Chapter 11

Breakfast the next morning was a subdued affair. Even the sun seemed unwilling to open its bleary eye, dimly shining through the high layer of gray clouds. There was more than a simple morning-after-the-party letdown to explain the mood. There had to be, thought Binny with frustration. Valia, Binny and Prawni occupied the kitchen table. There was a bare minimum of speaking going on over the strong, hot tea and scant breakfast. Binny for once let the quiet dictate her own behavior, and wisely refrained from asking her daughter or daughter-in-law if anything was wrong. Valia looked suspiciously like she had spent part of the night crying and was disinclined to speak in anything but monosyllables. Prawni may have had a restless night with the baby, nothing more than that. Binny did her best to ignore the puffy eyes and the downcast expressions.

When Qui-Gon entered the kitchen through garden entrance, Valia kept her eyes at the bottom of her tea cup. She thought of excusing herself and retreating to any other room of the house, but that might look too obvious. She scratched at a very small chip in the rim and warmed her chilled fingers on the outside of the cup. Beyond the cup, out of focus, she could see a pair of dark brown boots. They stayed there. She felt a tiny, tickling inquiry in her head. The merest suggestion that she look up at him. Please. Only if she wanted to. Finally because the boots and their owner showed no signs of moving on, she raised her eyes.

She noticed the little signs that he had spent anything but an easy night himself. He looked damp and rumpled and tired. There was fatigue in the lines of his face. The knees of his pants were dark with patches of moisture, and there were stray blades of grass clinging to them, and his boots. Obi-Wan had tossed a wave up to her from beneath her bedroom window on his way to relieve Qui-Gon earlier. The worried look on his face had been half hidden by his hood. Obi-Wan had found his master even more taciturn than usual, but otherwise well. He had not refused his helping hand to rise from knees his apprentice knew were made achy from the damp.

Valia was trying to decide if she read concern or apology or just plain weariness in his eyes when her mother excitedly swarmed toward him with offers of hot tea, breakfast, a nice, comfortable chair and everything else she could offer from her kitchen. Here was someone else who looked in need of comfort, and hopefully someone who would accept it. Before Qui-Gon could politely refuse or accept, a shuffling noise drew their attention to the dining room entry. There appeared someone who looked more in need of comfort than all of them put together. A haggard, pasty-faced Velk gripped the wall with white-knuckled hands.

"Son of a bitch..." he whimpered to himself. He hung there, looking at them.

Prawni turned a glare his way. Binny smartly rapped the metal bowl she was using down on a tiled countertop. The sound was like blaster fire in the kitchen, and Velk winced as though it had struck his head.

"I take exception to that kind of talk in my kitchen, mister," his mother said, turning a sudden maternal wrath on him. Velk managed to let go of the wall with one hand to hold it up in a weak, defensive gesture.

"I didn't mean...sorry." He mumbled. It was too hard to talk through the rags it felt like someone had stuffed in his mouth, and it hurt too much to form coherent words, besides. He shakily regarded everyone. His wife's dirty look he expected, and his mother's scolding was normal. Why didn't Lia look hung-over, when he knew she had had just as much to drink as he had? Stranger still, why wasn't she smirking with superior pleasure at the fact?

Qui-Gon crossed the kitchen toward him. Here was someone who was worse off than any of them, and there was an ominous greenish tinge of impending sickness to his face. Velk put up no resistance when he put a steadying hand around his shoulder and guided him toward the garden door. Velk squinted and held up a hand to block the rudeness of the morning light, such as it was.

"Where are we going?" he mumbled.

"Out for some fresh air," answered Qui-Gon, steering him out into the garden. "I think I may be able to make something to help you feel better, my friend."

"Please, not something to eat, I hope." Their voices faded as the door closed behind them and they moved away from the kitchen.

"No. Something to drink." A very short while later the faint sounds of Velk getting violently sick could be heard. Valia rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, wondering if Qui-Gon had managed to dodge in time, and wondering if she should care if he had not. Then she regretted the thought. She had wanted to get up and leave in a regal huff when he came into the kitchen. Now she briefly thought of following him outside to talk to him. Then she changed her mind again and stayed in her chair. They could not leave things the way they were, that was clear. Sometime today there would have to be an opportunity to talk. In the mean time she would have to try to act as normally as possible.

As it turned out, she did not see Qui-Gon the rest of the morning. By afternoon, she knew he had gone out to take his turn to watch the canisters. She did her best to put last night out of her mind. But she swung back and forth, between composing heartfelt apologies or angry justifications for everything she had said and done. She ended up thinking of little else all day.

She threw herself into housework, something she normally disliked. The household droids and the cleaning systems retrofitted into the house took care of much of the work, but there were still many tasks that needed to be done by hand in the large house, many more than in her small city apartment. While it meant working shoulder to shoulder with her mother, the mindless labor was actually pleasant, and it helped to work off any lingering traces of hangover. Valia was thankful for her mother's unusual quiet.

A large pile of cleaned linen bound for the bedrooms needed sorting and folding. Valia and Binny carried it all to the master bedroom and went to work on it there. They worked in companionable silence for a while. Of all the things in that room Valia found her eyes resting on, the ancient and huge bed that belonged to her parents seemed to draw her attention the most. There were many pieces of furniture in the house which had been there for generations, but to Valia that bed seemed to symbolize everything she had dreamed of since setting foot here three days ago. Were her dreams so crazy and foolish, she wondered as she studied the pattern in the grain of the dark, polished fruitwood. Was it such a crime to plan so far ahead? She had never really made any plans so reasonable and healthy-sounding for her own personal life before, she thought. Maybe it was this place, she thought dismally. Long-term plans of hers seemed to go awry in this place.

So he could be stubborn and distant and a complete mystery at times, but Qui-Gon was everything an ideal mate should be. Loyal, brave-hearted, strong, sensitive, and patient. And damned attractive. How could she not be tempted to think about a whole life with him, and maybe making four or five or even six babies, or at least going through the motions, with him in a bed like that---

"Lia." Her mother sounded like she had called her name at least twice. Valia turned her head toward Binny. "Hmm?" she casually smiled. She hoped her cheeks weren't stained by the creeping warmth she felt in them. It must have been all too obvious where she had been staring. But her mother could not possibly know what she had been thinking.

Binny fixed her with a look that went from puzzled to resigned and then affectionate. "Are you all right?" she asked finally, reaching for the end of a sheet.

"Yes, fine." Valia picked up a stack of towels and put them in a basket. Binny watched her, wondering at this sudden intense interest in domestic chores.

"Are you having those bad cramps again?"

"Ummm, no, mama," Valia reassured her with an embarrassed half-smile.

"Did someone say something to hurt your feelings?"

Close to the mark. "Oh, not really, no." Binny studied her for a second with her dark eyes. Valia sighed. "I'm all right. No one has gone digging around in the past," Except maybe Qui-Gon, she thought irritably.

"Well," Binny said. "If you say so. Because I know you might think I worry too much, but I thought for a little while there something was really wrong. At first I thought maybe you had been sick, and I thought, gracious me, I hope it wasn't the food. But none of the neighbors have called to say they were sick, so..." Binny laughed lightly and shook her head. "Then I saw the state your brother was in, and then it made more sense. If it's only that, she'll be fine later, I thought to myself. But..." Binny brushed invisible lint off the surface of a sheet. "Yes, I know it's your own business, but...but I was so worried you and your friend, that being Qui-Gon specifically, had some kind of falling out."

Valia dropped her gaze to the floor between her shoes and sighed. "We had a small, ahhhhh, disagreement last night after the party."

'Mmmmm-hmmm." Binny shook out the large sheet, and gestured for Valia to pick up the opposite end of it. If that much was so obvious, Valia hoped nothing had been overheard the night before. She cringed at the memory of how much noise she must have made. Her mother didn't say anything for a few minutes as they folded the sheet together.

"Well, it may not happen today or even tomorrow, but friends hopefully find ways to work out their disagreements." She disappeared into a large walk-in closet with a pile of towels, and bustled back out to get more. "People who are well beyond the point of being friends, people who love each other, do too, but the oddest thing is sometimes it can take so much longer."

Valia closely studied the old, intricate hand-embroidery one of her ancestors had stitched into the edge of a pillowcase.

"Valia." Binny waited until Valia looked up directly at her. "How the two of you feel about each other is all over your faces," she told her gently. "Both of you."

Valia looked out the window, and down to the lawn in the corner between sections of the house. So much for keeping their relationship secret. Why had she wanted to so badly? It didn't seem to matter now. She watched her young nephew playing out on the lawn and could not help smiling. He was playing catch, tossing a ball with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was blindfolded.

"But you don't have to tell me a thing about it," Binny darted around the room putting things away. "It's your personal life. Like I said, people in love work these things out. No matter how bad it seems." She industriously stacked napkins. "I wanted you to know that."

No matter how bad it seems, Valia thought. Her mother couldn't know what had been said last night. She suddenly found her eyes getting all prickly again. She cleared her throat. Maybe her mother didn't know the exact content of her own disagreement, but maybe she knew enough about them. How else had she loved her father for thirty-five years?

"Yes, I suppose they do," Valia agreed in a tight voice.

Binny nodded, and they worked in silence another few minutes. She longed to ask Valia about her life, how she was doing. She wanted to ask if she still felt pain, if she had thought about restorative surgery or implants to fix... But she wondered if questions would ruin the tentative closeness of the moment. The mother in her urged her to speak up anyway.

"So, other than last night, how have you been?" It was too open-ended a question, and she knew it as soon as she asked it.

"Fine," said Valia, shaking out a blanket. Before last night, never better. She sensed her mother's probing for more personal answers, and was not sure she wanted to discuss such matters right now. "Business is going very well."

While Binny was glad her daughter was doing well for herself in her faraway home, and making a good living, that was not a matter that touched her heart, not what she really wanted to know. Was she truly happy? Had she found a lasting love? Binny felt her old sorrow over her daughter's barrenness all over again.

"I'm sure it is. You're very resourceful and you must be doing all the right things."

In only that area of her life, perhaps she was, Valia thought. Valia said nothing for a moment. Then she nodded and managed a gruff "Thanks." Both women suddenly found plenty to do with their hands for the next moment. Binny stopped and put a hand on Valia's arm. The mother in her could do no less than reach out and embrace her daughter, the wild child she had never quite known how to connect with.