ABANDON

Chapter 30 -- Food, Fear, and Hope

Oosa kept an extra close eye on Jane for the next week. She gave Jane the job of helping to prepare the soup they ate. The same soup, every day. Jane made it, every day. For this first week it was her only job,and as Jane sat and did the monotonous task she felt she should be glad. Here was a thing she had wanted her entire life: to do something simple, something that didn't take every bit of her conscious effort—she should have been happy. But what she had imagined back on Earth, her daydream of doing something easy, was not at all like what she was doing right now. And Jane reflected on how the desire she had in her head was very different from the reality of it.

Today as Jane lined up the bags she was going to wrestle open and bulge the contents into the blue stained jar, her thoughts were on how she was trying to get better. She felt like she had lost herself, she was an empty shell and she had to rely completely on those around her to tell her how to live—when to eat, when to sleep, what to do, and how to feel. She was rewriting herself.

"Lots of work today." Oosa and her granddaughters sat next to Jane, part of a larger circle of people. Some of them had their sewing draped across their laps, their fingers going up and down. Jane had never seen anyone sew. She had never even seen a sewing needle. Others were working with the dark gray metal that was ubiquitous with the planet.

Oosa listed off a dozen tasks that had to be done that morning to anyone who would listen, although mostly to her granddaughters. "Hessa's stitches came undone."

Jane's eyes strayed to the needle Oosa stabbed into the carefully arranged fabric she clutched between her knobby fingers.

"I can help." Aatann offered.

"Me too, me too!" Kiito jumped.

"I know you could do this," Oosa patted her granddaughters knees, "but Eina put those stitches in and Eina will put them in again."

At the mention of Eina, Jane looked across the cave at the children playing in the training area. Kiito had taken the time to explain the game yesterday. The goal was to climb to the top of each of the freestanding rocks that jutted up from the training area floor. Each rock had been categorized by the children based on the difficulty of the climb. Eina was a strong climber, level four rock was smooth, taller than Michael, and only needed about fifteen more degrees to be vertical yet she was sitting at the top, coaching other children on hand and foot placement. Jane was surprised that someone so young was doing something so grown up as stitches. But then her mind told her she had done things far too early as well. Jane looked around at all the children and suddenly felt a kinship with them.

And then she felt anger. It surprised Jane, but she accepted it. If this was her movement now, so be it. Like a fish out of water, Jane thought, but I will learn to breath again, gentle and gently.

Oosa grunted, and then asked, "How many jars do we have?" Several people in the circle postponed what they were doing to count, one man counted out loud. The jars started out blue, but slowly over the days turned to purple. Jane felt proud of the work she had done, the food in those jars was there because of her. Then Jane looked at the blue stains on her hands, and then remembered all those lives, and then felt regret. She closed her eyes and felt the sorrow. Flip, flop, sometimes empty, sometimes full, like a dance.

"Five grandmother." Miriam used the word grandmother in the respectful, rather than literal, sense. Little Kai was sitting on her lap holding the same smooth, round rock in his little hand. In the week since she had been out of her prison, Jane felt she had gotten to know many of the people around her just by watching them. But Jane rarely saw Miriam, this was only the second time she had been out of her room. And that was another thing—Miriam, besides Jane, was the only other person who had a room all to herself.