Blue

by Lou Aronica

  “What is it, honey?” Mom said, sitting on the side of the bed.

  “You know how much I love being here with you and Al and everything, and I really love it that you’re starting to teach me the old recipes, but I was thinking maybe it might be a good idea if I spent a little more time at Dad’s house.”

  Becky was happy just to get the words out, but one glance at her mother’s expression reminded her why they’d been so tough to say in the first place. Mom’s eyes narrowed and her lower lip slid under the top one. She took a few seconds to speak, and when she did, she leaned toward Becky and made close eye contact with her.

  “Why do you think that, hon?” She said it gently, but Becky could hear the strain behind her voice.

  “I just think it would be good. He’s, you know, my dad.”

  “He is, Beck, and I know you love being with him. But I think things run very nicely in this household. Don’t you? I mean look at what we did together today.”

  What did that have to do with anything? “I was just thinking that it wouldn’t be that much of a big deal if I slept over there on Tuesday nights. I’m with him then anyway, so it wouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

  “Well, there is the matter of your schoolwork.”

  “I’m done with most of it before Dad picks me up. And I can do schoolwork there, too. I wrote an English essay at his place yesterday.”

  “It would mean getting up a lot earlier to get to school on Wednesday mornings. I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

  “That’s easy. I’ll just go to bed a half hour earlier.”

  Mom looked at her carefully. Becky could imagine what was going through her mind.

  “You know, if your father wanted more time with you, he should have asked me himself. I’m going to have to speak to him about this.”

  Becky sat up in bed. The last thing she wanted was for this to become another difficult thing between her mother and father. “Dad isn’t behind this, Mom. It’s totally my idea. I swear it. I haven’t even discussed it with him.”

  Mom’s eyes got a little tighter. “If you say so, I believe you. I’m just a little confused. Our current arrangements have worked very well for a long time now.”

  “I don’t think he has a whole lot going on over there when I’m not around. That’s why I’d like to be with him a little more. I’m really only talking about Tuesday nights.”

  Again, Mom studied her. Was she trying to read her mind? Could she tell that there was some other reason that Becky was pursuing this now? “You really want this?”

  “I do, yes.”

  Mom’s lips tightened. “Your father is going to think he’s won some great victory over me, you know.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about stuff like that, Mom.”

  “You don’t know your father the way I do.”

  “But you’re gonna let me do it, right?”

  Mom seemed a little confused, as though she really thought a little thing like Tuesday nights was going to turn the whole world upside down. “You really, really want this?”

  “Really, really.”

  Mom shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” She chuckled. “I suppose if we have more time on Tuesday nights Al can take me to fancier places for dinner. He’s just going to love that.”

  “Works out for everyone, then, right?”

  Mom got up and kissed Becky on the forehead. “I always hate letting go of you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Mom.”

  Mom kissed her again and hugged their heads together. “You’re my heart.”

  “Love ya, too, Mom.”

  When she pulled back, Mom looked a little sad, as if something terrible had happened.

  She’d be fine, though. And Dad would be really pleased. And Becky would get more time in Tamarisk. She couldn’t wait for Tuesday night.

  Miea examined three leaf cuttings from a targhee bush located in Jonrae. Laid out on the conference room table, they illustrated a gradual progression toward death.

  “What you’re seeing here,” Dyson said, “is the effect of the disease in its three stages. The first leaf shows the dark green banding that is the earliest symptom. The middle one—the one with the blond spots— indicates a plant seized by the toxins of the disease. As you can see, there is still a great deal of blue vitality to this leaf, but at this stage, the plant is very, very sick. The third leaf, the ash-colored one, is representative of a plant in necrosis.”

  Though she knew this story before Dyson told it, Miea’s heart still ached when she heard it. She remembered playing chase-and-hide with her friends near the stand of targhee in the palace garden when she was young. Was it possible that this very stand would soon be as ashen as the leaf on her table? If that happened, what would it say about the condition of the entire kingdom?

  “How long is the cycle from the first leaf to the last?” she said, her eyes still fixed on the doomed vegetation.

  “About three weeks, Your Majesty. We’ve seen some hardier bushes hold off longer, but most succumb in this time.”

  She couldn’t accustom herself to hearing Dyson call her “Your Majesty.” When they had been together, he’d had several pet names for her—everything from “palace jewel” to “my-a Miea.” He seemed to devise a new one every time he saw her, as though he’d spent the night thinking only of this. During their recent briefings, though, she was simply “Your Majesty.” The queen and her humble servant.

  “That isn’t much time.”

  “I’m afraid the news gets worse.”

  Miea looked up at him and caught his gaze. Dyson’s expression was grimmer than it had been when he entered, if that was possible. Of course. This wasn’t just a job for him. She didn’t say anything.

  “The disease has begun spreading at an accelerated rate.”

  “As it did the last time.”

  Dyson lowered his eyes. “As it did the last time.”

  Miea felt a surge of sadness. “Something must be done.”

