Patchwork
Days
Breakaway + 10 yrs, 4 mos
Now, after hearing the quiltmaker's tale, you still might look at her tiny house and faded clothes and feel sad for her. But her quick smile and knowing eyes would tell you that you must not have heard her story well. Because she might have had little, but she had everything she'd ever need to be happy.
~~~ The Quiltmaker's Journey by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken, Scholastic Press, 2004
Finishing the last paragraph of the story, Sandra tapped the bookreader off and smiled down at her daughter. Danae sighed with contentment and curled up next to her mum's slightly pregnant tummy, draping a thin arm across Sandra's middle. She giggled when the baby inside kicked out against her arm and then wriggled around like a fish. Companionably patting the bulge that was her future sister, she looked up at her mother with wide, green eyes.
"I like that story, Mommy. Can I look at the quilt pictures again, please?"
Sandra smiled and tapped the reader back on. Although the small, five-and-a-half year old girl was reading at a level far above her age, mother and daughter enjoyed these times together at the end of the day when Sandra would read aloud. She passed the reader to Danae and watched as her daughter's tiny fingers traced the beautifully illustrated quilts on the viewscreen.
Sandra leaned back against the sofa and repositioned herself more comfortably. She rested her hands on her middle, feeling the six month old fetus roll around, for the most part gently, but with an occasional sharp jab that would cause Sandra to push the offending limb back into a more comfortable position. She was thirty-eight years old and carrying her fourth pregnancy, and the father of this child was not her husband. Not a position she would have anticipated had life gone as she had planned.
The door to their quarters opened. Sandra looked up and smiled as Alan entered carrying Richard on his back piggy-back style, fresh from an afternoon spent playing at the Koenig's. He swung the little boy down to the ground and patted him on the bottom as Richie happily raced over to the sofa and scrambled up next to his sister. Alan leaned over and gave Sandra a kiss of the kind that promised more to come later. Sandra's heart did a flip-flop as it usually did when he smiled at her that way. She reached out a hand and lightly touched Alan's face and smiled when he kissed her palm.
If her life had gone as planned, she would have returned to Earth in December of 1999 and married Peter Rockwell. Most likely she would have never seen Alan again except for the rare official function when their paths might have crossed. At that thought, a chill swept down her spine... no, she was content with things as they stood, wayward moon and all.
"Mommy, could you make a quilt like one of these?" Danae's question interrupted Sandra's train of thought. She looked down to see Danae holding up the reader for her consideration. There was a beautiful blue and white pieced quilt pictured on the screen.
Looking at the intricate and fabric-intensive quilt, Sandra smiled sadly. "No. Even if I knew how, Alpha does not have the things I would need."
Alan picked up Danae, Richard and bookreader from the sofa, pivoted around fast enough to elicit squeals of laughter from each child and then sat down next to Sandra. He rearranged kids and bookreader so that he could see what all the fuss was about. He took the stylus from Danae and paged through a half-dozen or so illustrations.
"Maybe you couldn't make a real quilt, Sahn, but how about a real small one out of your threads?"
Sandra shook her head, not seeing what Alan was getting at.
Alan tapped a few more times and then turned the reader toward Sandra. The picture was of a nine-patch quilt, a beautiful and simple design with repeating quilt blocks each having a three by three grid of squares of different colors. "I bet you could scan that into Computer and come up with something you could use." He nodded in the direction of the needlepoint Acropolis and cross-stitch Eagle that Sandra had made years before hanging on the wall over the bookshelf.
Sandra's imagination took flight. Yes, perhaps it might be possible to do something like that. She took the reader and considered possibilities. She had carefully hoarded her embroidery thread and evenweave fabric over the years and still had a respectable supply of each. She had taught herself how to use the smallest amount of thread in the tiniest area of fabric possible to create decorative patterns she had sewn onto the children's clothes or given as gifts. Just perhaps she could scan the quilts in and use that old program for converting images into patterns. She seemed to recall thinking about doing something like this once before...
Her thoughts were interrupted as Alan held up the reader and squinted. There were several inarticulate sounds of protest as the children were squashed against his chest by this maneuver.
