CHAPTER 77 – TOP BANANA
It was three weeks since the disastrous doctor's appointment. After the initial shock of having no additional birth control to add to their own stash, Jack and Elizabeth actually found themselves too preoccupied to think about it except for the once-a-week scheduled time.
Elizabeth had received word that the teacher in Coal Valley was being relieved of her duties and sent home. Despite extensive psychological testing, no amount of multiple-choice questions, essays, and interviews, could fully gauge how two years on an isolated primitive planet would affect someone. Apparently, it had been a photograph of her beloved family dog sleeping on a couch that sent Ms. Ella Mentury into an uncontrollable flood of tears in front of her students, then three trips to the colony's psychiatrist, and finally on the manifest for a return flight to Earth.
If the weepy nostalgic freckled-face woman with the perfect name for teaching but without the necessary fortitude could hang on without having another full breakdown until Elizabeth arrived, the students' lessons wouldn't be too interrupted.
An extra locker, un-needed because there were only three occupants in a room meant for four, had been removed from the Thornton quarters and replaced with a chair and small fold-up desk to allow Elizabeth to have an "office" of sorts to prepare for her new duties as Coal Valley's teacher.
She might actually be using her "teacher's desk" as she prepared her English lesson plan except it was currently being occupied by Coal Valley's incoming law enforcement officer who found it a more convenient place to work than his mattress. While Elizabeth had been dealing with her replacement's nervous breakdown, Jack had been dealing with getting up to speed on the activities of Coal Valley. He could have used his office, but truth be told, he loved being in the close quarters with his family.
Elizabeth looked at her list of possible book choices and frowned at the task of choosing novels for the students to read. She had already chosen one for the younger students, but she was divided on what the older teenagers should read. There were the obvious choices about social revolutions from the nineteenth or twentieth century, but then there were also the classic sagas between lovers of different class statuses offering a prospective of class warfare and economic inequality.
They're so romantic, Elizabeth thought with a sigh.
The undying love.
The couples so passionately willingly to give up everything for each other.
The only reason to live is be with each other.
To breathe the same air as one another.
To feed each other's souls.
She looked over a Jack who was sitting on the room's only chair and hunched over his lap top computer.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?" he replied as he continued working on his computer.
"Could you live without me?"
"Sure," he replied without glancing at her.
"Did you even hear what I said?" she asked with a scowl.
"Mmhmm," he mumbled as he failed to give her much attention. "You asked if I could live without you."
"And?"
"Yes. I said yes, I could." He glanced at his messenger bracelet and then back to computer screen to check a recent note. "Why wouldn't I be able to?"
"Um. I don't know," she said sarcastically. "Maybe because you love me and I'm your wife and the mother of your child? And you once said that I am the sun, and the moon, and the stars to you."
"That was before Aaron came along. Also, those were metaphors. I didn't actually think you were a celestial body."
"So much for undying love," she muttered.
"Well, yeah. I love you. But I could live without you. As long as I have food, water, and oxygen. So unless you're planning on leaving me somewhere without food, water, and oxygen, I could live without you," Jack answered as he perused his computer screen.
"And even if you left me without food and water, I could probably find that on my own. I'm good at stuff like that," he added.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I meant because you'd be so terribly devastated."
A pre-occupied Jack ran his fingers along his screen and counted quietly to himself. "Devastated?" he questioned when he realized she had said something.
"Upset," she said in exasperation. "Wrecked. Shattered. In emotional turmoil. Gutted. Broken. Forlorn. Destroyed."
"Obviously I'd be sad, Miss Thesaurus. But that wouldn't physically incapacitate me. I'd still be able to live."
His words were directed at Elizabeth but his eyes were still focused on his screen. His fingers clicked on his keyboard to enter data from the recent investigation. "You're awesome but not exactly a technical requirement for life."
"You'd be heartbroken!" she insisted.
"Heartbroken is just a saying. It's not an actual physical thing. You can still live. The heart doesn't actually break apart. Geez, I thought everyone knew that."
Aaron, who was sitting in his berth, widened his eyes in surprise as a tee-shirt, balled up by Elizabeth, flew through the air and smacked Jack in the head.
"Hey, stop it", Jack groused.
Aaron's head moved from his father back to his mother, who picked up a pair of rolled socks and sent them sailing across the room. The little boy's eyes followed as the socks hit Jack square in his back before bouncing off and landing on the floor.
Elizabeth grabbed a second pair of socks and lobbed them across the room.
This time, they glanced off Jack's shoulder as he stood up from his chair.
He deftly caught a third pair with one hand and dropped them to the ground before walking towards Elizabeth.