  “Sterilization is still an option, Your Majesty, though at this point we would need to sterilize a wider circumference.”

  “Sterilization is not an option,” she said briskly.

  “Aggressive treatments were in fact used during the Great Blight.”

  “We used fungicides and chemical therapies. We did not obliterate an entire region and sentence multiple species to extinction. I cannot authorize that. I will not authorize that.”

  “By not ordering sterilization, you might be doing exactly that.”

  Miea felt her face burn and nearly responded angrily. Instead, she checked herself and said, “There are other options. We must find them.”

  Dyson looked past her and then down at the table again. He gently touched the bluest of the leaves. “Our foremost resource is life itself.”

  The reference made Miea’s legs liquid. She hadn’t heard that phrase in years. Any residual anger she felt from Dyson’s earlier accusation drained away. “Professor Liatris. How many times did he say it that semester?”

  “At least three times each class.” Dyson looked up at her again and held her eyes this time. There was the hint of a smile on his face. It was the closest thing to warmth Dyson had shown, and it sent her back to her school days. To her days in love with the man standing before her. Sadly, her memory quickly drew her back to their last moments together.

  “How many times did he say it the day I was called away?”

  The semblance of a smile retreated. “None. The class was postponed. All classes were suspended the rest of the week.”

  Miea never knew this. Of course the kingdom had mourned and of course the university would mourn along with everyone else. However, Miea had been so overwhelmed with grief and premature responsibility that she never envisioned how the rest of her world had dealt with the tragedy.

  “I should have known that.”

  “You had other things to consider.”

  Miea couldn’t explain what she was feeling. I
t was a mixture of sorrow, longing, and regret she couldn’t identify. “I should have contacted you. I should have let you know what was going on. Not doing so was unforgivable. The shock, though . . . I can barely describe it. Then there was everything that happened afterward. I felt stolen away, as though I had been jettisoned into someone else’s life.”

  “You don’t need to explain.”

  “I want to try, but I don’t know if I can. One moment I was a university student—and your girlfriend. The next I was queen.”

  Dyson’s expression hardened. Had she said something wrong? “As I said, you don’t need to explain.”

  His voice was chilly. Miea couldn’t understand why. “Dyson, you have no idea,” she said softly.

  “I obviously couldn’t possibly. Your Majesty.”

  What had happened between them had clearly hurt Dyson, but why was he acting this way now? She was trying to explain, yet he was rejecting her efforts.

  If he wouldn’t allow her to do so, she wasn’t going to beg him to let her. It had been a mistake to let her guard down like this. She couldn’t allow the feelings of the distant past to make her vulnerable. Not when the kingdom relied so completely on her fortitude. For a moment, looking at Dyson had transported her to another life, another time. However, both that life and that time were gone forever. As was, sadly, the love the man standing here once had for her. They had a new relationship now. A relationship built on a common need to save their land from an insidious threat. This relationship superseded anything they might have shared in simpler days. As it must.

  She looked down at the leaves on the table, picking them up and handing them to Dyson. “Thank you for the update. Please inform me immediately if there are any breakthroughs. Otherwise, I’ll expect your next report in two days.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  10

  Chris still found it difficult to believe that Becky was spending the night. When he’d called his daughter last night, she’d mentioned it casually, as though she’d assumed it would happen all along. He was dying to ask her what her conversation with Polly had been like, but he thought that might be pushing it. Still, Polly could not have taken this easily. If she had, it would mean that all of his assumptions about her were wrong.

  After speaking with Becky, Chris had gone out to the supermarket to get the ingredients to make shepherd’s pie. It was one of Becky’s favorite dishes and he could do most of the preparation the night before. Chris didn’t usually cook on Tuesdays for Becky because of their time constraints, but if they were going to have the entire night, a home-cooked meal was definitely better than more Chinese food.

  While they waited for the shepherd’s pie to bake, they snacked on baby carrots and Chris helped Becky with her geometry homework.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” she said after he helped her use the formula to calculate the surface area of a sphere. “Mom kinda topped out at multiplying fractions, so I stopped asking.”

  “Some of us had to take a few more math classes than others. I should be good right through calculus. I’m not making any promises beyond that.”

  Chris remembered how Becky used to save certain homework until he got home so she could ask for his help. It wasn’t that Polly couldn’t have helped her or even, in most cases, that Becky couldn’t have figured out the work herself, but she seemed to like having him there for this. Every night after dinner, she’d show him the work she’d already done and what she wanted to run past him. Often, this simply involved him sitting at her desk with her while she worked, but occasionally he needed to provide actual assistance. He prided himself on never doing his daughter’s homework for her, even though it would have been so much easier sometimes, especially when concepts were new.

  The thought of how they once used to do this on a nightly basis ate at Chris, but he forced himself to concentrate on the present. Somehow, for some reason, he was getting the chance to experience this again, and he wasn’t going to let old wounds get in the way.

  Becky closed her math book and pulled out her biology text. “How are you with this?”

  “I kinda work in the sciences, babe.”

  “In the earth sciences, though, right?”

