Chapter Fifty - The Little Flame

I was living on Martinique as no one in particular. Doing my job, day to day, week to week. Then, the baby decided to be born, so I went into labour.

I was rushed to the hospital.

When asked about my medical care, I lied about having had my testing done on Ceres. They didn't believe me, one nurse was rude, announcing that if anything was wrong with my child I would be prosecuted.

If I wasn't in so much pain I'd have laughed in her face.

Prima-Ann was born twelve hours later.
Of course she was perfect.
Her father was a Gennie.

My baby was fully scanned, tested, and so was I. Then we were released, and I was driven to home by the hospital.

It wasn't until I had entered, taken care of Prima, and was sitting and relaxing that I went to hear the news, and learned that Sagir and Dalmar were at war.

'Believe in me' he'd said.

And he went off to war.

They called him, he went.
And thoughts flung into my mind.

The first time I was pregnant, I'd asked him what I should call the baby:

"Whatever you like,"

"If I want to call him Guy or Joe or Tom...if I wanted to call him...ZalPriam?"

He got angry then. One of the very few times he showed anger, and snapped;

"Why? Why do you want to perpetuate this Eugenics? This need for keys and to define people by their genes? If I wanted that I would not have..."

Then he fell into one of his barricaded silences.

"Talk to me Priam. What was your life before we met?"

"Of what value is that? Obviously it is well left behind."

He'd tried to escape.

He had linked with me, lived my life with me. Wanted to be with me. He only wanted to be with me. But he didn't get the chance. They found him, they took him, and so his past wasn't left behind. It caught him. And it took him away.

Maybe forever.

Maybe I really was a widow. Maybe this was all that was left of my Priam.
My baby and my memories. I grabbed my daughter to my heart, and cried.

Oh Priam, I love you, I will always love you.
I'm sorry for all the times I doubted you.
All the times I didn't understand.

You weren't running from the Dalmar, you were running from your own people. It makes sense. Maybe it's too late to matter.

What Priam had been was horrific. So he kept it to himself. He didn't have conversation because he'd never had a life. The only part of his existence he could share was his ability to cook.

Priam had never owned anything, never had dreams. He had gone moment to moment living in the Now.

Swimming in the pools, making love, seeing things, but only when all the survival
factors were taken care of. He had, unlike all the men I've ever known, no 'time out'. He never went anywhere without me, and rarely did I go anywhere without him.
Shouldn't that have screamed that he had no experience of interaction?

Yet, even now, I wanted the words, the explanations. As if until he told me, I didn't know, couldn't trust him.

So here I am on Earth, in a little job, safe. Safer than I'd ever been. For I was just Angie Molina, aquatecturist.

I did think about going home to Newfrance. Maybe when my folks saw Prima they'd like me again. But, there was a war on, and I was not ignorant. This wasn't just Dalmar and Sagir, everyone would be in it, in one way or another.

Children under six months are not allowed to travel in space anyway. So I had time.
I was forced to have time. Forced to stay in my boring dull life, doing my boring dull job, trying to be a mother, and that was one thing I had no clue about.