"Papa, just make the words bigger!" An exasperated Danae took the reader from her father and entered the commands needed to magnify the image.
"Thanks, love." Alan smiled fondly at his precocious child and looked at the reader again. "Sandra, the publication date is 2004. A mistake?"
"No. The book was part of the data download one of Dr. Logan's techs sent while we were trying to locate you, Helena and John in Scotland. He or she sent quite a bit of information across a range of subjects, but it was filed away and mostly forgotten until Sister Betty found it a few years back." Alpha's archivist was still working her way through the treasure trove.
Alan looked interested. "Is that where all the kid books came from? I wondered why Alpha had so many."
Sandra nodded. "There were a few books laying about Alpha, like the Narnia and Tolkien series, but most came from that cache. We have books from the 1990's through 2025. Publications were scarce for a time around 2000, but appeared to pick up again after 2005."
Alan's thoughts swirled around. "Any technical books, Sahn?" His look was hungrily hopeful for new developments based on current technology.
Sandra shook her head no. "So far, Sister Betty has only identified children's books and adult novels, and not all are in their entirety. Many of the longer books have huge data drops that make them almost unreadable. We suspect the tech also tried to send visual records, but none made it through intact."
In amazed frustration at an opportunity lost, Alan blurted out, "Why kids books? Why not something, well, useful?" Alan paused and then looked abashed as he realized that to Sandra, the insatiable reader, any book would be valuable.
Sandra nodded, agreeing that technical books would have been more pragmatic, but she couldn't find it in her heart to be too upset. She sighed and shrugged. "We recovered some of our cultural heritage. The books are from the best the Earth had to offer for those years." Seeing the doubt on Alan's face she added, "Perhaps the technician had been forbidden to send anything else. Or perhaps they were so sure of their success he or she could only send what was at hand. I do not know."
"Is that when Papa almost got toasted into a crispy critter, mommy?" Danae piped up with a frown of concentration.
"Crispy critter?" echoed Sandra bemusededly looking at her daughter and then up at Alan.
Alan smiled and cocked an eyebrow at Sandra as he addressed his daughter. "Yeah. That's the time. Danae, Richie, why don't you go get desert. I think there're some cookies in the kitchen."
The two children scrambled out of their father's lap and raced each other to the food. Alan watched with a smile on his face as two-year-old Richie almost beat his older sister. Unlike his silver-haired, green-eyed sister, Richie looked like his and Sandra's child. His black hair, almond-shaped blue-eyes and happy laid back manner were a pleasing blend of his parents.
Alan sat back on the sofa and pulled Sandra to his side. Absently turning off the bookreader and placing it on the sofa beside him, he left a line of kisses along Sandra's neck finally reaching her ear where he gently nibbled the earlobe, all the while his free hand massaged her lower back.
Sandra laughed softly and whispered into Alan's ear. "You are sending mixed signals. Do you want me to melt from the backrub, or..." and she glanced quickly in the direction of the children's squabbling voices.
"Definitely 'or', love. Tonight." Sharing one more promising kiss, he stood to sort out the verbal warfare in the kitchen leaving Sandra to pick up the bookreader and again consider Alan's suggestion. Maybe she could do something.
~~~~~~~~
Later, in the middle of the night, Sandra awoke with an all too familiar urge to void her bladder. One of the less publicized consequences of pregnancy she thought for the umpteenth time. She slipped out from under Alan's arm and donned her blue robe and well-worn slippers as she made her way through the darkened quarters to the washroom. Afterwards, feeling comfortably empty again, she silently checked on the children in their shared room. She thought of the future and wondered what they would do when the children became too old to share a room. Something to worry about later.
Sandra made her way back to her bedroom and paused at the door to watch Alan sleep. In her absence, he had rolled on his back and was sprawled across most of the bed. She knew from long habit that all she would need to do was gently nudge him in the ribs and he would roll over and make room for her. He truly was a very considerate bedmate, in many ways. And he didn't snore. Earlier, he had kept his promise, and after the children had gone to sleep had made love to her in his usual enthusiastic manner. He was gently considerate of her pregnancy, but that did not stop him from being inventive and thorough. Sandra smiled at the memory. Perhaps it was time for her to turn the tables on the good Captain and seduce him. He was always gratifyingly surprised when she did so.
