Months.
2167
Andie sang under her breath through the last of her chores. After she finished, she could go outside because the teacher had been sick today and the substitute let them work on homework in class. For the first time in a while, she didn't have school work to do at home.
She closed the washer and set the cleaning cycle, yelling as she left the house, "I'm going out!"
Opening the front door, however, she froze. Someone was there, lifting a hand to knock.
"Aunt Essie?"
The older woman looked startled, then a wry grin twisted the corner of her mouth.
"Hey Andie."
Esther Shepard looked older than she had the last time she'd visited on shore leave. Little crinkles appeared at the corner of her eyes as she smiled and her short, neatly trimmed hair had just the slightest hint of grey in it.
Before Andie had recovered from her surprise, her aunt was speaking again. "Your dad around, kid?"
"Um, yeah."
"Can you take me to him? It's important."
Andie hesitated. Aunt Essie was uncharacteristically serious. Normally when she visited, she swept in like a summer storm: laughing, joking, leaving them all a little windswept and smiling in her wake.
"Okay…" Andie stepped outside, and led the way across the yard. They passed the field where Lucky looked up to watch them walk, and Andie checked her omni-tool. Dad had recently installed a security suite on their omni-tools that let each family member know the location of the others in case of an emergency. She'd never used it before, but it was easy enough to figure out. Dad was where she'd thought he was: the wheat fields.
They continued walking in silence, Andie stealing glances at her aunt, who was looking grim. The effect was heightened by the Alliance uniform she was wearing. Come to think of it, the coat she was wearing looked different than the casual blues that Andie had last seen her in. This uniform looked like the one she'd worn in the vid showing the ceremony of her promotion.
Andie caught sight of her dad walking into the utility shed at the edge of the wheat field, the golden waves dipping under a slight breeze.
"Dad!" Andie called, trotting forward. Essie followed with quick steps, quickly overtaking her niece.
Her father poked his head out of the door to the shed, frowning with confusion.
"Andie, what—" He broke off, staring at Essie, a smile creasing his face. "Esther! This is a surprise!" He laughed, stepping out toward them. "You didn't tell us you were in this part of the galaxy."
"Not here for shore leave, Matt," Essie said, stepping forward, giving a brief, perfunctory hug to her brother. "Something's happened," she said in a clipped voice. "John is dead."
Matt stared at her, face blank. "John? Wait, you mean… Dad? Dad's… dead?"
Andie fought the urge to gasp, as unnoticed as she was at the moment by the adults. She knew that there were relatives on Earth; her mother's family, for example. But her father had never spoken of his parents, her grandparents. Any time the subject came up—which wasn't often—he just stayed quiet, speaking as little as possible.
Essie nodded.
Matt's face darkened, and he lowered his head into his hands.
"You can't possibly be mourning him, Matt," Essie said sharply, her hands clenching at her sides. "Not after what he did to Mom. Not after what he did to us."
"He was our father, Essie."
"He sired us. That doesn't make him our father," Essie bit out, folding her arms across her chest.
Matt pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "You didn't come all the way out here to tell me this in person. You could have sent a vid. What's going on?"
Essie shifted. "His will is going to be read in a couple of weeks. Apparently one of the stipulations he mandated is that if we're not there in person, we're not going to inherit whatever crap he's going to throw at us."
Matt frowned. "I didn't think you'd be interested in that."
"I'm not. The old bastard named me executrix," she growled, rubbing the tips of her fingers against each other. "He knew I'd try to dodge out of it – that's why he did it. Knew I'd do at least this duty if only for you, the kids, and Andrew."
Matt's eyes widened. "You found Andrew?"
Essie shook her head. "No. I called in a favor with an information broker. The best he was able to get me was a last known address on Terra Nova. We can check it out on our way to the estate reading. Can you leave today?"
"I need to talk to Jo first," he said, sounding tired. He turned and then suddenly seemed to remember Andie, standing and watching with wide eyes. Essie shifted, looking uncomfortable.
"Are… are you going away, Dad?" Andie asked in a voice she hoped sounded calm and grown-up.
Matt blew out a breath, rubbing his hand up and under the hat that shielded his face from Mindoir's sun. "Probably, sweet pea. But let's go home. We need to talk this over with your mother."
#
Andie didn't overhear the conversation between her parents, but her mother didn't seem happy about whatever the decision was. Jo didn't say anything, however, simply sat, lips pursed.
"I'll be gone a week at most," he said at a family meeting, and Jo didn't contradict him. Essie looked relieved. Erik, however, frowned and glanced at the adults one to another as if seeing something Andie didn't.
Later, Andie was pretending to read a book while Erik walked up to their father who was building a tower out of blocks for Gabby. He and Essie were going to leave soon for the last shuttle to Toscani in a couple of hours. From there, they would take a larger, passenger shuttle off-world.
"There's more to this than you're telling us," Erik said in a low voice intended for his father's ears only, but Andie could hear. She stared at her reader, pretending to read, and hoping to hear more.
"Of course there is," Matt said, placing a large block on the tower's walls. "There's always a story, Erik. Doesn't necessarily mean you're old enough to hear it all, however."
"Aunt Essie told me enough already," Erik said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Andie squashed the jealousy that immediately rose in her. When would everyone stop treating her like a kid? Just because Erik was seventeen, and she was only thirteen…
Matt raised an eyebrow and some of Erik's bravado faded.
"I'm just… curious, though. I mean, how… why didn't you turn out…" Erik trailed off, shuffling his feet.
"Why do I try to be good man when my father is—or was, I should say—what he was?" Matt sighed, stacking another few blocks. "A long time ago, I made a choice, son. I didn't like what my father did to my mother, to my siblings. I made a choice then and there that I wouldn't be like him, that I would do everything in my power to be something better. It wasn't easy and when I had the power to take revenge, I won't pretend I wasn't tempted. But…" He stacked another few blocks contemplatively. "Being a good person—doing the right thing is much harder than you think. But I had grown up watching my father take the easy way out in almost every area of his life. His laziness and greed led to some horrible actions. I wanted something better for my life, for my children's lives. So I chose differently, even when giving in would have been easier, even when giving in wouldn't necessarily result in a bad thing—I chose… because there's enough misery in this galaxy without one more person adding to it. Especially when we can attempt to make it better." Matt smiled a little. "Essie has a much harder time I think. She finds her own healing in medicine. Healing people who make a difference—soldiers, marines—helps her. But this whole… situation has stirred things up again."
Erik was silent for a moment. "What… what about Uncle Andrew?"
Matt looked saddened a moment. "Andrew had the hardest time dealing with your grandfather's abuse. He left the house as soon as he hit eighteen. He tried to join the Alliance but he didn't pass the psych profiles." Matt looked up at Erik with hard eyes. "He wasn't—isn't—crazy, but he has some issues that he hasn't dealt with in… healthy ways. Essie and I lost track of him over the years, so I hope that this broker of hers has information that's legit." Matt stacked the last block on top of the tower and then chuckled as Gabby promptly barreled through it like a toddler-sized wrecking ball.