Chapter Five: Keeping Mum
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from these characters. I do enjoy eavesdropping on them—and spying on them—and reporting what I see and hear….
Amanda Grayson doesn't usually complain. Not that she has adopted the stoic mannerisms of the people she has chosen to live among—not at all. Indeed, Sarek often chides her for her emotionalism, and she is well aware that her Vulcan friends and neighbors make certain allowances for her.
No, Amanda doesn't complain because when she does, Sarek and Spock suffer such distress for her that they cannot hide their feelings.
She doesn't want to cause them pain or embarrassment—so a headache or a minor worry often goes unremarked on…and results in a loneliness that from time to time sends her to the subspace communication console for long heart-to-heart conversations with her sister back on Earth.
Since Spock has been in Starfleet—first as a cadet and now as an instructor in the Academy—Amanda has scheduled her periodic radiation treatments at the hospital facilities near the campus. This gives her a chance to visit her son, and her sister who still lives near Seattle. Despite the rigor of the treatment—the nausea and subsequent exhaustion—Amanda has come to look forward to these regular trips home—and to the time to catch up with her sister and her family, talking like school girls late into the night about matters serious or silly.
Originally she had planned to take a shuttle from San Francisco to Seattle this afternoon after the treatment was finished, but a large gathering of protesters had filled the street separating the hospital entrance and the main gates of the campus, and by the time she and Spock had navigated their way around the roadblock, she was gasping for breath and uncharacteristically asking for help.
The protest itself is upsetting enough, she thinks, as Spock takes her elbow and holds her firmly while he keys in the entrance code to the gate. Two cadets are also posted there, though they say nothing as Spock and his mother make their way in.
As the gate swings shut behind them, Amanda looks back at the crowd—most who are simply milling around as though they are waiting for something, though a few are holding up signs that say "Aliens Go Home" and "No Federation." They look like unhappy picnickers—most in short-sleeves and trainers or sandals.
Both she and Spock stand out from the crowd—he with his charcoal gray instructor's uniform, his Vulcan features unmistakable, and she with a heavy textured tunic and overcoat. She reflects later that Spock's obvious solicitousness—his careful grip on her arm, her pallor and halting walk—may have saved them from catching any negative comments from the onlookers as they pressed their way through the crowd.
She's sure she would have said something if anyone had spoken—and Spock would have been mortified.
Instead of making their way to the transport hub, Spock leads his mother to his apartment and stations her on his sofa while he makes them some tea. Amanda closes her eyes and puts her head on the armrest, listening as Spock fills the kettle and pulls cups and spoons from the cabinets.
At last he places two cups of tea on the table at the end of the sofa and pulls up a chair nearby and sits down. Amanda looks up and laughs—not because she is amused, but to try to diffuse some of his anxiety.
"Stop looking so upset," she says, waving her hand in Spock's direction. "I'm just tired. I'll be okay soon."
But Spock's frown deepens and he says, "Mother, I have canceled your shuttle reservation. You cannot travel today."
Amanda sits up immediately—and is instantly sorry. Her head swims and her stomach lurches—and the angry words she was going to say die as she realizes that Spock is right. This treatment has knocked her for a loop.
"They'll be expecting me—" she begins, but Spock interrupts.
"I've already contacted Chris," he says, referring to his cousin who usually picks Amanda up at the Seattle station.
"Your father—"
"I sent a message to him as well," Spock says, handing his mother her cup of tea that she takes reluctantly. "You can stay here tonight. If you are well enough in the morning, you can continue your journey then."
Amanda purses her lips and sighs.
"I guess it's all decided then," she says. She isn't surprised—once he has made up his mind that something is a logical course of action, Spock moves forward quickly—and Amanda knows that she needs to rest before trying to travel. She takes a sip of her tea and looks up at her son. Something niggles at the edge of her consciousness and then she remembers.
"Wait a minute!" she says, and Spock's face flashes alarm. "I thought you had to go out of town this weekend—"
Amanda starts to put her teacup back on the table so she can try again to sit up, but Spock says, "My presentation is not until Saturday. I am not needed at the conference before then."
"But your assistant—"
"Is free until Saturday as well. She went early so she could attend other workshops. She does not expect me before our presentation time."
Amanda watches Spock as he tells her this—his voice is even and controlled but he does not meet his mother's eyes….something's up. Amanda recognizes that small telltale sign that Spock is being less than truthful with her. She considers calling him on it—but another wave of exhaustion makes her lean back onto the sofa instead. Spock takes her teacup from her hand and sets it down on the table.
"Perhaps you need something to eat?" he asks, but Amanda shakes her head.
"Just sit here with me for a minute," she says, and Spock pulls his chair closer to the sofa and takes his mother's hand in his.
At once Amanda is flooded with his worry and concern—and something else, too, that she can't identify. She closes her eyes and pictures their garden at home on Vulcan—the rows of cabbage-like plants that she had planted a week ago, and the Terran desert flowers growing nearby that had just started to bloom, smelling of chocolate and honey.