Aaron hoped more things would fly through the air. It was quite exciting to the small boy, certainly more interesting than the squishy toys in front of him that squeaked and rattled.
But instead of more things sailing from one side of the room to the other, Jack picked up a willing Elizabeth and gently tossed her onto a berth before climbing on top of her as she let out a giggle.
The little boy watched expectantly but no more objects hovered, even temporarily, above the floor.
He lifted up his tiny arms and optimistically waited for a repeat of what had occurred weeks earlier when he had maneuvered weightlessly through the transporter, but today he remained solidly on his diapered bottom.
Finally, he returned his gaze to the squishy toys in his berth and ignored his parents who, except for an occasional giggle or whisper, were back to their boring habit of playing together in their own berth.
The next morning, Elizabeth, already fully dressed for the day, climbed out of her berth and fumbled with Aaron's blanket until she found his misplaced pacifier. She handed it to the weepy boy who took hold of it and shoved it into his quivering mouth.
"Sorry, sweet thing," she apologized.
Elizabeth wearily looked around the small room. Directly after the family had finished breakfast in the cafeteria, Jack had gone to the security office while Elizabeth and Aaron had gone back to their quarters for much-needed naps.
Elizabeth pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and looked at her watch. She sighed when she saw the time. It had only been thirty minutes since she had closed her eyes. She wished it could have been longer.
Aaron had slept fitfully last night which had caused Elizabeth to sleep fitfully. She was used to being woken up by him once a night for nursing, but last night he had aroused her from her sleep – or her attempt at sleep – every twenty or thirty minutes. The small size of living quarters meant she could hear every sound he made. The tossing and turning. The flipping upside down so his feet were where his head had been and vice versa. The occasional sad murmur. The whimper as his tiny hands clung to the top of the berth's security rail and he looked out at Elizabeth until she woke up to comfort him.
"Listen, kid. Let's try to get a better night's sleep tonight. Okay? If you lose your pacifier, try to find it yourself. And just a helpful hint, if you stopped flipping around so much, you wouldn't lose it."
Elizabeth and Aaron made their way down the corridor while a voice over the transporter's intercom broadcast daily news items from around the world. When the crew-member announced the weather in Coal Valley, Elizabeth shook her head at the wry humor; the weather in the colony was always the same, every day, now that the biosphere had corrected its malfunction.
Elizabeth had splashed some water on her face to fully wake up, and was on her way to first go to the communications center, then the cafeteria, and then a tutoring session. One of her students was a nine-year-old who spoke only Japanese and whose parents refused to provide the child with an instant-translator. The girl's parents had decided that the child should learn English the old-fashioned way – through practice and trial and error - which meant Elizabeth was attempting to explain geography, earth sciences, and how to diagram a sentence to a girl who had arrived on the ship with only enough English to say 'Good morning', 'Good Day,' 'Good night', 'Please' and 'Thank you'. Elizabeth had yet to figure out a way to use those phrases in any of her actual lessons.
"Maybe there'll be a message from Aunt Julie about how she's destroying our house with wild parties," Elizabeth half-jokingly told Aaron. She carried her son on her hip as they exited the elevator and made their way a short distance down the hallway.
Elizabeth hadn't heard from her family since the flight had departed Earth. She didn't count the hologram she had been unable to watch because she had lost it in the corridor when she had bumped into Ensign Sooner. When she had finally retrieved the flash-drive from Ensign Sooner, popped it into her computer, and sat down to watch it, she discovered someone had downloaded the wrong message. Instead of Julie theatrically explaining her latest drama with her teacher boyfriend Bob, a blurry image of a scruffy man in jeans and a button-down shirt talking about agriculture had appeared in front of her.
"If there is a message, we'll watch it after my class. Abigail will take care of you while I'm tutoring and daddy's busy, and will give you another ice cloth for your gums, baby," she added as the door to the communications room slid open.
The boy had no idea what his mother was talking about but he loved touring the ship, and the communication room was fascinating. It was full of beeps and lights and crew members diligently typing on the keyboards. Holograms which were-speeded up to save time were broadcast in a corner of the room as they were downloaded or screened for importance.
"Nothing today. Sorry, Mrs. Thornton," the technician said when he looked up from a screen and saw Elizabeth and Aaron enter the room.
"Are you sure? My family should have sent something by now."
"That's what most passengers think. But my experience is that people on Earth get on with their lives and are so busy they forget about us."
"My family didn't forget about us," Elizabeth said disagreeably.
The man shrugged. "You'd be surprised. I see it happen all the time. Out of sight, out of mind."
Elizabeth gave the man a look of disgust. "Can you just check again please?"