As she slipped off the robe, her eye caught a hint of faint light reflecting dully off the reader she had left on the bedside-stand. She recalled the quilts from Danae's story and Alan's suggestion. Pausing to place a kiss on Alan's cheek, she picked up the reader and returned to the main room. After closing both bedroom doors, she turned the sofa reading light on low and again looked at the illustrated quilts. As lovely as they were, the paintings lacked the crisp lines that would make converting the images to cross-stitch patterns easy. Even for Computer. One of the drawings in the story included a women wearing an apron and a white bonnet. It vaguely reminded her of something she had once read... ah, yes.
Placing the reader on the sofa table, Sandra stood and walked over to the small bookshelf that held her treasured hard and softback books. Kneeling in front of the lowest shelf she found what she was looking for. Even in the dim light she recognized it. She pulled out the largest book from the bottom of the stack of hardback books, reverently returning the Sherlock Holmes and Dragonriders anthologies to the shelf, and stood awkwardly. She would welcome the return of her usual center of mass after delivery.
Seated again on the sofa, she opened the large, hardback book Alan had bought in the American state of Ohio some sixteen or seventeen years before. Amish Ways, A Pictorial Essay explored the fascinating details of a religious community that had stayed close to the land and lived a simple way of life without mechanized aids for over two hundred years. They avoided all things electrical and relied on hard work, ingenuity and thriftiness to survive. And although Alpha's survival depended on the very technology the Amish had forsworn, Sandra could see many parallels in their lives. Frugality and the importance of family and friends were common denominators to each community.
Leaving the heart-tugging images of the green, verdant fields and forests for another time, Sandra turned to the pages showing the handmade quilts the Amish women were so rightfully renowned for. The crisply photographed quilts were stunning in their use of colors and patterns. Sandra thought in passing that she would have to remember to show this book to Annette Fraser. Annie did know how to quilt and had made a small crib blanket from scraps of old uniforms that had been used by quite a few of Alpha's children. As she covered her mouth in a yawn, Sandra thought that these pictures would do quite well indeed. Computer could easily render one of them into the pattern she needed to make a tiny, cross-stitch 'quilt'. Before she returned to her bed and Alan, Sandra carefully removed for safekeeping the scrap of paper long used as a bookmark. The childish writing was fading from the passage of years, but she could still easily read the note the small Amish child had written to Alan. Sandra wondered how 'Carter' the horse had fared in his life.
The bookmark safely stored away, Sandra returned to bed and nudged Alan to scoot over. To her surprise, he was awake.
"I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten lost, love." There was a tone of mild concern in his voice for her atypical middle of the night behavior. He held up the edge of the blanket for her climb under. "Everything alright?"
"Quite alright." Sandra snuggled in close to the warmth of his bare chest. In deference to the presence of the children, he had taken to wearing boxer shorts in bed. The children had been taught to knock before entering, but childish enthusiasm still sometimes overrode good manners. "Alan, can you take tomorrow off?" It would be nice on her day off to sleep in with him beside her.
"Not really, but what do you need done? I'll make the time."
Sighing, Sandra was not surprised at the answer. She was well aware that Jim Haines' combined team of physicists, chemists, optic specialists and Eagle engineers had just recently started to understand some of the workings of the small 'ducklings' that had followed her home that time. The six small, black spacecraft from the massive lattice of alien craft had been slow to reveal their secrets. In particular, the alien ship's powerful encompassing force shields were a tantalizing mystery. It had taken much effort but finally several valuable research insights had been deduced that had helped Alpha improve its shielding. Now, Alan and the other pilots were hoping to learn how to apply this technology to the Eagles and the first field trials were tomorrow.
Sandra smiled in the darkness and started to run her hands over Alan's chest. Well enough, she would take advantage of Alan's wakefulness and enjoy his company now. She gently pushed him onto his back and scooted up to lean over his chest and leave a trail of kisses along the side of his face and neck. She nuzzled into the side of his neck in the way she knew drove him crazy. "I'm not tired, are you?"
