return to dust, part 1

October 2086. Lucy Harris is 20. Dallas Deppiesse is 21, Cassie is 14 months.


"Be careful," Dallas's parents always told Lucy when she took little Cassie out to practice her walking. "She looks very blue. We don't know these neighbors yet. We don't know what kind of people they are or what they'll think. People might be afraid."



Afraid? Of this precious little button? What was there to be afraid of?


Cassie still didn't say any words yet at fourteen months. Dallas’s parents said they all did the same thing when they were little. She would catch up in time, they assured her. It was just easier for her to talk with her brain. But Lucy couldn't hear that, so some human words would be nice. She longed to hear "mama" or even just "cracker."

Dragonfly, Cassie wanted. Lucy didn't need telepathy to know that.


The government knew all about them now. Orion agreed to answer some questions and let them poke and prod him a little, but only with the understanding that no one would ever try to approach his children or grandchildren. The curiosity was natural after two completely different species of aliens battled over the planet—the ones who came to suffocate it, and Orion's people who came to save it. It was fine enough for Orion to explain that whole story to top military generals, one of whom was his brother, but regular people were different. Regular people didn't owe anyone the benefit of the doubt. And regular people were still afraid, even a year after the threat had ended.

So what should they do with this very blue child? The Deppiesse family decided to do what Orion's caretakers had done when he was born with sea-foam-colored skin and black eyes—they would lie. They would say that Cassie was born with a simple genetic skin condition, totally healthy and totally human in every way. Maybe a few decades after the war had passed, their secrets might be safe here again.


Lucy was always happy when Stephanie called because she used to get the feeling that Stephanie found her annoying. Or maybe she was just hard to read. Lucy hadn't tried to befriend a shy person since she befriended Dallas. She and Stephanie had gone through a thing together during the war, so maybe that meant something. Lucy gave birth to an alien-hybrid child in Stephanie's house, so she figured that must be the kind of thing that bonded people for life. The past year had been so hectic and fast. Not even Summer, Lucy's childhood best friend, had met Cassie yet.

Lucy didn't hear from Summer very often. Everything changed between them on that day Lucy took the pregnancy test. She took the test at Summer's house because no way in hell would Lucy bring a pregnancy test into her mother's house. Summer and Dallas waited outside the door while Lucy peed on the stick. Those three minutes were (to that point) the longest three minutes of her life. She came out of that bathroom, pale-faced, not even needing to announce what the results were. Summer said, "You're mom is gonna shit a fucking brick!"

Summer was not wrong. Lucy's mother did indeed shit a fucking brick.

But now Summer was busy with her band, traveling, dating, making new friends (single, childless friends). She was leading a completely different existence right now.


One that probably didn't involve splashed oatmeal, to be exact.


Cassie was a loving and very curious child. Lucy wouldn't trade her for the world.


"Don't laugh when she misbehaves," Violet told her. "Don't you know that's how she'll learn to wrap you around her little pinky finger?"

The amusement on Cassie's face told Lucy that it was true. But would that be so bad to be wrapped around her little finger? "You'll never be able to do any wrong in my eyes, baby girl," Lucy says to her. Lucy knew next to nothing about parenting, but it was what she felt in her heart, so she said it. Maybe Cassie could hear that feeling in her brain, even if she couldn't understand the words.

Lucy never wanted to be a tyrant like her own mother was. She wanted to be the opposite of that.


Lucy decided to enroll in college after all. It was only a couple of classes at the local community college, and she didn't even know if she intended to finish a whole degree. What would she do with a degree if she had one? But Dallas's parents suggested it since she had so much idle time while Dallas was working and Cassie was sleeping—granted, it was wonderful having six grown family members to take turns with the housework—and she was entitled to a scholarship for being a military wife. She would study theology this quarter and music next quarter.

She used to dream of studying ballet. That was out the window now. Motherhood slaughtered her dancer's body—in a professional capacity and for now at least. Maybe that was a dumb idea anyway. How many girls really grow up to be real life ballerinas? But Lucy's mother would be elated to hear that she was back in college, which was precisely why Lucy refused to tell her.

