Mom and I talked of these things. She calmed me while she worked on my hair, braiding it like this and like that. I felt that she was right. I just couldn't see at what point it had been my fault and where it began to be the fault of someone else.
"Ok mom, let's talk about the guards. I can see where if that one hadn't started shooting at me I wouldn't have started shooting at him. I can really see where I had no choice. I had to shoot back and I had to make the attempt to rescue Toni--and Killer. I feel like I had to do what I did. I was right, ok? The thing is it still gnaws at me, y'know?"
"Hmmm...probably some of what you are feeling is a sense of your own mortality. There's lot's of things. You may also feel a sense of loss because another human being has died. That's alright too. It's good--normal. Then there's guilt and some of that is good too. You need enough guilt to make you want to be sure that you had no other choices. Also it is the guilt which will make you ask yourself, 'If it were to ever happen again, by some freak of nature or whatever, are there alternatives?'.
"It is good that you should be concerned. I don't think it would be good if you were to just blow it off and forget it. You will carry this for the rest of your life--and you should. That doesn't mean that I think you should do penance for all of your days. If something like that were to ever come up again I would hope that you would be better prepared to cope with it both from the aspect of being able to do the deed and being able to perhaps find a way around it."
"You're saying I should feel bad?"
"Just for awhile, Cookie. Not forever. You should remember it forever but not feel bad about it. You should maybe remember the people and perhaps memorialize them in some way. Even if it is just inside your own mind. You'll have to be the judge on that. I don't think God will punish you for what you did--especially if you ask forgiveness.
"Well, how do you like it?" mom asked. I thought she was referring to what she had said but when I looked up she was holding both of her hands up like some magician that had just unvieled some trick. I realized she was talking about my hair and she wanted me to look at myself in the mirror.
It was...different. I liked it and the more I looked at it the better it looked to me. "Yes, that's cool. I didn't expect this. It's more like you would wear to a bar for an evening out. It's not what some frumpy girl would wear to school eveyday. This is nice. Thank you. Where'd you learn to do something like this, mom?"
"Like I said, I used to have a friend, back on earth, who wore her hair like this sometimes. She nearly always wore her hair in braids or something. I must have seen a hundred different styles she would use and she still kept doing her hair different."
"You've got to show me how to do it so I can do myself!"
"Sorry, you need someone to help. If you want I'll show you how it's done but you'll need to show it to someone who will be willing to do your hair."
"Can I do your hair, mom? Then we'll look alike."
"Sure, it's been forever since I've had my hair in braids, I'd like that. Here, comb it out first then I'll show you what to do."
"Thanks mom, I'm feeling much better now."
"Because of the hair?"
"No, well yeh, that too. What I mean is, I'm glad we are talking this out. I don't know what would have happened if I'd just kept this all bottled up inside."
"That's what mothers are for, Sue. That's what friends are for too. You should have been talking to Toni or Jet or anyone about this stuff. Toni had told me before that she was worried about you because you had never let it out. She thought you might have been voicing your concerns to Sid, before you two broke up (what a night that was), she even asked him about it and he told her you'd never said a word.
"Sue when people say you've got to share they don't just mean the good times. Sometimes you've got to share the bad stuff too. Understand?"
"I guess."
"Don't guess! If there is ever something bothering you I want you to come to me and we'll talk about it. I may not have an answer and I may not always be able to help you but I'll give you a good listen. Sometimes that's all it takes. You can't always make all of your worries go away. Somethings keep going with you for all of your life. That's when you've really gotta talk to someone so that you can put things into proper perspective. You may need to tell several people before you can find the answers that you need.
"When someone has been through the shit you've been through you are bound to get emotionally encombered. Ever once in awhile you need to--Ow! You're pulling my hair, honey."
"Sorry mom. I'm not used to doing this."
"You're doing fine.
"Once in awhile you need to unload. I do! You'll listen to me if I need you, won't you?"
"Hell yes. After what you've done for me today I'll listen for as long as you want me to."
"It does make friends closer dosen't it?"
"I never that of it quite like that. I guess it does. I had always thought it would push people apart."
"It pushes people apart--it brings friends closer together."
"What do I do now--about the hair?"
"Remember how I did it?"
"No, I wasn't watching that close. Sorry."
"That's ok. You had things on your mind, Sue.
"Just do a small section at a time. Decide where you want the center to be and work from there."
I looked in the mirror and studied how mom had made the different braids and where they were located. "Should I start at the top or at the bottom?"
"The bottom. Comb all my hair across my head then pull back the part you want to work on first.
"Do you still feel guilty, or should I say overly guilty about the people who died in the rains, Sue?"
I was trying to concentrate on what I was doing. I sure didn't want to goof up my mom's hair. "Ummm...Some. I know where you are headed. I shouldn't blame myself for that either, right?"
