just get so angry sometimes.”

“Wait, you cry when you’re angry too. Damn. Now I’m really confused.” He left the table a moment and came back with a handful of
stiff napkins.

“Okay,” he said as he laid the napkins in front of her. “Just start at the beginning.”

Darcy smiled at her big brother, took a napkin, and wiped her face.

“It just makes me so angry when I think about it all,” she said after she had composed herself.

“It wasn’t so bad when Dad still lived at home. But since he went to the care wing, Mom has turned her anger on me. She’s waiting for some apology from all of her brothers and sisters. And as I see it, they were all asses. Couldn’t they see what they were doing to all of us? Mom didn’t gripe about them as much when you were still at home but I’ve been there, Vincent, every day for years. I’ve been there to hear her talk about how evil our aunts and uncles and even our cousins are.”

“One day, we were eating lunch and she was on one of her rants; telling a story about how her sister pulled her hair when they were teenagers and, I don’t know, I just lost it.”

“She turned to me; cause…well I was the only one there, and she said, ‘well you know how they are, Darce.’ Just like that; all hateful like she does. I’m telling you, Vincent that was all I could take. I stood up and said, ‘No, I don’t know how they are. I don’t know those people and I don’t want you telling me how to feel about someone I don’t know. And I won’t hear it anymore’.”

“Whoa
,” Vincent laughed, holding his fist to his mouth. “Why have you never told me this?”

Darcy just shook her head.

“What did Mom do?” he asked leaning in.

“You know Mom. She came to my room late that night and,” she held up her hands to show quotes, “
apologized
. I don’t know how in the world she can apologize and still make you feel guilty for letting her do it.”

“I know,” Vincent agreed with a roll of his eyes. “She has a talent.”

“Well, I guess everyone is good at something,” Darcy said.

Vincent slapped his knee. “Good one.”

“If I don’t laugh I’ll cry,” Darcy said. “It’s just lately I’ve been so angry. Why can’t I let her go?” She began to softly cry again. “Why can’t I just walk away from her and not look back. What’s wrong with me?”

“Do you really want to walk away,” Vincent asked seriously and added, “fly away?”

Darcy picked up another napkin and pressed it to her already irritated eyes and face.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Vincent pointed toward the window where they were standing earlier.

“The Eden is almost finished,” he said. “Chris has just been made Communications First Officer.”

“What are you saying?” Darcy asked again in earnest.

“He says he can get us all on. All of us cousins can just fly out of here.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Darcy said with her mouth dropped wide.

“I…well…I was thinking,” he stumbled over his words.

“You
are
leaving.
Aren’t
you,” she said. “I knew it. I knew you’d find a way to walk away from Mom and Dad… and me.”

“Look here,” Vincent snapped. “Dad isn’t going to be here much longer and Mom is getting older. I need to think of my future and there’s no future here. It’s out there among the stars. And I want you to go, I do, but I’m going even if you don’t.”

Darcy jumped to her feet. “Fine, just go,” she snapped.

But like standing in the path of a fast moving boulder they heard their father’s room number called over the hospital intercom
and the crushing blow swiftly came.

“Code Blue in 1046. Room 1046 code blue.”

The siblings raced out of the cafeteria, down the hall, burst open the door to the stairs and charged down one flight, crashing through the door. They froze like statues in the hall as they watched two doctors and three nurses walking calmly out of their father’s room.

Darcy felt like her young life was over. Nineteen years old, and she had just lost her father, was losing her brother, losing her cousins – again, and was now left with her mother; left with the one person that could hurt her the deepest, but also the one that she felt needed her the most.

She slowly reached for her brother’s hand and said, “Just go. I’ve got this.”

“No,” Vincent protested. Stepping forward he was pulled back by his sister.

Darcy blocked his way. She turned to face him, put her hands on his arms and said, “No. Just go. I’ll make some excuse.”

She turned to face the
only future she thought she had, but Vincent pulled her back into a quick embrace.

“The others want to see you,” he urged.

For a moment she let him hold her.

“And Lena,” he added to his plea.

She pushed him away hard. “Don’t,” she said as her red eyes brimmed once again. “Just don’t. She needs me.”

“Come with us,” he begged once more.

She wiped her eyes and set her determined face toward the pain ahead.

“Please come with us,” Vincent pleaded again in a stiff whisper.

“Sometimes it really sucks to be needed,” she said. Without looking at her big brother she reached out and caught his arm. “Don’t ask me again…it may completely break me.”

Vincent watched her go knowing he would never see her again. He left the following day for the Eden in the sky
, where he stayed until he left with the others two months later.