Could there be resentment in Lucy’s pristine heart? She was human, after all. She was not from the alien half of this family.


Stephanie emailed that taco casserole recipe to Lucy, and Lucy intended to learn to make it just the way Stephanie did. Lucy admired Stephanie so much, like the kind of big sister that Lucy never had but always wanted. Someone to go through life and figure out all the answers first. Summer was never that kind of role model for Lucy; Summer was the wild card. Lucy was the oldest sibling and the oldest cousin, and she could never look up to her mother. She loved her grandmother, but she had no one her own age to admire until she met Stephanie.


But Lucy should have paid more attention since the casserole didn't turn out anything like the way Stephanie used to make it.


Lucy brought it over to the church in case anyone came in need of a charitable meal. Maybe, if you were starving, you’d rather have burnt taco casserole than nothing? Or maybe that would make your life even more disappointing. She would try to do better. She would donate a nicer casserole to the church kitchen next time.


Grandpa Tad and Grandma Tosha passed away just over two years ago in 2084. Grandpa Tad died in February, then Grandma Tosha passed in March like her broken heart just couldn't bear to be without him any longer. They had been married for fifty-two years.

They were buried back home in Lakeside Heights, so Lucy said hello to somebody else’s grandparents instead. She said a prayer for them and left flowers.

She said a prayer for her own grandparents and Uncle Joel. She had a mountain of death anniversaries in her head now, but she believed in heaven and that they were all together there. She tried not to let it destroy her. 

Dallas was now an engineering intern with the ISCA. He worked long hours and came home late. That was the deal Cabe struck for him to keep him safely out of the war. When everyone else was being drafted or volunteered, left, right, and center, Dallas signed up for military school instead. It scared Lucy to death, but it worked. Dallas was busy learning to build rocket ships while other recruits fought in them.

"You can build them, but you can never go up in them," Lucy said.

Who was she kidding? The ISCA owned him now and for the next five years after graduation, and he would go up in them if they asked him to. But as an engineer, most of his work was right here on the ground. Dallas had no particular calling for space flight at the moment, so Lucy hoped it would never happen.


Dallas came home late and tucked Cassie in every night. He was sad that he missed so much while they were separated.


He didn't miss that much, Lucy insisted. It was only six months. But Lucy loved that he had that special time with her now. They would never be separated again, he promised them.

But there was talk of a transfer, he told her. The only reason he even knew of the rumors was because Cabe was his uncle, and he wouldn't know for sure until it was decided. They were looking at new launch sites out west and the engineers would be needed there.

Whew, Lucy thought. At least it wasn't space?

She and Cassie could move with him this time. They'd be put in a comfortable military residence. They weren't at war this time and nobody was hiding or running or making any deals. Dallas would finish his training in May and then they'd put him where they needed him.

They had never been on their own, she realized. Not for a second. She wondered if they could do it. So much had changed in the past couple of years. Changed and changed again, and everything was still changing. Everything felt so displaced and temporary and Lucy hardly recognized her own life anymore. She wished they could have stayed in Lakeside Heights. She wished she could have stayed with Summer. She wished she could have stayed with Stephanie. She wished they could stay with his parents now.

But they'll go where they need to go and they'll do what they need to do. Together.

It didn't seem to affect Dallas the same way. She figured that he must be miles more grown up than she was, even if he was only fifteen months older.


Dallas was the smartest person Lucy ever knew and in May he would become a certified actual rocket scientist.


If she couldn't trust his judgment and guidance, then she couldn't trust anyone.


But right now, she had Dallas and she had his family. His parents had become like her own, and his sisters had become like her own. They have been everything to her. "This house is as much yours as it is any of ours," they told her. Of course, at twenty and twenty-one, they could never afford a house like this. But Lucy loves it here, and she loves living with this big, generous family.

It wasn't too cramped though. It was a very large house, with a seemingly endless selection of rooms and corners and attics and basements and closets to duck into.


They always managed to find some privacy. For a few minutes, at least.


Although she also realized that that there might be some perks to living together as just a couple. She did look forward to that experience if it ended up happening.


