by Capri S Bard
“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 throughout 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.
When th
ey returned to the nurse’s station there were several doctors and nurses looking at their personal computer tablets and talking amongst themselves.
“What’s going on?” Rhys asked the crowd.
“There’s a new ship already being built. The companion hospital was just completed. It will support the workers and their families just like they did here. They’ll be in need of doctors and nurses soon.”
Darcy’s heart skipped a happy beat. She was ready for a change.
That night when she went home, her excitement spilled over and she shared the news with her mother.
“You know our life is here. Your father gave his life for this place. Now you want to run off at the first sign of something better. You think you’re so much better than a real days work. Just go, like Vincent done.” Her lower lip quivered as she added, “What will our friends think of me raising ungrateful children?”
“Mother, I didn’t say I wanted to leave you. I just think it would be a good career move and…”
“Well just go on. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you now that your father is gone.”
“Mother I don’t want to live in a hospital all my life and if I do this for a while I can save enough to pay the high taxes to move back to Earth. We could have actual dirt under our feet again. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“If your father could hear you now, all high and mighty. He’d be ashamed. He worked himself to an early death just to give you a better life than what we had on Earth, renting that tiny house when you kids were little, never making ends meet, finally taxed right off that rock. Now you want to go back to squalor.”
“You’re not hearing me Mother. I could get a high paying position in the new hospital I’m the best third year student they have.”
“Oh! I’m hearing you little girl. Thinking you’re better than your father was. You go ahead and elevate yourself higher than your father if you think you can,” Darcy’s mother said.
“Better than you, at least,” Darcy dared to mumble under her breath as she hurried off to her room to change.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked following her into her room. “You told me you were cooking tonight.”
Darcy ignored her mother’s invasion of her space, which was normal behavior for her mother.
Grabbing the remote to their runabout she headed for the small docking bay.
“Hey now, I’m sorry if you misunderstood what I said. You’re really too sensitive you know. I can’t say anything to you anymore.”
“I have a date, Mom,” Darcy said opening the bay door.
“Well, when were you going to tell me this? I didn’t know a thing about it. When will you get back? You know I can’t sleep until everyone is safe in their bed at night.”
Darcy turned to roll her eyes at her mother, “Everyone?” Darcy said with a great deal more irritation in her voice than she’d meant to reveal.
“So you do know we’re alone,” her mother snapped back. “I thought you’d forgotten that your brother left us and your father is dead by the way you leave me alone all the time.”
“I won’t be late Mother,” Darcy said climbing into the bright silver and black runabout. “Have a protein bar. You’ll be fine.” With that, she closed the clear dome over her tiny space shuttle and pushed a button to close the door to their home.
Her mother kept talking but by then Darcy couldn’t hear her endless ranting anymore. She wished more than anything she wouldn’t hear her mother’s guilt-tripping voice ever again.
She flew under the hospital facility in the sky to get to the entire opposite side, which had become more than a hospital. It was like a small city, with shops and restaurants and businesses of many kinds. Most people flew over or around the mega mansion in the sky, flying by the commercial store fronts. But Darcy loved to fly underneath where she would cut the engine and float. By doing this she could see a tiny blue dot in the sky. She wished she could see the Earth’s moon. She missed the moon the most. She could remember watching it with her father when she was little and living on Earth.
Her father would take her outside at night and show her the giant light that revolved around their planet; and when she was tinier still, he would toss her in the air, which she loved. He would toss her up over his head and just as Darcy was about to fall back to his arms she felt weightless. She would squeal for just a moment before finding herself back in her father’s strong and safe arms. It was the only time she could remember feeling protected by her father because he never stood up for her against her mother’s malicious words.
She had grown accustomed to remaining silent during her mother’s daily rants, since it always made it worse if Darcy did happen to interject any positivity or common sense.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her clenched teeth. It wasn’t until her breath made a hissing sound that she realized how tense her entire body had become. The knots in the muscles of her neck and shoulders ached. She leaned forward, touching her head to the glass dome of her runabout. Reaching above the control panel she pressed her right hand on the glass. With her left hand she pointed toward the sun, which was the brightest star in the sky.
