From the Desk of Maggie Scully

Capt Charles Scully
Unknown Location
Somewhere,
Beyond the Sea

June 6, 2000

Dear Charlie:

Hello! How's my baby boy? How are things in the Navy? What's new?

Things here have been pretty much exactly as they were the last time I wrote to you. Of course, you must not have received that letter, since I never got a response to it, and heaven knows you were raised better than that. So, I am assuming you didn't get it, or the four dozen chocolate chip cookies I enclosed. Or, for that matter, the clean underwear. So I guess I will just have to repeat myself. Again.

Bill and Tara were in town for The Annual Scully Family Memorial Day Picnic. The weather was lovely, my potato salad was spectacular (if I do say so myself!), and Matthew's gotten so big I hardly recognized him. Tara brought ambrosia, of course - Gosh! That girl is just a whiz with miniature marshmallows! - and we all enjoyed it as much as we did the last fifteen times she brought it to a family gathering. Except, that is, for your sister, who has the stomach flu or something and, well, remember when you were 8 and we took you to Disneyland and you rode the Flying Teacups? Remember what happened when you got off? Well, that's what happened to Dana, only she got sick all over Bill's dress-whites instead of all over some teenager dressed up like Donald Duck.

You know, it's funny to think that, now that you are all grown-up, you are a Navy test pilot, and that, as a little kid, even watching the sprinkler go round and round and round used to make you woozy. Not funny ha ha, of course, just funny strange. Are you still flying those top secret planes? What did you say they were called? Froo froo fighters?

And speaking of strange, I have to tell you, Charlie, I'm worried about your sister. Again. For one thing, she keeps fainting. And even though she's vomiting all the time with this flu, she seems to be putting on a little weight. Okay, a lot of weight. And, as far as I can tell, she's developed a strange fascination with Mallomars, which, you'd think with her begin a doctor, even a doctor who threw away $80,000 in med school training your father and I scrimped and saved and did without for and all, she'd know they aren't really the best thing for an upset tummy.

She's also been sort of absent-minded the last couple of weeks, too, misplacing little things like jewelry and her partner. And I'm afraid maybe she's suffering from hallucinations, (or maybe they're divine revelations. I always have trouble telling the two apart, the A+ I got in tenth grade Catechism aside) because, when I asked where Fox was, she told me that aliens had abducted him for his beautiful mind (which, frankly, seems kind of unlikely. I mean, he's a nice guy, and even if she had to shoot him that one time, I think they've both gotten over it enough to still be friendly. But she's told me about some of the things he's done, and I have wondered on occasion if he isn't a couple of sandwiches short a of a Scully Family Picnic, if you know what I mean, or if his mother might not have dropped him once or twice on his beautiful mind when he was a baby).

Of course, all that was disturbing enough, but then she told me something that made me really worry. She told me she got a message on her answering machine. From you.

Well, we both know this isn't possible, don't we, Charles? I mean, if you can't be bothered to send a simple little *Hi Mom, thanks for the cookies, the BVD's, and the 22 hours of labor you selflessly went through on my behalf* to me, you're certainly not going to be calling her, are you?

I don't know what to do. I invited Father McCue to dinner the other night, hoping he could counsel your sister, or perform an impromptu exorcism if need be, but all he ended up doing was talking about bouillabaisse and troubled ships on the rolling waves and storms at sea, on and on and on, until Dana threw up on Bill again. Of course, I was feeling kid of queasy at that point, too, so maybe that means nothing.

I tell you, son, I haven't been this worried about her since the last time I was this worried about her. If this goes on much longer, I'm going to contact her boss, that nice bald man, Mr. Skinner, and see if he has any ideas.

I talked to your wife the other day. I asked if she knew when you'd be coming home on leave as I hadn't heard from you in so very long, and if maybe you and she and the boys would like to come see me for a few days, if it wasn't too much trouble. She said she didn't know, but the last time you were home, all you wanted to do was pull hair out of your head, use it to tie fishing flies, and then spend the rest of the day acting kind of creepy, so she was in no hurry for your return.

I told her I was glad you'd found a hobby. Shame I had to hear about it from her instead of you, though.

Well, that's about all that's going on around here. Hope you are well. Please drop me a note - even a few words! -- if you can find time in your busy Navy schedule. I'll just be here, alone, worrying.

Love ever,
MOM