Holding Up The Sky - Thuban

(Five)

31, December, 2064

Ridge Farm, South Barre , MA

USA

The family spent another twenty minutes perusing the maps and then began to peel off, going back to their own activities, The maps were left on the dining room table for the time being. Too special to immediately put away - they were something to be savored. The adults had begun to walk toward the kitchen when something caught Frank's eye.

"Do you want one of the boys to take this duffel bag upstairs for you?" Frank asked.

"Duffel bag is Army and I'm not a dog-face. Marines carry seabags," McQueen thought, but realized that no one in the Celina family would possess that little bit of knowledge. He would have to modify his thinking.

"Marines call it a seabag, Dad," Kylen said, patting her father on the back.

McQueen gave Kylen a quick glance. She had once again surprised him. "Now where did she pick up that bit of knowledge?" he wondered. "She is taking all this seriously."

"No, thank you. I'll take care of it," McQueen said to Frank.

Kylen took McQueen by the arm. "Come on, you have yet to admire our Christmas tree. It is pretty spectacular this year." She steered him into the living room. "There are a couple presents under there for you."

McQueen stopped in his tracks. He looked obviously uncomfortable. After the books the family had given him at Thanksgiving, he had not anticipated that there would be anything else. He didn't want to have to sit in the middle of the family - the center of attention - and have to open gifts. McQueen wasn't all that good at apologies, good-byes, or receiving gifts and compliments. He was somewhat short of experience in those areas. People learned the art of those social amenities through experience - through years of participation. McQueen had been nervous enough about the maps. His gift had been a success, and he had calmed down. Now he was tense again. Kylen sensed his discomfort.

"There's just one from me and there are a couple from Bridee." She paused and looked him over. "Thirteen-year-old girls are new thing for you, aren't they."

McQueen bristled a bit at her implication - that he didn't understand the situation. After all he had just last week spent a day with Glen Ross' family. Hell, he had known Glen's youngest since the day she was born. McQueen was rather proud of the fact that he could feed and burp a baby without too much assistance. He could change a diaper if the need arose. Until that moment he hadn't realized that somewhere along the line the Ross kids had moved from calling him 'Tee' and measuring their hands against his to calling him Colonel McQueen' and maintaining a respectful distance. They had been happy to see him, but McQueen felt that they were relieved when he left right after dinner. It might be just the way that Natural Born kids grew. But McQueen became uncomfortably aware that the children recognized his thousand-yard stare. The kids probably caught a faint scent of battle following him as well. They were old enough now to understand what he did - what their father did. But Kylen was, of course, correct - he knew next to nothing about the workings of teenaged girls. She spared him the need to answer.

"OK. Just remember ten and three. Sometimes thirteen-year-olds are three and sometimes they are ten times three. They can act like a three-year-old or a thirty-year-old. The trick is that you never know which one you are talking to. Never be condescending. Oh, yes, then there is the omniscience thing."

McQueen shook his head.

"Omniscience begins at around age thirteen and lasts until about age nineteen or twenty. Trust me on this. I remember," Kylen confided.

"Well, then, how do you suggest I handle this?" McQueen asked.

"Delicately. She spent a great deal of thought on your gifts."

He now felt even more apprehension. He would have to go through opening presents, and now he knew that Kylen wanted him to be good at it. It was important that he be good at it ... for Bridee ... and for Kylen, who spoke again.

"We tell her that you are going to open her presents. You just need to remember that she took a lot of effort to get these for you. You will know what to say." Kylen could tell that McQueen wasn't sure if he believed her. "You will know. You will," she encouraged him with a soul-warming smile. He was suffused with her total confidence in him.

"Bridee, come in here, please," Kylen called , maneuvering the Colonel into the living room, seating him in the middle of the couch. She brought three packages out from under the tree and placed them next to McQueen. Bridee and Kylen perched themselves on either arm of the couch – innocently, but effectively blocking his lines of retreat.

"This one is one of two from me." Bridee handed him a box, which McQueen opened. He parted the tissue paper and pulled out a woolen scarf. The wool was of high quality - soft, almost buttery. It would keep him warm, and it wouldn't be 'itchy.'

"I noticed that you didn't have a scarf. And it is winter and it is a special scarf," Bridee explained. It was obvious to McQueen that she was just as nervous as he was. She wanted desperately for him to like her gift.

"It's very nice. Thank you." He was genuinely touched, but his appreciation sounded hollow to his own ears. Like her sister and her father, Bridee saw the little things. She paid attention to details. "Tell her that," he thought. "It was thoughtful of you to notice that I needed something like this." For McQueen, however, there was a bit of a problem. No matter the quality of the wool - the feel of the scarf: It was something that he would never have chosen for himself - something he would never wear. The scarf was plaid: It was a black, red and gold. Something he had seen somewhere before, but couldn't remember where. A beautiful piece, but plaid? "Well, I could just wear it here so she won't feel bad," he bargained with himself.

"It goes with your second gift. Here," Bridee said, smiling as she handed him the second gift.

"Well, she didn't run from the room crying - so far so good," thought McQueen.

Inside the second box was a matched set of coffee mugs – heavy and white, with an emblem. It was the coat of arms for the clan McQueen.

"Kylen said she didn't know if you were given the name McQueen or if you chose it later," Bridee explained, referring to the practice of InVitros changing their names when they achieved their emancipation. It had been a common practice during the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century. Many people of color had changed their names - shedding so-called 'slave names' for names with personal significance. "I told her that it didn't matter if you kept the name they gave you or if you changed it - it didn't matter because, either way, in the end, you chose it for yourself. I researched the name. I looked up the motto, and I think that even if you weren't actually technically born into it, you belong in the clan anyway."

