Kayleen and the children and I sat together in the common room in our suite, on a low blue couch the color of Kayleen’s and Caro’s eyes. Caro sat on my lap. Jherrel sat between me and Kayleen, holding a slate in front of him and reading a story I’d written for him about Fremont out loud. He was just starting to become a confident enough reader to add real inflection to his small, high voice. A slight smile touched the edges of his mouth from time to time. Caro bounced incessantly on my lap since it was always easier for her to be the reader than the listener.
Sasha curled at Jherrel’s feet.
Jherrel touched the slate to demand more words. “‘The boy crept up the hill toward the djuri herd. They—’”
Kayleen screamed. Caro stiffened and went away from me in an instant, going limp.
Kayleen rolled off the couch and landed on the floor, holding her head and panting.
Jherrel dropped the book, worry and confusion on his face. He touched Kayleen’s cheek. “What happened, Mama?”
She went still. Not so much as a finger twitched. Jherrel stared at her still form as if frozen. Sasha crept silently over to her and lay with her back to Kayleen’s as if protecting her.
Caro twitched twice and sat up straight, panicked. “Marcus!”
“What about Marcus?” I asked.
“He blew up. He’s gone.”
What? Joseph! Ice filled my muscles. “Where’s Joseph? Wasn’t he with Marcus?”
“He’s in a different ship. He’s mad.”
I bet he is. “Me, too.” We had multiple problems. “Is Kayleen in the data?”
Caro blinked for a second as if needing to clear her head before she could think about a new thing. She closed her eyes and then opened them again and stood up. She went to Kayleen’s side and stared down at her.
“Is she okay?” I asked. A lot to ask a five-year-old, but no one else on the ship would be able to answer my question.
Caro stared down at her mom. “She’s lost. Like when I made her mad at Lou’s.”
I had heard about that, but only in passing. Kayleen had brushed it off.
I looked directly at Caro, whose blue eyes were only half-full of her, the rest already gone somewhere else. “Your mom came back from that. She was okay. How did she come back?”
“Joseph helped her. I’m going to do that now.” She sat down and fell forward, snuggling into her mother’s still form. Their hair blended, dark on dark, and both twitched slightly.
I gathered Jherrel into my arms. “Did you hear that Marcus is probably dead?”
He nodded solemnly, clearly fighting for self-control. “Are you okay?” he asked. Thinking of me, in spite of his own pain. He loved Marcus. Had loved.
Pain dizzied me. “I think so. There’s nothing for us to do now but wait for Joseph to come back and to try to help Kayleen.” I wanted to scream and cry and rend my clothes and take a ship out to find my little brother, who had to be devastated. But everyone needed to see me be calm. I watched Kayleen breathe shallowly, lost wherever she was lost, and hugged Jherrel tighter.
“Caro will help her,” Jherrel said. “She’s good at it.”
How much did these children hide from us? Sorrow split my breastbone and stuck in my throat. We expected so much of the children. Needed so much. It wasn’t fair.
“Would you like me to keep reading?” he asked.
No matter how much we asked of them, they kept delivering. I kissed his downy hair before he climbed off my lap. “Good idea.”
He picked up the book and sat back down on the couch where he could see all three of us. I remained on the floor, guarding my lover and her child, and my brother’s dog.
Jherrel’s voice started out shaky. “‘They didn’t hear the boy come close to them. He sat on a rock. Near him, a paw-cat also watched the djuri herd.’”
Sasha got up from her place by Kayleen and lay next to him, looking up at his face.
His voice steadied as he read about the boy saving the grazing djuri from the paw-cat, and then saving himself from the big predator. Helping Jherrel sound out a few of the Fremont words for animals kept me from going stark raving mad with worry.
Lou showed up just before the end of the story, wheeling into the room with an angry face. She stopped when I put a finger up to quiet her so Jherrel could finish the last few sentences. “‘The boy came back home. His mother asked about the scratch on his face. He told her he fell.’”
Maybe I should have re-written the story with an ending where the boy told his mother about the paw-cat.
Jherrel closed the book.
“Do you know?” She surveyed the room. “You must.” She noticed Caro sitting silently beside her comatose mother. “Poor baby.”
I didn’t ask which one of them. It didn’t matter.
“I need to sit closer to them, on the couch,” she said.
Jherrel hopped up and held her hand as she took three unsteady steps toward the couch, relaxing into it next to Sasha and closing her eyes. I wondered if the captain had sent her here, or if she’d come on her own.
Jherrel brought me his favorite picture book about spaceships.
Liam burst through the door. He took in the scene almost immediately, and just stood there for a long moment looking back and forth between the three female Wind Readers all in nearly-catatonic states, and me and Jherrel reading. Then he did the only thing he could possibly do and sat down on his son’s other side. “Show me the biggest ship?”
I loved Liam with every cell, every part of my being.