"Sorta, some."
"Really? I didn't think you would say that."
"I don't want you to completely wash your hands of the whole thing. You've probily already done enough pennance by all the work you did trucking in supplies and all. It's a hard one to call. On one hand I wish that you had had enough backbone to have thought about what you were going to do before you did it and on the other hand I can see where that man Killer had a lot of influence over you. I guess it's one of those things where you have to chalk it up to experiance.
"It's like the engineers who design bridges. They-"
"What's a bridge?"
"It's for cars to dive on to get across rivers and...streams and ..."
"Are you alright?" I asked mom worried. "It looks like you may be carrying something inside of you that you may need to get out..."
She looked back at me gratefully. "Yes, I guess I do have something bothering me. I miss earth."
I'd heard what she'd said. I kept working. I nearly had one braid done and I didn't want to let go of it and have it unravel. I thought as I worked. Mom was still missing earth? Talk about being homesick.
"Jet has talked to me, Sue. She says the 'others' are currious about where we came from. They want to put together an expedition and go have a look-see. They've asked Jerry and me if we want to go."
I dropped the braid I had been working on. Quickly I got my hand back on it before too much had come undone. "What did you tell them?" I asked in a squeaky voice. I knew what the answer would be. She would want to go back home.
"We told them we'd think about it. I've been wanting to broach the subject with you. How do you feel about it?"
"I can understand how you might miss your old planet. I'd sure miss you. Would you be coming back?" I had to stop. My hands were shaking too badly to continue.
"There would be no coming back--at least not to this time period. It would be better than a thousand years before we would match up again. I was...thinking...maybe you'd be interested in seeing earth."
"You mean come with you?"
"You don't think I'd leave you behind do you, daughter? Niether Jerry or I would ever dream of leaving you. We're a family now. I was thinking, the war is over...what are your plans now?"
"I hadn't really thought about it. I guess I just thought I'd stay at the complex. Y'know, kinda keep doing what I've been doing."
"Be a truck driver all your life? Get real. How'd you like to go back to earth with us?"
"I don't know..."
"It'd be a gas! We could let them know we're here. Maybe carry enough people back to start a colony. I think the people of earth might have destroyed themselves. If they did we could re-seed earth. Otherwise we could try to find another planet for our colonists. Either way we could spread this alien technoligy that the 'others' are so willing to share.
"Say you'll go. Jet wants to go although I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we are thinking about taking Percy's ship if we do it. Maybe your friend Toni will go too."
"It does sound exciting. When would we get back?"
"Well, that's where space travel is kinda fluky. The alien ships are fast enough to get us there in a little over a month but that's the apparent time on-board ship. The time outside the ship would be in the nieghborhood of a couple of thousand years."
"A couple of thousand years? That is flucky! Why would anyone want to leave everything behind by that much time?"
"That's what it costs to ride, Sue. You just keep going until you get in the middle of something you like or you just take off again, if you can."
"What a rush that would be. Wow. It would be like throwing some dice and letting them decide what you get. I don't know. It doesn't sound too good to me."
"You're right, of course, but there is something else where your father and I are concerned. We miss earth. You don't know how great it looked to me when I was revived and I was waiting for them to find Jerry and revive him too. Do you remember that day, that morning?"
"Yeh?"
"Remember me looking out of the window in that door? I couldn't wait to get out and walk in that mud, to feel the moisture in the air, to feel the coolness. It probily looked miserable to you, but to me it reminded me how much I missed earth. That was the reason I was staring out of that window."
I looked at her trying to imagine what it felt like to miss a planet. Should I have told her that she was on Seco now and that was where she should 'make her bed', so to speak? What would a good daughter do? One who loved her mother and father as much as I loved Jennifer and Jerry. I wanted to do the right thing. If only I could figure out what that was.
I worked on her hair.
It was getting easier.
She was a beautiful woman.
***
"I'll do what ever you want to do, mom. As long as we are together that's the main thing"
"You're sure, Sue?"
"About staying together--yes absolutily!"
"Hmmm...we need to think some more about this. You ask Toni, ok? I think she'll go."
"If there's enough men with us she'll go!" I told my mother. "She's kinda boy-crazy in case you haven't noticed."
"I've noticed. Now I'm not saying we're doing this. I'm just throwing this up to see how it sounds."
"I know, mom. It does sound like it would be...interesting, if nothing else. Life may get somewhat boring after all we've been through. I've had some pretty wild times."
"I know what you're saying. There's still something to be said about sitting in a rocker on your back porch and watching the sunset."
"What's that look like? I thought you couldn't look at the sun? Tell me more about earth."
The whole book in zipfile format.
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