She put her finger to the window and drew a horizontal line to the left.
“And that’s Earth,” she whispered. “That’s where we lived when I was happy. Vincent was there, even Lena was there and all of my cousins.” She pointed slightly further left to a faint red dot. “That’s Mars.” She followed several of the brighter stars with her finger and sighed heavily and added, “But Mom was still Mom.”
She slumped back in her seat and groaned. She shook her head as if trying to rid her body of an invisible oppressive blanket of feelings that weighed her down.
“Maybe I’ll just stay right here,” she said to herself with a strong voice. Even louder she said, “Maybe I’ll just stay right here and scream.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
After a long and loud yell with all her might she sat in silence. She looked around the inside of the runabout. As she let her focus drift again to the outside’s enormity of space she had a thought; a very real thought, a very vivid thought. “What if I point this runabout toward Earth and never look back.”
She knew that she could never make it back to Earth. Her little space ship wasn’t made for such a great distance. She knew she didn’t have food in her emergency kit to last more than a day. She knew a great many reasons why she shouldn’t just turn the power back on and speed through space until the black void swallowed her up.
She pushed a button and turned the appropriate dials and listened to the hum of her little spaceship. For a moment she didn’t care about anything anymore.
Then it happened, her anger, the only feeling left inside her, swelled into another even louder scream. She screamed until the tears surfaced and flooded her face like a hot and continuous waterfall. She drew her skinny knees tightly under her chin with a tight hug. She cried until her head was clear again.
She opened her emergency doctor’s bag and drew out a clean cloth. She wiped her face and straightened her body in the single seat of the runabout. She waited a moment longer, savoring this moment when no one was yelling at her, no one was expecting anything of her; no one was making her feel stuck. She took a deep breath and did the only thing she knew to do. She pointed her runabout toward the only person that might save her from her miserable life. She headed toward her evening date with Rhys.
At a restaurant on the edge of the shops district, Rhys was waiting with a smile. He offered his elbow as they followed the waiter to their table. They laughed and talked. She began to be so relaxed with him that she let herself dream of a future.
“And I think I have a real chance of being head of neurosurgery if I take that fellowship after exams. You’ve got to come to the new hospital for your fellowship. They’re already seeing some patients there because the hospital facility was just completed. The asteroid is already being mine
d to create the new colonizing ship, the ‘Arcadia’.”
“Well I don’t know,” Darcy said with a smile, which she’d caught from Rhys’ infectious exuberance. “I may just stay here.”
“But you have to finish school,” he said.
“Well I plan to do that, silly,” she stated with a relaxed laugh.
“But even the school is moving to the Arcadia’s Companion Hospital; The Celestial Hope.”
“What?” Darcy gasped.
“I thought you knew,” Rhys said with surprise.
“What’s going to happen to the Eden’s Companion Hospital?”
“I told you, it’s just being left here for all the workers, mainly the miners, which built the Eden.”
“But what about my mother?” Darcy asked.
“She could probably stay or she could go to Celestial Hope with you,” Rhys said.
Darcy gave a sigh.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Rhys asked.
“I just wonder about a great many things sometimes.”
Rhys added more white wine to her glass and then positioned himself comfortably in his chair, waiting; ready to listen to Darcy.
He offered her space to share her heart, he did it quietly, respectfully; all with an interested smile.
“I don’t think my mother will leave this place,” Darcy began. “I’m almost certain she won’t.”
“But that shouldn’t affect you,” Rhys said casually. “You can still come visit her.”
“If that were only true,” Darcy said.
“But you can’t stay here just because your mother doesn’t want to leave. I mean you’re twenty-one and still living with your mother. If the school hadn’t been here you would’ve left for medical school on the moon or even the one back on Earth at age fifteen, like every other kid going into the medical field.”
“You really don’t understand,” Darcy began. “I wouldn’t have gone into the medical field if there hadn’t been a school here. I wouldn’t have gone into anything except maybe marriage. There’s little else my mother would allow. She only allowed me to attend medical school because all of Dad’s sisters had been nurses and he told her it was a noble profession. She thought her friends would think highly of her if she sent her kids to medical school.”