He answered her with a deep kiss.
Sliding her leg over his hips, Sandra sat up. Although the commpost cast very little light to lessen the darkness in their room, she knew by touch exactly how to keep Alan's attention. As she considered her options, she felt Alan's hands move under the old RAAF sweatshirt she slept in. He rested the palm of each hand over the baby and waited to feel movement. Naomi obliged by choosing that moment to kick and Sandra felt Alan's quiet chuckle.
"I wonder what the old Professor would have thought, Sahn."
"I hope he would be pleased. He once told me he regretted not having children."
"That's not a problem any longer. You and Helena have seen to it that."
There was a long pause during which Sandra caressed Alan's shoulders and chest, slowing working her way down his torso although carefully avoiding his ticklish spots, for now. He remained distracted.
"A penny for your thoughts, Alan."
"I don't know, love. Maybe the Professor does know. About the kids."
Sandra did not wish to ignore Alan's comments, but she was much more interested in less cerebral concerns at present. "Perhaps. Stranger things have happened to us on Alpha." And then deliberately putting aside other thoughts, Sandra proceeded to remind the good Captain why it was never wise to underestimate the creativity of his wife.
~~~~~~~~
Given Alan and Sandra's state of complete undress, it was a good thing Danae knocked before entering her parents' room the next morning.
~~~~~~~~
"Time to get up, love" Alan was dressed and ready to leave. "I gave the kids breakfast. Annette called asking if you could watch her two. Something's come up," Alan forestalled Sandra's next question, "don't know what but it didn't sound like a serious emergency. I said 'yes' and she's en route. Hope that's not a problem."
Sandra shook her head to clear the last few cob-webs. Four would be a handful, but she would cope. They were quiet children.
"I will manage."
Alan walked over and smiled down at Sandra as he brushed an errant lock of hair out of her eyes. "I know you will. I'll come home early if I can." He kissed her and left quickly.
Sandra heard the cries of 'bye, Papa' as she entered the washroom for a quick change.
~~~~~~~
A short time later, ready for the day, Sandra exited the small kitchen carrying a few crackers and a cup of 'tea.' Courtesy of a creative organic chemist, Alpha now had a drink that was faintly reminiscent of a good British variety. Sipping the hot drink, she paused to watch the children at play and do a headcount. Richard and his age mate, two-and-a half year old Etienne Fraser, were playing with the 'Eagles' Alan had assembled from odds and ends. The toys were realistic enough for the young children who used their abundant imagination to make up for any technical deficits. Behind them, seated on the sofa, Danae held Horse tucked under her arm and was paging through the Amish book oohing and ahhing over the animals. Sandra looked around. She was missing Vickie Fraser.
Sandra was just beginning to become concerned when she found the quiet, brown-haired child playing by herself behind Alan's large overstuffed chair. She sat down by the four-year-old, lightly touching her on the shoulder so as not to surprise her. Vicki looked up from her rag doll and smiled shyly.
<Hi, Aunt Sahn,> she signed.
Sandra spoke slowly and enunciated clearly as she included the few British Sign Language words she knew.
"Good morning, Vicki." Sandra knew the little girl often felt left out due to her severe hearing deficit. Danae was usually very considerate, but sometimes simply forgot to make the small concessions necessary for Vicki to feel comfortable. The young girl had barely survived a bout with a severe kidney infection as an infant, and the antibiotic used had caused irreparable damage to her hearing. Sandra knew Helena still blamed herself, even though Annette and Bill had never held it against her or any other Medical Staff member. Helena still had hopes that one of the technical staff might one day successfully make a cochlear implant using the data specs that had been refined on Earth shortly prior to Breakaway. Time would tell.
"Vicki, come and join the others. I will remind Danae to sign." Actually, the children had picked up very quickly on the signs Bill had taught Vicki, and Danae and the other children often interpreted for the grown-ups. Holding her hand out to the girl, Sandra balanced against the back of the sturdy chair as she stood and then the two rejoined the others in the center of the room. Sandra looked at Danae who immediately caught her mother's intent in one glance.
