Abbie. Eonla. Psyche. I fill my mind with the memory of them. The scent of them, the sound of them, the way they feel in my arms… the bones in their small bodies… the satin of their dusky skin… the silkiness of their ebon hair. Their little hands on my face. Their voices. "Momma… Momma, she hit me! Momma, I want, I need, I've got, look at me, Momma, look at me…"
They drove me mad on a regular basis, when all I wanted was to sculpt, or paint, or draw, there they were: Abbie. Eonla. Psyche. Wanting. Needing. Look at me.
I would drop my brush, my pencil, my chisel, my knife. I saw to them, resentfully although they were what I wanted. Children of my body, females all, born within 13 months of each other, me still nursing one and the next woman on her way. I wanted that, through the endless days of diapers and puking and crying and messes and trying to get that one perfect stroke of pen, of brush, that last cut into stone. With one girlchild at my breast, another hanging on my leg, and a third tugging at my clothes, I was before all else, an artist.
Abbie. Eonla. Psyche…
Geb. Husband to me and father of my children. He worked hard to keep me and the girls and my art fed, and clothed, and happy. He worked so hard I seldom saw him. Gods help him if he was around when I was in the middle of a project. He would be tasked with the care of the children while I worked, sometimes for days with little food and less sleep while I painted, drew, sculpted… because nothing was more important to me than my art. "It's all good," Geb would say. He would smile. "Some day all your hard work will pay off. Some day, someone will see how talented you are, that the gods' graces are on you. Some day…"
Geb was right. The day came. A show on Caprica. An unreasonably successful show. I sold everything, everything. I received commissions for twelve works. The money from the advances alone would pay off all that we owed, with much left over. I would buy my daughters new dresses. I would give my husband time off to rest. Oh, he could rest for a good, long time, my faithful husband, who'd had faith in my art when I sometimes lacked it myself.
I was on my way home to Virgon when the world ended.
Abbie. Eonla. Psyche. Geb. My work. All gone now.
Nothing left but my art. Rattling around in this empty shell of a woman so ugly she frightens children. My art is still with me. My art is still with me and I draw with the pencil stubs and scrap paper that is available to me on this former mass transit vessel that I now call home. I draw…
But I can't remember my children's faces.