Because in where I hold my hopes
I hold the hope that you belong to me.
It is a hope I unfold for you now like a gift.
Belong to me like a ring
And a heart
And a word
And a kiss
And like a hope held close.
I will belong to you like all these things
And also something more
Something we will discover between us
And will belong to us alone.
You said I belong to you
And I agree.
Tell me you belong to me, too.
I wait for your word
And hope for your kiss.
Love you.
Enzo.
I love you, too, Enzo. I love you.
I miss you.
TWENTY-ONE
The next morning I found out Dad was under arrest.
“It’s not exactly arrest,” Dad said at our kitchen table, having his morning coffee. “I’ve been relieved of my position as colony leader and have to travel back to Phoenix Station for an inquiry. So it’s more like a trial. And if that goes badly then I’ll be arrested.”
“Is it going to go badly?” I asked.
“Probably,” Dad said. “They don’t usually have an inquiry if they don’t know how it’s going to turn out, and if it was going to turn out well, they wouldn’t bother to have it.” He sipped his coffee.
“What did you do?” I asked. I had my own coffee, loaded up with cream and sugar, which was sitting ignored in front of me. I was still in shock about Enzo, and this really wasn’t helping.
“I tried to talk General Gau out of walking into the trap we set for him and his fleet,” Dad said. “When we met I asked him not to call his fleet. Begged him not to, actually. It was against my orders. I was told to engage in ‘nonessential conversation’ with him. As if you can have nonessential conversation with someone who is planning to take over your colony, and whose entire fleet you’re about to blow up.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you try to give General Gau an out?”
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Probably because I didn’t want the blood of all those crews on my hands.”
“You weren’t the one who set off the bombs,” I said.
“I don’t think that matters, do you?” Dad said. He set down his cup. “I was still part of the plan. I was still an active participant. I still bear some responsibility. I wanted to know that at the very least I tried in some small way to avoid so much bloodshed. I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed.”
I got up out of my chair and gave my dad a big hug. He took it, and then looked at me, a little surprised, when I sat back down. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d like to know what that was about.”
“It was me being happy that we think alike,” I said. “I can tell we’re related, even if it’s not biologically.”
“I don’t think anyone would doubt we think alike, dear,” Dad said. “Although given that I’m about to get royally shafted by the Colonial Union, I’m not sure it’s such a good thing for you.”
“I think it is,” I said.
“And biology or not, I think we’re both smart enough to figure out that things are not going well for anyone,” Dad said. “This is a real big mess, nor are we out of it.”
“Amen,” I said.
“How are you, sweetheart?” Dad asked. “Are you going to be okay?”
I opened my mouth to say something and closed it again. “I think right now I want to talk about anything else in the world besides how I’m doing,” I said, finally.
“All right,” Dad said. He started talking about himself then, not because he was an egotist but because he knew listening to him would help me take my mind off my own worries. I listened to him talk on without worrying too much about what he said.
Dad left on the supply ship San Joaquin the next day, with Manfred Trujillo and a couple other colonists who were going as representatives of Roanoke, on political and cultural business. That was their cover, anyway. What they were really doing, or so Jane had told me, was trying to find out anything about what was going on in the universe involving Roanoke and who had attacked us. It would take a week for Dad and the others to reach Phoenix Station; they’d spend a day or so there and then it would take another week for them to return. Which is to say, it’d take another week for everyone but Dad to return; if Dad’s inquiry went against him, he wouldn’t be coming back.
We tried not to think about that.