Corazon
Corazon drove home from the dinner in a great mood. She felt uplifted by the camaraderie between her ship mates and herself. Although she knew that Kaneada was worried about their chances of survival, Corazon refused to allow herself to think that way. They were going to the sun; they were going to restart it and they were going to make their way home. She knew the chances were slim, but she had to have a positive outlook. That is how Corazon defined her life: by thinking positively. That attitude is what got her through so many difficult situations in her life. Corazon shook her head as if she was going to clear it. She did not want to think about the past. It was too painful. Instead she concentrated on the present and taking care of her babies.
Pulling into the driveway, Corazon jumped excitedly out of her car and ran into the house. Walking through the door, she grabbed her watering can and took off her coat in one movement. Reaching the back of the house, she walked into her greenhouse and turned on the light. The room was covered in green plants. Corazon knew that she should have given her plants away a long time ago, but she couldn't part with them just yet. Her plants were her babies and as far back as she could remember, she had always felt that way about the natural world.
As a little girl, Corazon would spend hours in the garden behind her house. While her parents were inside fighting over her father's drunkenness and her family's lack of money, Corazon was finding her soul in the plants of her backyard and through there, Corazon found a way to support her family. The vegetables she grew fed her family and brought money into house. The flowers she grew brought a smile to her mother's face after mama had been beaten up by her father. Corazon's natural talent with plants got her into a good college and her experiments with growing plants in a zero gravity environment got her a job with the space program. Yet for all of her accomplishments, Corazon watched her father die of alcoholism and her mother die of physical abuse. Picking up her pruning shears, Corazon vigorously attacked one of her trees. Every time she thought of her parents, the pain of their loss made her want to attack her beloved trees. Putting her shears down, Corazon took a breath and ran her fingers through her hair. She needed to calm down. Picking up her shears again, Corazon felt the weight of them in her hand and felt her calm restored. Looking around, she took in the silence. Tonight, she wished that she was not alone. She missed Kaneada.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, Corazon had been seeing Kaneada for the last year. During training, the two of them would sneak away stealing kisses in the corridors of the ship, eating lunch in the Oxygen garden, making love in her quarters. As time wore down toward the mission launch, Corazon began to pull away from Kaneada. She knew on the mission that a relationship would not be possible. Finally, she told Kaneada her true feelings and he seemed to accept her decision in his quiet way, but during their final training sessions, she would catch him watching her. Corazon wished their relationship would have turned out differently. She never allowed herself to care for any man for fear he would become her father, yet Kaneada had touched something deep in her heart that had melted her otherwise cold reserve. Yet the dying sun had killed that relationship when both were called into service.
Still, holding the shears in her hand, Corazon found herself sitting on the floor and the tears she buried when she left Kaneada finally unleashed themselves. Corazon cried for everyone she had lost. She especially cried for Kaneada. When her tears were spent, Corazon got up and put her shears back in their case. Walking around the room, she touched each plant and whispered a good-bye. The college, when Corazon was a botany professor, was coming by to pick up the entire contents of her greenhouse. Her graduate assistant, Kendra promised Corazon that she would take care of them. Corazon was going to hold her to that promise.
Shutting off the light, Corazon walked to her bedroom and without changing, jumped into bed. When she finally did fall of asleep, she dreamt not of the sun, but of endless green fields.