“Yaarrgh!” Pana screeched. “Get out of here! You’re filthy!”
She waved a ladle in his face with the grace of a warrior.
“Out! And get cleaned up or you won’t be eating around my breakfast table!”
Yoath raised his hands in surrender and backed out of the room.
Ava grinned at the scene and I wondered what she thought about all this.
I found it an embarrassment—the way I always had.
Pana turned the stove off and spooned the food into bowls and various large plates.
She placed them in the middle of the table so we could reach over and add them to our plates.
Ava wasn’t picky and tried a little of everything.
Some things she groaned with joy over, others she grimaced.
I was grateful she was there.
She might not know everything that was going on but it meant I wasn’t alone, and that had to be a good thing.
She was a piece of my past… or my future, and we were in this together.
“There, all better,” Yoath said, re-entering the kitchen and taking a seat.
Pana ran an eye over him before nodding approvingly.
She didn’t let him eat from the middle of the table and instead handed him a plate she’d prepared earlier.
Yoath turned his nose up at it.
“We have guests…”
“And I don’t want you collapsing with a heart attack in front of them.” Pana focused on Ava. “High cholesterol. I’ve been warning him for years but he never listens. Not until I force him.”
She kissed Yoath on the top of the head and turned to the kitchen.
As quick as a flash, Yoath grabbed a piece of gloon fruit and slipped it in his mouth.
Pana glanced in his direction as he pretended to chew on her healthy option.
“Mm,” he said. “This is delicious!”
Throughout the meal, Yoath snatched food from the “unhealthy” pile in the middle of the table, always in the millisecond pockets my mom turned her back.
“I thought I’d help you with fixing your ship today,” he said.
“That would be great,” I said. “Thanks.”
“But before we get to that, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind helping me with some chores around the farm. The crop needs harvesting soon and I don’t want it to spoil in the field.”
It was a total drain on my time.
I couldn’t afford to help him…
But if he helped me fix my ship, it would offset the time I used up with helping him around the farm.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not. But there’s something I need to check first. How long has the solar storm been raging?”
“Oh, about two days, I’d say. It normally lasts five days, doesn’t it, hun.”
“That’s right,” Pana said.
Three days.
I had three days before I needed to escape this planet or risk getting stuck here for good.
“Okay,” I said. “I can help but we need to leave before the storm ends.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
He glanced in Mom’s direction before slipping more of the juicy gloon fruit in his mouth.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs one after another.
I thought back over my childhood and wondered who it could be.
One of my uncles?
Occasionally they came over to help with the harvest.
The steps drew closer and a tiny figure appeared on the bottom step.
He froze with his hand on the handrail and peered between me and Ava.
His hair stuck up and his eyes were still puffy with sleep.
“Here comes trouble,” Yoath said.
The boy stumbled toward the kitchen table and climbed onto the seat beside Ava.
He was too small to reach the middle of the table, so his mom placed the food on his plate for him.
“Moring, little man,” Yoath said. “Did you sleep okay?”
The little boy yawned widely and it used up every inch of his face.
He nodded.
“We’ve got a couple of guests staying with us for a few days. They’re going to help with farm work and we’re going to help them fix their ship. Okay?”
The little boy’s eyes lit up.
“You have a ship?”
“Yes,” Ava said. “Would you like to see it?”
She was taken with the boy right away.
That much was obvious with the beaming grin on her face.
The little boy made to climb off his chair.
“Eat your breakfast first,” Pana said sternly but not unkindly.
The little boy looked disappointed but set to munching at his food.
Something about Ava’s dress caught his attention.
“What’s that?” he said, pointing to something pinned to the front.
Ava removed it and handed it to him.
“It’s a flower,” she said. “From my home planet. It’s called a rose.”
“Rose,” the little boy said. “It’s pretty. Like you.”
Yoath erupted with laughter and nudged me on the shoulder.
“You want to be careful! If you’re not careful, he’ll sweep her out from under you!”
Mom didn’t laugh.
She focused on drying the pot she was washing.
Her eyes flicked up to mine and it made me feel sick to my stomach.
Her level of insight was known throughout the valley.
Suspicious your husband was cheating on you?
She would come around, look him over, and know within an instant.
Concerned your employees were robbing you blind?
They called Mom and she could not only tell the business owner if money had been stolen but finger who had taken it.
And now she was looking me over.
Does she know…? I wondered.
Surely even she couldn’t pick up on what was going on here?
“You can keep it if you want,” Ava said.
The little boy’s smile arched up into a grin.
“I can?”
“Tell her, ‘Thank you,’” Pana said.
The little boy climbed up onto the seat and wrapped his arms around Ava’s head.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Ava held him close and kissed him on the swell of his bulging cheek.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
I stood up.
“Excuse me. I have to… do something.”
I rushed from the room and ran outside.
I managed to reach the grass verge before I threw up.
Ava
“Excuse me,” he said, and then off he went.
The silence he left in his wake was jarring and I knew I had to go see what the problem was.
He’d been a little strange since he woke up.
I assumed he was still struggling to come to terms with the difficulty of having to fix his ship,