She cried for nearly two weeks after her brother left. She had lost all hope of ever seeing her cousins again
, since they had all gone on the Eden with her brother. It was a loss she could not fill with any other connection, until Rhys.

Barely twenty-one and she was already on her first year of rotations. Dr. Darcy she was now called, though her mother continually called her Darce, as if her daughter wasn’t worth the effort of finishing a second syllable, let alone acknowledging her title.

Darcy, while pleasant when addressed, never searched for human contact. She usually had her nose in a book or poured her focus over patients’ charts. Medical school was a path that had chosen her easily since she lived on the Eden’s companion hospital. She was at the top of her class in medical school with no dreams or great ambitions. She just simply was a good student because she didn’t allow herself any other pleasure but to study, or rather it was the one thing that captured her focus so entirely that it helped her forget; forget her brother, forget her cousins, forget her overbearing mother, forget her meek father that had never stood up for himself – let alone anyone else. She was even able to forget her own needs for companionship.

Jess had become a friend without Darcy ever making an effort for friendship. Jess’ locker was next to Darcy’s. The girls saw each other every morning and evening and througho
ut their work day. Jess came to get Darcy most every day for lunch. Darcy was thankful that Jess talked easily because Darcy found it tiresome to lead a conversation. But Jess was good for Darcy and helped her to have human connection.

One morning while in the locker room
, Darcy spilled open a bag that had been precariously stuffed in her locker. Quickly Jess helped her gather her things.

“Is this your sister?” Jess asked, handing a picture of a little blonde girl to her.

“Hmm,” Darcy responded while she looked at the picture. “A cousin,” she said and grabbed her other belongings. She closed her locker door without another word and left the room.

After that
, if she were not engrossed in a complicated medical case or reading the latest medical journal, she would easily grow weepy.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Darcy said one morning as she wiped her eyes.

Dr. Rhys held out a computer tablet filled with information on the patients they were to see that day.

“If you need a moment before rounds I could get us some coffee,” he said.

“No, no. I’ll be fine,” she said as she quickly tried to compose herself.

Jess breezed past her as she quickly said, “Go for coffee.” She gave Darcy a side wink as she kept going down the hall of the hospital built in the sky.

Darcy stepped up to the nurse’s station and placed her hands under the automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. Out came two spurts of clear gel. She rubbed her hands together and turned back to Dr. Rhys.

He held the tablet to his chest as he smiled at her.

He smiled at her…at her. She was surprised by this. Then just as quickly, she was surprised-that this kindness surprised her. Her thoughts and emotions rattled around in her brain a moment until she took a quick breath.

“Coffee?” he asked with that ever present smile.

For the first time in a long time she felt like smiling.

“Yes, thank you. If you think we have time,” she said as she stumbled over her words. Her face flushed a moment and her legs wobbled as they walked down the hall to the cafeteria.

“Did I ever tell you that I knew your dad,” Rhys said. “I met him several times. I was never his doctor you know. I was still just a first year at the time but he was a friendly fella.”

“I don’t know why they keep this hospital out here since the Eden is gone now,” Darcy said.

“Oh! Didn’t you hear? They’re making this hospital into a permanent home for those who worked on making the Eden,” Rhys said.

“Like a nursing facility?” asked Darcy.

“Yes, for all the old guys that mined the asteroid to build the Eden.”

“My father wasn’t old. He was only forty-six,”

“Yes but that kind of work can make a person old really fast,” Rhys said, “especially the miners. Some of them got really sick through all they were exposed to.”

“And some died,” Darcy said, referring to her father.

Rhys steered their focus away from death and instead added, “They were great guys; always told me stories of mining out the asteroid to make the Eden. Your father had the best stories, or maybe he was just the best storyteller. I think he’d start talking to me sometimes just to see me lose track of time. I missed the beginning of so many meetings because of him,” Rhys laughed and added, “Great guy.”

“Some days I wanted to give him and big hug,” Darcy said softly with her eyes looking away from Rhys. “Then other days I wanted to shake the fire out of him.” Darcy gave a quick nervous laugh that never produced a smile.

However Rhys leaned in and asked, “Have dinner with me?”

“Oh…well…we should probably get back to work.” Darcy pushed stray bits of hair flat against her head as she rose from the table.

“Darcy,” Rhys said gently, “it’s just dinner.”

“I…uh…” Darcy dared to lift her eyes to meet his gaze. “Yes,” she said, followed by an exhale that helped her tense body relax enough to smile.