<Sorry, Vicki. Come look... horses...> Danae's signs quickly progressed beyond Sandra's comprehension except for a word or concept here and there. Vicki looked much happier, so Sandra left the girls to their own.
The day progressed quietly and as a treat Sandra took the children to the pilots' cafeteria for lunch. While the regular cafeteria was set up with tables for children, the pilots' cafeteria had the painted Eagle on the wall and was the best source of cookies on Alpha. And all the children were well aware of that. Bowing to the combined pleas, verbal and signed, Sandra took them to the small cafeteria and was pleased to see that Juanita and Maisey were on duty. Knowing she would, once the okay was given by Juanita, Maisey came over to help Sandra make sure everyone was fed with a minimum of mess. The quiet, pale tech was very good with the children and Sandra always appreciated her help.
Back in the Carter quarters, Sandra settled the three younger children for naps and took a needed rest of her own. She could trust Danae to summon her when the other children awoke, and she did so. The rest of the day passed quietly and Bill picked up his two shortly before supper.
"Thanks much, Sandra." Bill picked up Etienne and placed him on his hip. He signed to Vickie to wait just a minute, that they would get dinner on the way back to their quarters. Looking back at Sandra he continued. "One of the long-range sensors fritzed out overnight and no one wanted to bother you on your day off. Annie got some help from technical and put everything to rights."
In the flurry of hand washing and shoe finding, Bill left and Alan arrived and the Carter clan headed out to dinner. Sandra was happy to see that most of the spaghetti sauce ended up in rather than on the children. Afterwards, as Alan bathed and prepared the children for bed, Sandra sat on the sofa and picked up the Amish book. She leafed through the quilt pictures again considering which one she would like to recreate. A small noise caused her to look up and see Danae crossing the room toward her. Her wet, silver hair looked darker than usual and the overly long nightdress made her look even younger and smaller than she was.
Danae hopped up on the sofa and curled up next to Sandra, who put an arm around her and pulled her close. She sleepily watched as her mum looked at all the pretty quilts. She giggled when she saw the one of a crescent moon. Sandra looked down at her with a questioning smile.
"Vicki thought that one should have been called 'Alpha's Home.'"
"Oh, is that why the two of you were laughing so much today?" Sandra gently brushed the drying hair out of Danae's eyes.
"Uh huh, a lot of the quilts reminded us of stuff here on Alpha." Danae took the heavy book from Sandra and flipped a few pages to an unusual white quilt with an appliquéd stylized helix. "See, this kinda looks like that snake thing Aunt Helena says means 'medical'. Aunt Helena said snakes feel soft and cool and she remembers catching them when she was little like us."
Sandra quirked an eyebrow at the rather unlikely mental image of a young Helena catching snakes.
"And this flower reminded us of the one Mr. Collins grew for Mrs. Collins in the catacomb farms. He tried to make a yellow one grow, but got a funny blue and pink spotty one instead. Mrs. Collins liked it anyway."
Sandra sat quietly amazed as her daughter spun stories for many of the terrestrial patterns giving them new life. Slowly, an idea started to take form in Sandra's mind. Instead of copying just one quilt, perhaps she could make an 'album quilt' made up of many different squares. They would have to be simplified, but that would add a childlike charm. She would let Danae choose the patterns and would write down the 'story' behind each. Sandra rather liked the idea of such an unlikely merging of Earth and Alpha. It would take her a while to make the patterns and even longer to complete the cross-stitching, but she had a stretch of night shifts coming up where she could make a good start.
As Danae continued to chatter, Sandra's tired thoughts wandered. No, her life was nothing like she could have ever predicted, but with Alan, Danae and Richie, and now Naomi, life was simple but abundant. As the 'quilt' took shape in her mind's eye, Sandra knew one day it would be Danae's. A fitting memento of her unique childhood growing up on Alpha.
6 July 2006
MGK
ed. note: The above patchwork is a miniature quilt in cross-stitch made designed and worked by the author using quiltblocks which illustrate stories in the Needleworks Universe. One block is a depiction of the ITC symbol familiar to those of us who enjoyed Space:1999 on TV in the 1970s. To see a larger picture of the mini-quilt, click on the picture above.