Lucy read the casserole recipe from Stephanie more carefully this time. She was ready to give it another try and she felt confident about it.


"Do you need any help?" Violet asked.

"Nope, I've got it!"

But, as it turned out, Lucy did not have it at all.

It cost her $43 for the ingredients, so they ate it anyway.


Or tried to.


Or else didn't try to.


Lucy cleaned up the mess and walked across the street to the church.

She didn't bother to bring the burnt leftovers this time. The poor people at the soup kitchen deserved so much better than that.

Lucy wondered about what people deserve.

It wasn’t my husband, Lucy thought. For a lot of people, it was. Husbands and wives, children, parents. They got Dallas out of the war, and in the end, they had enough volunteers, enough of other people’s husbands to make that sacrifice and some of them didn’t make it back.

Uncle Joel didn't come back. Uncle Joel had a spouse and a family, including small baby that he never got to hold.

But Dallas didn't go to war, and he was still here to hold his baby. Lucy never knew whether she should feel guilty for that.

Then Stephanie didn’t answer her email for almost a month, and Violet heard from Alice what happened with her crazy ex-husband who got to come back from the war, too. That made Lucy mad in another terrible, guilty way. She wondered about karma. She wondered why the people who deserve bad things get away free, and the people who deserve good things are made to suffer. She wants to understand, but she doesn’t. Only that death and fate and chance don’t work that way.

"It should have been Jeremiah," Stephanie muttered once over the phone, then immediately added, "Sorry, that's bad."

But if we could make the choice, who would we choose? Could we swap out the bad person who got to come back and instead keep the good person who didn't?

At least it helped her to stop feeling guilty that that Dallas didn’t go to war. In the great big picture of things, it wasn’t their choice to make.


Lucy liked this church a lot. She wanted to stay here but she knew there was a good chance that she wouldn't. When the whirlwind of her life stopped spinning, maybe they would come back here some day. Maybe she would be a church pastor or maybe she'd open up a dance studio for little ballerinas who dreamed of being real ballerinas some day. She wanted to ask her grandma what she hoped to do with her life and if she ever got to do it. But that was impossible now.

Lucy was the last person to talk to her grandma Tosha before she died. Lucy was her favorite, and everybody knew it. She helped her grandmother box up her grandfather's things in the few weeks between his death and hers. Lucy had been fighting with her mother, and she could always tell her grandmother everything.

"I'm a good kid," Lucy told her. "It's like being in love was the worst thing I could do to her. We're really in love, nobody believes us."

"Sweetie," Tosha said, "You're the only one who needs to believe that. I met your grandfather when I was your age, and let me tell you, his parents weren't happy about it either. Fifty-two years together."

Her grandmother started to cry again.

"I'm sorry grandma," Lucy said.

"It's not always perfect. It's not always bliss—you need to know that. Just remember, first, you're best friends. There's nothing wrong with being in love. And remember, always remember, you'll never be able to do any wrong in my eyes."

Grandma Tosha wasn't sick like Grandpa Tad had been. She passed away quietly in her sleep.

They were together for fifty-two years. Lucy had been with Dallas now for six years. In between those two points was a whole lifetime—or else half of one, if you were unlucky. She couldn't begin to comprehend how terrible it must be to lose a person who makes up most of your life, like losing half of yourself. She hoped it was another fifty years before she had to find out.


Lucy lit a prayer candle for her grandparents, and one for Uncle Joel, one for Aunt Aurora and the kids, for Stephanie and Justin, for Jeremiah's angry terrible heart, for the people who came to the soup kitchen, for her father’s governor campaign because she knew he would be a great leader, for her mom whom she isn't speaking to, for her beautiful blue baby whom she can't speak to for other reasons, for her sister and brother, for Dallas's wonderful family, until all of the candles were lit.

—

footnotes: Lucy wasn't allowed to do anything, especially not get pregnant! // Tad and Tosha // the taco casserole of dreams // alien conversation // keeping in touch

outtakes: prayer candles gone wrong, oops! // shameless diary snooping // cleansed // just visiting // and lots more Parenthood outtakes, more than I could possibly link...