Ricky and I sit across from them on the couch, and I’m barely able to stop myself from jerking when DaR starts talking, as his voice is so commanding.
“We will not be staying long, as I need to check on KyT and Vedece as well, but Ginger, I would like your personal input on Deapra and the people you stayed with. I know EvO and ViN questioned you as well, but here there are no others around, so you should not feel pressured into answering in any certain way.”
“Absolutely, ask away.” The entire time, though, I can’t seem to take my eyes off Kira. Something about her looks so familiar, but I just can’t place it.
“EvO wants to send food and medical supplies to the ones you were staying with. He said they were also stranded on that planet with no way off, and that its readings were unstable. That they might need to be relocated if the planet destabilizes.”
“The Ruks could not have treated us any better than they did. They took us all in with limited supplies and taught us how to survive in a world we didn’t belong to. I owe my life to mam and the others. The other girls will say the same, especially sincethey were there so much longer and survived many trials before I showed up.
“That is all I needed to hear. I will contact SCOUT when we get back to the shuttle, and we will get a ship sent that way.”
“Thank you so very much. They really do need the help.”
DaR picks Kira up off his lap so that he can stand up, making her flip her extremely long hair off her shoulder, and suddenly it’s like a light bulb goes off in my head, and I know exactly who she is.
“Ohhh my God … you’reKira?”
“Yes, I thought I introduced myself when I came in.”
But the panic that crosses her face as she looks at Ricky tells me she knows I’ve connected the dots. “Does he know?” Glancing over at Ricky, I can tell he’s slightly confused by this statement.
She shakes her head no … and I stand there, wondering what the right thing to do is. I can tell she’s wanted to say something, but didn’t know how, and now I’m putting her on the spot. Trying to soften the news, I move to lighten the conversation.
“Has Ricky ever told you two about his childhood crush and the woman he was going to marry? If you’re not in a huge hurry, please sit down because you’ve got to hear this.”
Kira’s eyes never leave Ricky’s and I can tell she’s torn, whereas DaR just gives me an encouraging nod and reclaims his seat. Kira, on the other hand, walks to the window, looking out as my story unfolds.
“I think Ricky was around seventeen when we met, and we had gone over to his papaw’s to help clean out their attic becausethey were going to put the place up for sale. While loading a box, I found some old family videos. Ricky came up behind me as I looked at them and started laughing. I can recall him saying, ‘You know, when I was little, I was convinced I was going to marry the woman on those. Grab a box and let me show you.’
Awkwardly, we carried a few of the boxes down the long stairway, only to enter an old bedroom. The room looked like a museum. I was shocked when he flipped on the TV, and it still worked.”
This whole time, Ricky’s been looking at me oddly, as if he has no idea where I’m going with this, but my story never stops.
“Ricky plops one of these huge-ass tapes in a square box, and the screen gets all staticky before the sound starts to work. The next thing you know, we’d spent most of the evening watching the home videos of his great-grandmother and her husband, who looked entirely too much like my Ricky, even in the grainy video. We both giggled when he told me that he used to watch them all the time when he was little, to the point that he announced at dinner one night that he was going to marry Kira on the tapes in Papaw’s room. What happened then, Ricky?”
“Lord, I had forgotten all about this until you just brought it up, but if you must know, it broke my heart when Papaw told me she was my great-grandmother. To me, she was just a beautiful young woman on the tapes, whose smile always captivated me. She was playful and thoughtful, and in my nine-year-old mind, the perfect woman.”
I watch his eyes dart toward Kira, who’s still standing with her back to us, and I can see his mind working. From the movement of Kira’s shoulders, I can tell she’s crying but trying her best to hide it from all of us.
“Ricky, what did you tell me happened to her and her husband?”
“No one knew for sure; the plane they were traveling on was never found. Or that’s all Papaw knew, anyway.”
I look at Ricky, then over at Kira. This entire time, DaR has remained silent, just watching it all unfold. When no one says anything, I just blurt it out since it’s always easier to rip the band-aid off quickly.
“Ricky, honey, Kira … is your great-grandmother. She’s the woman you watched all those years ago.”
Ricky gets up, walks around the chair DaR is sitting in, and approaches Kira slowly, as if he’s afraid she’ll run away. His words were barely a whisper.
“Is it true?”
She turns, tears flowing down her cheeks, while she wrings her hands nervously. “Yes Ricky, I’m your grandmother several times removed.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, but you had lost so much already, … and you were trying so hard to rebuild your life. Mostly, I didn’t want the others to treat you differently or think you were getting special treatment because of me. Or that’s what I told myself in the beginning, but really, I just didn’t want to explain to strangers what had happened to me.
When I saw you on the shuttle deck on Destiny, I thought I was seeing a ghost. My Rick was standing there for just a moment. It took you turning your head for me to see the difference; even though there’s not much between the two of you, as you could practically be twins. I almost collapsed right there and if not forthe girls, I would have. What you didn’t see was me falling apart and DaR hauling me off as the past consumed me, along with the pain that always accompanies it.