She pointed to the motto of the coat of arms on the mug the Colonel held in his hand. "See? 'Constant and faithful.' It's kind of like Semper Fi, isn't it? They only came in sets of two, but I thought you could leave one here. That way you can have your own mug whenever you come home. When you come to visit, I mean. I know that you like coffee. You take it black."

Bridee became aware that she was chattering like a wind-up toy, and that the Rookie was staring at her. She suddenly became unbearably self-conscious and stopped speaking so abruptly that the resulting silence was a shock - to herself , and to McQueen and Kylen. The silence was worse than the chatter, so Bridee spoke again, but slower and more softly.

"The scarf. It's the McQueen tartan. I called five different places to find it. Kylen had to take me to Worchester to get it. I wanted the gift to mean something - for it to be special."

McQueen stood up. Bridee was instantly silenced. He drew his wallet out of his jeans and took out a small laminated card. It was his membership to the 127th Association. It had been a loose organization of current and former members of the squadron. A two-page quarterly newsletter and a reunion/party once a year. Now there were only former members. The squadron was gone. He handed Bridee the card. One side was black with the red, gold and white insignia of the 127th.

"That's what the patch for my old squadron looks like. It is very very important to me," he said.

"They are the same colors that are in the scarf," Bridee said breathlessly. She knew that she had selected something that he would think was special. It was an amazing thing. She was incredibly relieved. She smiled openly up into his face.

Bridee then considered the card for a second time before reluctantly returning it to McQueen. Part of her wanted to keep it.

"Did you know about the name and the motto?" she asked.

"No. No, I didn't." McQueen had never bothered to look it up. It was a name he had been given by strangers, not a name inherited from an affectionate family. But McQueen had never thought of himself as having any other name. He had never really thought to change it because he had built a life that was basically useful. His own life had forged the meaning of his name: There had never been a need to look it up. "Constant and faithful," he whispered.

"Yeah, I thought the same thing," Kylen said.

"Now open Kylen's present," Bridee said.

"Can I do that later?" he asked. McQueen brought his seabag over to the table. "It's not much, but I brought a few things." He opened the bag and pulled out - fresh from down south - mesh bags filled with oranges and grapefruits. He pulled out what appeared to be a rolled-up sweatshirt. He lifted a bottle of champagne from the folds of the shirt, and then he handed the bottle to Kylen. "There are three more of these," he said with false gravity. Impulsively he pulled the tags off of the new sweatshirt and tossed it to Bridee. McQueen had never worn it. Just a gray sweatshirt with the eagle, globe and anchor. "For you," he mumbled.

The girl was thrilled. "Is it real?" she asked. "I mean - a real Marine Corps sweatshirt?"

"Got it on the base," McQueen asserted.

"Thank you. No really, thank you. Can I put it on?"

"It's yours. You can do whatever you want."

Bridee excused herself and went upstairs with her treasure. "I bet that Cooper has one like this. I just know it," she thought.

"She is up there now with the shirt imagining how Hawkes would fill it out," Kylen said gently, amusement evident in her voice.

McQueen gave her a look of surprise.

"No. Don't worry. That was perfect, McQueen."

He reached into the bag again and brought out a small gift, modestly wrapped in plain white paper. He tossed this to Kylen. She was surprised and speechless for several seconds.

"Is that all it takes to keep her quiet?" he thought. They opened their presents together.

McQueen unrolled a wall hanging. Japanese characters on a plain white linen cloth suspended from a slender bamboo rod.

The characters had been executed in an unpracticed hand. They were rough and unpolished, as if the calligraphy had been done by a small child. McQueen remembered that Kylen had once told him that she had tried calligraphy - and that she didn't have the self-discipline for it. She had been correct. Sumi-e was not her form, but she had done this for him. Suddenly the obviously amateur artwork he held in his hand became one of the most elegant pieces he had ever seen. He wondered how many pieces of linen she had gone through to come up with this - her best effort. How many rough drafts and pieces of practice paper? Where had she found the characters? They certainly weren't common. She had left the statement - the poem - unfinished, which was actually a very Eastern device. Kylen had spent a great deal of time on this - had given it great thought. The hanging read: 'Shakespeare is easy...'

"It's life that's hard," he said softly, completing the verse they had composed during the worst part of their trip home. Kylen was pleased and felt at home in his company.

Kylen opened the small box he had given to her. Inside the box, nestled in cotton wool, were two small gold bars - the 'butter bars' of a second lieutenant. Kylen plucked one out of the cotton and placed it in the palm of her hand - testing its weight. She had accepted a position with Marine Intelligence as a civilian employee. The job came with the assimilated rank of second lieutenant. McQueen had not been thrilled with the concept and had told her as much. She was technically not entitled to the bars and could not wear them. McQueen would know this, but the gift demonstrated his ultimate understanding of why she had taken the job - his blessing , if you will. She smiled to herself and examined the pin more closely. There were a few very fine scratches on the bar. She picked up the second pin. It, too, had one or two small scratches. Kylen had a sudden and intense emotional realization. These had been McQueen's bars. The former slave, the InVitro, had worn these when he had become an officer. They were a symbol of his achievement. He had saved them in a box lined with cotton batting. He had hung onto them for what? Ten, maybe twelve years? Kylen could imagine the box in the corner of his top drawer. He had dug them out of his storage locker to bring to her - to give to her this piece of his life. It was a remarkable gift.

"I'll keep them safe for you," she whispered, and her voice cracked.

McQueen could see that she had understood. He had known that in the end she would, but had thought that he might have to explain. Her insight was another present in and of itself.

"I know," he whispered back.

End chapter five