The image calms her down and she is able to sense again Sarek's presence, and Spock's—and for a moment she is content. She opens her eyes and grins.
"That's better," she says. "Now, let's talk."
Even if she weren't touching his hand, Amanda would have felt Spock's alarm. His face blanches slightly and he pulls back, still holding her hand but clearly shielding his thoughts from her. She takes her hand out of his and laughs.
"I'm sure we won't talk about anything you don't want to talk about," she says, "so relax. I just wanted to see how you are."
Spock says nothing—but Amanda doesn't expect him to. She continues, "How are you feeling—doing—since you came home last month?"
"Mother—" Spock says, and Amanda can hear his impatience. She adds, "You know what I mean---don't pretend you don't."
That visit home had been a surprise—though Spock had said he was simply taking advantage of the school break. He had been oddly distracted and agitated—and then in equal measure quiet and…relieved…yes, she decides, that was his prevailing mood after the annulment from T'Pring.
If she is completely honest with herself, Amanda knows that she is as relieved—and Sarek is, too. Both had been shocked when T'Pring had refused at first to see Spock when he was home—but it had made clear her unsuitability as a partner…and had given Sarek reason enough to arrange the annulment.
Spock has not spoken about it since—at least not to her. Amanda reaches within herself again and feels the steady presence of her bond with Sarek—and she feels a pang that Spock has lost the possibility of that sort of connection to someone.
Now Spock seems to be considering how to answer her, and Amanda gives him what she hopes is an encouraging look.
"Mother," he says, "I am doing well. You need not concern yourself on my behalf."
Amanda starts to protest and he continues. "Your immediate concern should be regaining your strength. Perhaps the best use of your time would be in sleeping."
She opens her mouth to refuse his offer but he holds out his hands to help her up and she accepts instead. The bedroom is a short walk down the hall and she pulls back the duvet and sits down gratefully on the bed.
"Don't let me sleep too long," she says, and Spock pulls the duvet up over her as she reclines. "I'm sure I'll be alright soon."
Spock palms the light off as he leaves the room and heads back down the hall. For a minute Amanda is sure that she will sink to sleep right away, but she struggles to get comfortable, turning from her back to her side and then back again. In the distance she can hear Spock cleaning up in the kitchen—the ching of dishes in the sink, the plash of water.
Reflected light from the hallway catches on several objects in the room—the mirror over the dresser, an old-fashioned glass bottle next to a stack of papers and folders on the table beside the bed. She rolls over on her stomach and glances down—and her eye catches on something else, small and shiny, trapped between the bed frame and the mattress. Without thinking she reaches down and touches it—and is surprised that it feels springy.
Amanda leans her head over the side of the bed and plucks at the object—and it comes away the second time she tries. She holds it up—a round elastic band with a small metal rivet sealing the ends together. The band is wrapped in a bright red thread—and suddenly Amanda knows what this is.
A hair ornament. A band for pulling long hair up into a ponytail.
And sure enough, when she looks again, she can see two long strands of dark hair held snugly by the threads.
If she hadn't been looking in exactly the right spot—if the light hadn't reflected off the metal rivet—this band would have been invisible.
She does not move. She feels like someone caught in a whirlpool, the images of the shore swirling around her too swiftly to identify. Spock's visit home—the number of calls back to San Francisco while he was there—the palpable relief when he and Sarek had returned from meeting with the healer who had engineered the annulment—Spock's discomfort when Amanda had suggested they include his teaching assistant at dinner—and the young woman herself—Nyota—watching Spock so carefully for reasons that Amanda now understands.
So. What to do?
Amanda holds the band up to the feeble light in the hallway and considers. If she shows it to Spock, what will he say? Even Spock won't be able to explain away a hair band in his bed.
He'll be embarrassed to be found out—that's certain—but he might also be relieved. More than once when he was a child, Amanda had confronted him with information that he thought he was keeping secret from her—a surreptitious collection of poison ichani insects kept in a jar under his bed, for instance, that she had discovered one day while he was at school—and he had seemed resigned to owning up to his actions.
But he is not a boy anymore—although at 27 he is still quite young by Vulcan standards—and she hesitates to bring him any distress.
She thinks about the protesters mingling outside the Academy gates, and she feels a rush of fury again as she did when she and Spock had to make their way through them earlier. These people have judged her son unfairly—unfit to live here—to be a part of this world, and she feels again the old, old sorrow—that she has brought into the universe a child who is at home nowhere, that she has been unable to protect anywhere, and she closes her fist around the hair band and shuts her eyes.
He may feel at home nowhere, but he feels at home with someone.
For a moment she lies still, her heart beating hard, and then she rolls to her side and looks again over the side of the bed. He'll tell her when he's ready. She puts the hair band back in the spot where it must have fallen recently, where it has been hiding from discovery, and she turns over once more and finally drifts off to sleep.
A/N: I love wordplay—hence the pun in this chapter title! Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions!