Watching, washing and worrying about the little ones filled my days but the nights were dreadful. My fragile bubble of contentment had been burst, I'd been forced to face the reality of my husband's crimes and the knowledge he was still alive and hated me. My only protection was the fact he thought I was dead, and didn't know our children existed. If he ever found out otherwise...
Memories were no longer a comfort and a refuge but a new source of pain. My marriage, my love had all been lies. Anakin had used me, deceived me, and I had let him. And yet in spite of all that I couldn't kill my love. I writhed in shame but I still wanted Anakin, longed for his voice, his touch - was I mad, or just going mad? I was trapped inside my own mind and couldn't escape the pain.
Days were better, the children were very good at distracting me from myself. One evening as we were washing up after dinner, using three wooden tubs with the children giggling and splashing soapy water at each other as usual, a punt moored at our little dock and an agitated Whill, Yully the eggs-seller from the market, disembarked. Yoda went to meet him.
"I wonder what that's about." I said, and I'm afraid I gave the little ones a suspicious look.
"It's not us, not this time." Tam said virtuously.
Vita nodded vehement agreement. "We only did good things today!"
Yoda approached, his companion was mopping his high brow with a bright orange handkerchief and the Master himself looked grave.
"Children, open the sluices to Yully's Pai-Pai pen did you?"
I closed my eyes in resignation. Of course they had.
"Master, they were dying!" Vita cried.
I opened my eyes to see Aiolian nodding emphatically, "Writhing around in the mud and making bubbling sounds. It was awful!"
"They needed water to breath so we gave it to them." Uthr said aggressively.
"Saving lives, even fish lives, can't be wrong!" Keri added defiantly.
Yoda was shaking his head. "Good your intentions were, but ignorant you are of life on Whillowan. Pai-Pai are lungfish."
"Oh!' the children deflated visibly.
"Eat their eggs we do," Yoda continued, "Yully drained his pen to make them lay. Leave the sluices open you did, flooding pen so all the Pai-Pai's escaped."
"And the dams ruined are." put in Yully. No wonder he was so agitated. Our tiny terrors had just wrecked his livelihood!
Aiolian's big dark eyes were suspiciously liquid. Vita's lip was quivering and so was Tam's. Uthr and Keri still looked defiant, but guilty too.
"We didn't know that." our little Zabrak said.
"Found out you should have." said Yoda, almost severely. "In-vest-i-gated first, not acted on impulse."
"But they were dying!" Keri pleaded. "or at least we thought they were."
"If calm and focused you were, sensed they were not in distress you would have. Let appearances deceive you, you did."
The children hung their heads. "Yes, Master. Sorry, Master." they muttered in muted chorus.
"Apologize to Yully you should." he scolded. "Tomorrow rebuild his pen you will - and for him catch more Pai-Pais."
"Yes, Master." Tam squared his shoulders and addressed the wronged egg-seller. "We're very sorry, sir. We didn't understand what was happening and we acted on impulse."
"We can't stand watching things die," Keri explained, "because - because..." her voice wavered and she gulped. She didn't have to finish, we all knew what she was trying to say - including Yully.
"Understand I do." he said kindly. "Welcome your help will be."
Repairing the pen and catching Pai-Pai to fill it took several days. "Well, Obi-Wan?" I said confronting him one morning after Yoda and the younglings had left for Yully's.
"Well, Padme?" he asked, eyebrows rising.
"Well I think this has proved my point!" I said. "The children can't be allowed to run around on their own."
"As I told you before, making mischief is what Initiates do." he said calmly.
"This was a little more serious than 'mischief'." I argued. "Your Initiates nearly ruined poor Yully's business for him!"
"And now they are repairing the damage they have done." he replied. "And learning a valuable lesson in the process."
"Lesson?" I echoed.
"Look before you leap." he smiled.
I snorted. "This from a man who jumps out of thousand story windows?"
"I looked first." he said.
After that I tried to keep the children at home as much as I could by asking them to help me with my chores. Wash day for example was a lot more work than it used to be now there were so many of us.
Being sweet, good hearted little things they were more than happy to help; cranking the washing machine, carrying kettles of hot water and laying the things out to dry. Running out of meadow space Tam and Aiolian tried to use the roof of Yoda's cottage for drying purposes, but I saw and ordered them down before any harm was done - or so I thought.
Yoda and Yedda had gone off on a lengthy search for rare herbs that morning and Obi-Wan taken Raj to do something to my skiff so I was the only adult to see the incident. Unfortunately I didn't think to mention it when the others came home to dinner.
That night we had one of our occasional rainfalls - it only rained at night on Whillowan. The next morning five bedraggled children emerged from their cottage without their fishing gear, followed by an exhausted looking Yoda. Of course the rest of us hurried over to see what was wrong.
"Busy night we had." Yoda said with some understatement, sitting down heavily on the little rush seated stool on his doorstep.
"The roof leaked." Tam told me. In contrast to their weary mentor the children were keyed up and excited.
"It didn't just leak it poured!" Vita said happily.
"Gallons and gallons coming in all over!" Keri agreed cheerfully.
"Flooded out of our sleeping places we were." said Yoda.
"So we went down but it wasn't much better there." said Uthr.
"The water followed us, the steps looked like a little waterfall." said Aiolian.
"And then the ceiling started going all gray and slick as the water soaked in - "Uthr continued.
And was interrupted by Tam. "So we made holes in it for the water to come through before it brought the whole thing down on our heads.
"And we put tubs and things under the holes to catch the water -" said Vita.
"But we had to empty them out the windows so more rain blew in." said Keri.
"Very wet our house is." said Master Yoda, a hint of a twinkle in his sunken eyes.
"But how did it happen?" I asked weakly, terribly afraid I already knew.
Aiolian confirmed my suspicions. "Tam and I did something to the roof when we climbed up there yesterday."
"I didn't think we'd hurt it," the boy agreed, "but we must have."
"Accidents happen will." said Yoda, a bright eye fixed on me. "Even when carefully watched children are."
I took his point.
Yedda joined the little ones in the work of clearing up the mess inside the cottage while Obi-Wan and Raj settled down to fish for all of us and I took Master Yoda back to my house for a cup of treebark tea and a lie down.
He gave me an assessing look over the rim of his cup and said; "Look tired do you too, Padme, worry too much about the children you do."
"It's not that, Master, I'm not sleeping well." a dam broke somewhere inside me and it all came pouring out. "I'm afraid to go to bed, afraid to be alone with my own thoughts. I thought I was doing so well, Master, but now I'm falling apart!"
He nodded sadly. "Expecting this I have been. In shock you were but passed it has and the pain you feel."
"Yes, oh yes!" I began to cry helplessly, hating myself for it but unable to stop. "Master, what am I going to do? I can't stand being me - it hurts so - and there's no escape!"
"Escape your pain you cannot but help you deal with it I can." Yoda told me. "Teach you how to make your mind still, to med-i-tate, I will."
"I'm not a Jedi." I reminded him.
"A Jedi you do not have to be. The Force part of all life is, feel It you can if you try. Help you find peace again it will."
"I'll try anything, anything at all, if it'll help." I said.
"So hard it is not, and help you it will." he answered.