The man checked his files of incoming communications, and noticed that Jack had received a message from his old unit, but there was nothing for Elizabeth.
Nothing. Which made her worry.
Elizabeth wasn't surprised her family hadn't sent a message. She had only been gone a month and the farther they traveled from Earth, the longer messages took to arrive. Besides, her father and mother were both busy with work and charities and their own lives. She supposed she'd get a message from them in a few weeks. As for Viola, she and Elizabeth had never been terrible close so not hearing from her wasn't a surprised.
Julie was another story. Elizabeth knew four things for sure. One, Julie loved excitement and drama. Two, Julie loved to gossip. Three, the only time Julie didn't gossip was when she didn't want to be reprimanded for having done something stupid. Four, Julie was living in Elizabeth and Jack's adorable perfect house.
Crap. She's done something to the house!
She's done something to the house and is afraid to tell me.
"That smells delicious, Abigail," Elizabeth remarked as she walked into the cafeteria's kitchen with its stainless-steel counters, large refrigerators and freezers, and drawers of supplies.
Somehow, today's aroma emitting from the stoves managed to remind Elizabeth of her small kitchen in Liskow rather than a transporter's kitchen. On cold snowy Northern American days that had forced people to stay inside and off the slick roads, Elizabeth had made thick stomach-filling soups while pans of bread dough sat on the hearth in front of the home's old fireplace and rose to perfection. "What are you making? It smells like banana bread."
"That's exactly what it is," Abigail replied with a big smile. She turned to face her company and wiped her hands on her apron, leaving prints of white powder.
"Bananas? On a transporter? How did you make that happen?"
Elizabeth knew that thick-skinned apples stored in humidity and at a cool thirty-degrees were standard on a transporter, just like root vegetables which could be guaranteed to remain edible for the four-month journey. Foods which were more perishable, like bananas, were only sent on short flights to places like the International Space Station and Mock Earth; they were unheard of for a long flight.
Abigail chuckled. "I'm not sure but I'm grateful. There was a mix-up in cargo at the airport. Somehow a crate of bananas meant for Mock Earth ended up on one of our pallets. Their loss. Our gain. They were getting pretty mushy by the time they were discovered but perfect for banana bread. I managed to make a few dozen loaves."
"You'll have plenty of happy passengers." Elizabeth took a small piece of bread which Abigail handed to her. Its taste reminded her of home and grocery stores and warm ovens. "Delicious," she murmured when she finished swallowing.
"I have something for Acorn if you're okay with it."
"Sure, go ahead," Elizabeth said. She set the boy onto the nearest counter and watched as he tried his first banana which Abigail had beat into a thick smooth consistency. "Are you sure you don't mind watching him? Jack will be by to pick him up in twenty minutes."
"I don't mind at all," Abigail replied. She gently held a spoon with banana pulp in Aaron's mouth and chuckled when the boy, enjoying his first taste, eagerly grabbed at the utensil. "You go off to your tutoring session and leave this little one to me."
Elizabeth hurried down the stairwell.
The tutoring session had lasted longer than she had expected. Her young pupil had been eager but hopeless in understanding what Elizbeth had been trying to teach her. Elizabeth had finally ended up using her instant-translation device to get her points across but hearing her own words translated into Japanese wasn't going to help her young student learn English. By the time the girl had finally said "Good Bye" – although first she had incorrectly said 'Good morning' and then 'Good night', Elizabeth was already twenty minutes late to pick up Aaron.
She was then delayed another fifteen minutes by an encounter in the corridor with the father of another one of her students. The man, who professed himself to be something of an educator himself, wanted to discuss her views on art in the classroom.
Getting to the security office level, Elizabeth pushed open the stairwell door and wondered if she just might have time for that nap before dinner.
"Hello," she said pleasantly when she saw the ship's First Officer sitting in front of an array of screens in the transporter's security center. The room was small enough that she could immediately see that Jack wasn't there.
"Jack's not here," the man unnecessarily explained as he looked away from a screen and turned to Elizabeth. "He just left to send a message. He should be back in ten minutes."
"Oh, okay. I was actually looking for Aaron," Elizabeth explained.
"Did you lose that kid again?" the First Officer asked incredulously.
"No, I didn't lose him!"
"We have artificial gravity so he can't be floating around. How could you lose him?"
"He's not lost."
"Well he's not with Jack," the man said pointedly. "I thought that he can't even walk yet. How can you lose a kid that can't even walk yet?"
Elizabeth didn't like the way the man was looking at her. As if in disbelief that she had somehow managed to misplace the baby again.
"I didn't lose him!" an insulted Elizabeth repeated and involuntarily gave a little stomp of a foot.
