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How do I begin this? I have never been the most articulate individual when the subject at hand concerns my own personal feelings. I tend to keep my emotions tucked away where only I can see them. The last time I cried in public was at my daughter Rebecca's funeral, even then few knew of my tears as they were camouflaged by the rain.
Even my husband Alex cried when they lowered our little girl into the cold ground. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. It would also turn out to be the last. With Becca's death there was a gaping hole in our lives, our every attempt to heal ended up pouring salt on the wound. Eventually the silent and suddenly too clean house and the locked door to the door that had once been hers, and the awkward conversations, drove Alex away. Six months after the accident that killed our daughter he requested a transfer from his job as a flight instructor to the Kashmir front.
When next Alex came back to me, a casualty statistic of the S.I. War, all that remained of him were two teeth and part of his skull. A DNA comparison had been necessary to ascertain that those remain were indeed his. I can still feel echoes of the numbness that suffused my entire body as the Captain solemnly lifted the top of the shipping box to reveal what was left of my husband. I know he was expected tears, denial or hysteria but nothing could have broken through the blanket of exhausted shock. It seemed so surreal. I wanted to believe I'd wake up and find my Becca sleeping peacefully under her lavender comforter with the pale yellow stars. I wanted to believe I'd go downstairs and Alex found be fiddling with the coffee machine, with the television turned to his favorite news station.
My poor little girl. In my nightmares I still hear the squeal of tires and the sickening crunch of metal. Common wisdom had told us to strap Becca into the middle back seat of the car, but a shard of glass thrown by the impact pierced her tiny body and severed an artery. The police and coroner told me it was over quickly.
I pray each night that they were not merely trying to soften the news.
Without my family, my meaning, I threw myself into my work at Doors International. Its hard to think of the loss when my day is filled to the brim by meetings, appointments and luncheons. I drove myself harder than I had ever thought possible and in its own way my efforts paid off. I became quite wealthy, but it was hollow without someone to enjoy my success with, and I was the one Jonathan brought in to assist with his most secret project: Ma'el's ship. When the Taelons arrived a year after our teams discovered it, we were ready.
Only our select few had facts upon which to base suspicions that the Taelons were being less than completely forthcoming with humanity. As I told Liam I was with the Resistance since the beginning. Its not my family, but it fills some of the empty hours. As I lay awake unable to get to sleep I think that while I cannot save the world for my daughter, perhaps her playmates will be the beneficiaries of our work.
I have little time with my dual role, or perhaps duel is a better choice of word, for socializing. Though I abstain from much of that activity I know what they call me when they think I cannot hear: Renee Palmer, the ice queen. How Alex would have laughed at that!
My head still aches from Sister Margarette's assault, yet I feel compelled to finish this letter. To whom it is written, I don't know. Perhaps when I'm finished I'll burn it as the secrets within cannot fall into the wrong hands.
How much of Margarette's attack on me was motivated my her own emotions and how much by Zo'or's I cannot even begin to speculate. That she chose me cannot be random, surely in there quiet checks the Taelon's agents learned about Becca.
Liam certainly does not know, but I have felt his questions. He is an enigma that I simultaneously want to understand and to hold at a distance. Perhaps I sense a possibility of more to our relationship than simple friendship, I still wonder if I enjoyed our kiss in the Taelonville jail too much. Perhaps I simply fear becoming close to others.
Perhaps not.
Emotions, as I stated earlier are tricky for me to express in words. Still there is a certain release in writing them down as I have done. I need that release.
- Renee Palmer