  “I still took three levels of biology in college. I’m pretty sure I can handle ninth grade.”

  Becky opened the book and the oven chimed.

  “Dinner is ready,” Chris said. “You want to finish your homework first or eat?”

  “Let’s eat. I love that stuff.”

  Becky didn’t eat nearly as much as he had expected her to, but she seemed to enjoy what she had. He recalled that she wasn’t “super-hungry” over the weekend and the thought came to mind that maybe she was starting to pay too much attention to her weight—she was slim by any reasonable standard, but he’d read enough about teenage body image issues to know that this didn’t necessarily matter. He’d pay some closer attention to this in the future and talk to Becky about it if a pattern emerged. This kind of thing was uncharted territory for him—he’d never had much to do with Becky’s adolescent issues—but tonight he felt that he would be up to the task. More importantly, he felt that his input might actually receive a hearing.

  After dinner, Becky dispatched the rest of the night’s homework quickly, leaving them time to watch an episode of “I Love the ’90s” on VH1 before Becky’s bedtime. 1999, the year of Harry Potter , Britney Spears, Mia Hamm, and Jar Jar Binks—and also the year when Becky had a Little Mermaid theme to her birthday party, dressed as a pirate for Halloween, and showed her first serious interest in the Beatles. Becky had been completely different as a three-year-old than she had been before. She was conversant and had opinions and she was so much better at doing things. She had favorite games, favorite books, favorite foods, and favorite things to do outside. She started preschool that year and came home a couple of days later declaring that Lonnie Cera was her “bestest friend in the whole world” and this turned out to be true. 1999 might not have been a high water mark for popular culture, but it was an unforget-table year for Chris as a parent. Back then, he remembered Polly commenting that Becky was growing up too fast for her. However, Chris thought she was growing up at just the right speed, and all of her new developments fascinated him.

  Now, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Now, there was no question that she had grown up much too fast. There were nostalgia shows on television about the year Becky started preschool. Were the songs released in ’99 considered oldies now, too? Chris shuddered internally at these thoughts. He wondered if he was going to be this reflective every Tuesday night or if he would eventually become accustomed to this new arrangement and simply incorporate it into his life.

  “Time to get to bed,” he said, patting his daughter on the leg as the show ended.

  “Are you gonna keep the TV on?”

  “For a while maybe. I’ll crash in another hour or so.”

  Becky stood up and took a few steps toward her bathroom. “How would you feel about reading or something instead of watching TV?”

  “Fine, I guess. Why?”

  “I might not be able to concentrate if the TV is on.”

  Chris stood with her. “Concentrate?”

  “I need to concentrate really hard to do the meditation exercises that get me to Tamarisk.”

  Chris had temporarily forgotten that this was the reason Becky wanted to stay here on Tuesdays. “I can read if that would make it easier for you.”

  Becky walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad. I’m gonna go brush my teeth and stuff.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Chris was sitting on the couch with his book, the occasional turning of pages the only discernible sound in the apartment. When he had gone to kiss Becky good night a short while earlier, she had seemed extremely excited about returning to Tamarisk tonight. Still, in all likelihood, no matter how effectively she “meditated,” she wouldn’t be able to summon up the dream again. How was she going to feel abou
t this? Would she wake up tomorrow morning disappointed, maybe a little crestfallen?

  When she did, would she then decide that she didn’t need to spend Tuesday nights at her dad’s any longer? After all, if his apartment provided no greater access to Tamarisk than her mother’s house did, what use was he?

  Chris looked across his book and into the still living room. He loved that it was a weeknight and his daughter was sleeping in her bed here. He just hoped this wouldn’t be the only time.

  Becky opened her eyes when she heard the bustle around her. She was once again in Miea’s chambers, but in spite of the sounds of activity, there was no one in sight.

  It was a relief to be here again. The way she had been pulled back to her bed last time had her a little worried that something had gone wrong and that she was going to be cut off from Tamarisk completely. The meditation tools worked without a hitch tonight, though. This meant that now that her mother had okayed her staying with Dad two nights a week, she would get to make twice as many trips here.

  Becky wondered where Miea was. She hadn’t given much thought ahead of time to where she would show up in Tamarisk, but she kind of figured she’d appear in the middle of the action. She headed out of the chambers and into the hallway, where she ran into the man Miea had introduced her to the last time she was here. His name was Sorbus; Becky had created him as Miea’s aide when she gave the princess some palace responsibility in the later Tamarisk stories. She wanted to call him Sheldon, though, because he looked a lot like Lonnie’s grandfather, which was a little odd considering the outfit he was wearing.

  “Hello again,” he said cordially.

  “Hi . . . I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”

  The man smiled. “Actually, Her Majesty told me a great deal about you after your last visit. She told me you might return to us again.”

  “Hopefully a lot in the future. That is, if Her Majesty doesn’t mind.”

  “I think the queen would be very pleased by that.”

  Becky grinned and looked back toward Miea’s chambers. “I suppose she’s busy at the moment, huh?”