"You know, it took two hours and a total search of the ship until we found out where that emergency level was from after he took it," the man said with exasperation. "Please tell me you haven't lost him again."
"I just told you. I didn't lose him!" she retorted.
"Where is he?" the man challenged with a superior jut of his chin.
"He's . . . he's . . . on the transporter," she stammered.
"Geez, I'd hate to imagine how you managed him back on Earth," the man muttered with a roll of his eyes.
Without another word, but with a small of huff of disgust, Elizabeth turned and marched out of the office.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," Abigail said when her friend showed up and her son wasn't waiting for her. "Jack sent a message that he wouldn't be able to pick him up. Everything was fine. He loved the banana and I was making a little more mushed up for him when I must have dropped a peel on the floor . . . ." Abigail paused and a frown briefly formed on her face.
" . . . although, I don't remember doing that," she added "Maybe Aaron did it," she mumbled.
"Not that I'm accusing him!" she added hurriedly. "He's so full of energy! And seems to like throwing things. It's so strange because I can't imagine he's ever seen dodgeball but I'd swear that little boy of yours was trying to throw stuff to hit someone. It started with his socks. He pulled them off his feet and threw them at me –"
Elizabeth remained silent but cringed slightly as she imagined where Aaron had gotten the idea of throwing things.
"Then he threw his spoon. A bit of banana. His bowl. Just watching things fly as far as his little fist could manage to get them. More like tosses or dropping the stuff, but he sure was trying," Abigail continued speaking as she wiped a cloth along the counter. "And then one of my staff came in carrying a crate of water, slipped on the banana peel, and fell. I know. It's a cliché, but it happened."
Abigail threw the cloth in the auto-cleaner and moved to her utensil rack. She took down a large knife with a serrated blade and began slicing loaves of bread.
"Was he hurt?"
"Cracked his forehead on the floor. Split it right open. Not life-threatening. Just a bloody mess. You know how forehead cuts can be. It was Tom. Anyway, I had to call in the hazmat team – it's protocol, and Aaron started fussing, and the floor was slippery, and the loaves needed to come out of the oven –"
"Where is Aaron?" Elizabeth interrupted. She was beginning to wonder if Abigail even remembered that she had shown up to retrieve her son.
"The twin girls stopped by. They like coming in and watching me work. They offered to take him off my hands. Not that he was a problem, "Abigail hurriedly explained. "It's just with the hazmat crew and the loaves and having to get dinner ready for tonight, I was pretty busy."
"It's okay, I'll go get him," Elizabeth said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You know I appreciate any time you can watch him. I'll see you tonight at dinner."
"Here," Abigail called out. She approached Elizabeth and handed her the hard object with the soft rubber coating. "I forgot to give them his teether."
"He's not here," Linda explained when Elizabeth stopped at the cabin adjoining the Thornton's. "The girls were watching him but he kept crying. He's usually so happy but he just was getting crankier and crankier. We tried to get him to take a nap, but he kept fussing so we decided to take him for a walk and we ran into Cassie. She offered to take him."
"Cassie? From the medical unit?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yeah. I hope that's okay. I didn't think you'd mind because she's a medic. And she said that she'd take him the infirmary and have the doc look at him. I'm sure he's okay. I think he was probably just teething but we didn't have his teething toy."
"He was crying, Mrs. Thornton," Susie piped up from her perch on one of the bunks.
Elizabeth no longer hurried to get to Aaron. She had hurried from tutoring to Jack's office. Then hurried from Jack's office to the kitchen. Then hurried from the kitchen to her neighbors' quarters. She was tired of hurrying.
She wasn't even close to the infirmary. She had to go all the way back to another level and to the other end of the transporter to get to it. All she wanted to do was get her son and take a nap.
This is like de je vu. All over again, she thought wryly as she dragged her legs. Me hunting down Aaron somewhere on the transporter.
How can a baby be this much work?
He can't even walk yet! Just that adorable little crawl of his.
So much drama with him.
Oh, my goodness, is it possible, he's Julie's son?!
No, don't be stupid. He's my son. Obviously. Mine and Jack's.
Which means he's got my confidence.
Jack's bravery.
My independent streak.
Jack's love of the wilderness.
My curiosity.
Jack's investigative nature.
My habit of sometimes jumping first without thinking things through.
Jack's determination.
My crying.
Dear Lord, what are we in for?
UP NEXT: Chapter 78
P.S. That little boy is adorable but oh my, a combination of Jack and Elizabeth means he's always in one predicament or another!
P.S.S. Thanks again for all your reviews over the course of my story. I have loved reading them.