LETTING GO
"Kalay, why the long face?" Kelly watched as her friend stabbed Neelix's latest leola root creation repeatedly.
"Bad day."
"Was Tuvok harsh again?" In the past year and a half, Kalay's Vulcan superior had occasionally pointed out her errors in a very critical fashion.
"No." She stabbed her food again. What had Neelix called it- leola stuffed shells? Something like that. Actually, it rated in the top quarter of his leola root dishes, but she had no appetite. Kelly looked concerned, and she was always so supportive that Kalay felt she owed it to her friend to at least explain why she was so sullen. After all, even Kelly's limited empathy could probably pick up her anguish from anywhere on the ship.
"Shiwa would've been thirty today."
"Your cousin."
"She always told me that on her thirtieth birthday, she was going to celebrate by going to this expensive spa a few kilometers from where we lived."
Kelly, who had mastered the art of listening, said nothing. She remembered shortly after Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant, when Kalay had needed to find a new meaning for her life.
"Hatred for Cardassians is all I have, Kelly. I can't explain it if you don't know what I mean. My sole purpose for existing is revenge, is trying to make them suffer a fraction as much as we have. Now, out here, I can't do that. Everyone needs a reason to live, and I just don't have one anymore." Eventually her broken Bajoran friend had started the slow process of rebuilding her life. A month or two later, she said that Kelly, Ralph, and Harry were her family now. "I live now, just because exploring the universe and the depths of my soul are enough. And also, because I have two lives to live: mine and Shiwa's."
When asked who Shiwa was, she answered tersely. "My cousin; she was killed by the Cardassians." Now it was time to find out why Shiwa, out of all the people on Bajor, was so important to Kalay.
"What made Shiwa so special?"
"Come with me to the holodeck, and I'll tell you." As they walked towards the turbolift and got in, Kalay explained the program she had created. "I created a program that's the spa. Well, it's sort of the spa. The outside looks exactly like the one on Bajor. The inside, I just went with the things Shiwa told me were inside."
Moonlight bathed an old stone building. The two women stood outside and looked at it silently, Kelly waiting for the painful story she knew was coming. A small creature she couldn't identify ran a few meters in front of her, frolicking in the moonlight. Kalay took a deep breath and opened the door.
"I didn't program any people in, except for the masseuse," she said. "This is my first holodeck program, and it's too personal to ask anyone for help."
"It's very stately."
"We walked by the outside once, when we went to one of her friends' wedding. I always imagined that the inside would be as elegant as the outside." She turned a corner, gesturing for Kelly to follow. "This way. Shiwa always said the first thing she'd do was take a mudbath."
Once they were settled in the mudbath, Kalay began her story. "We were very poor, just barely making a living, when I was young. My mom had a hard pregnancy with my younger brother when I was two. I don't remember any of this, but Shiwa told me. Mom died, and so did my brother. Dad and I survived, but he wasn't living. He was only surviving, and every day he seemed a little closer to dying. I understand now that he simply had only me to live for, and I was a painful reminder of all he'd lost.
"By the time I was thirteen, it was harder for Dad to raise me. He didn't know how to raise an adolescent girl. I don't fault my dad for anything he didn't do, but I was glad when Shiwa took me in. She was eighteen, and I'd always looked up to her. It's because of her that I became the woman I am. I can't imagine that it was easy for her, but I loved her more than anyone in the universe. Dad was slowly wasting away, and Shiwa helped me through his death and the guilt and anger I felt. I was sixteen when he died. Four years later, Shiwa died.
"I was twenty at the time, and we were more like sisters than ever before. She was dating a man from down the road. He was a farmer, like us, and a really nice guy. I was looking forward to the day that I knew wasn't far off, the day he proposed. As for myself, I'd found a new passion in making pottery. Things were going well- better than I had ever dared to hope for. Then they came.
"There were only ten or eleven of them, but they had all their weapons and we had nothing. Our whole community gathered together to defend ourselves, because the Cardies wanted to take our food supplies, and without them we'd all starve. Heelan, her boyfriend, was the first one to die. In a way, I think he was the luckiest, because he didn't have to see everyone else die. There was a little tiny cavern behind a boulder, big enough to conceal one person. Shiwa pushed me into it, and I begged her to stay with me. She told me that they'd find us both that way. "Kalay," she told me, "if I don't see you again on Bajor, I'll see you someday with the Prophets." Then she was gone. I saw her run, and I saw this hulking giant follow her. Then he pulled out his knife, and threw it. I couldn't even scream, couldn't bear to watch but couldn't turn away. I saw it in slow motion; the knife flew through the air and spun. It hit her in the back, but she didn't die right away. It must've been two minutes that she suffered, and that hulking pig just kicked her and walked away. At night I came out from my hiding spot. I buried Shiwa and then I ran. It hurt too much to stay. The next morning I joined the Maquis.
"I thought that maybe I could lessen my pain if I caused any Cardassians to suffer just a little. I thought that I had no choice. Now, I think Shiwa is happy, on whatever plane of existence, that I was forced to get over my vendetta and live. But oh, it still hurts! All we wanted was to be left alone and have enough to eat. Shiwa was the kindest, gentlest person in the universe. She is proud of me now, I'm sure. And yet, her death still hurts as much as it did when I saw the monster kill her."
Tears were running down both women's faces. Kelly reached over to hug Kalay. "She has every reason to be proud of you now."
"But Kelly, in five years, I've never been able to move on. She's been gone for five years and I can't let her go. I know she would tell me to, but I just don't know how."
"I'm just a physicist, but I think you've started tonight."
For the first time all day, Kalay's nose crinkled further into a smile.
"I'll never forget, you know."
"I don't expect you will; but I think that someday you'll be able to forgive."
"Myself, or the Cardassians?"
"Maybe both."
"I'd like that." She paused for a moment, and then added, "I know Shiwa would too."
