Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(57)

Enzo lived a life of love, from the moment he was born until the moment he died. So many people go through life without love. Wanting love. Hoping for love. Hungering for more of it than they have. Missing love when it was gone. Enzo never had to go through that. Would never have to.

All he knew all his life was love.

I have to think it was enough.

It would have to be, now.

I spent the day with Gretchen and Magdy and all of Enzo's friends, of whom there were so many, crying and laughing and remembering him, and then at some point I couldn't take any more because everyone had begun to treat me like Enzo's widow and though in a way I felt like I was, I didn't want to have to share that with anyone. It was mine and I wanted to be greedy for it for just a little while. Gretchen saw I had reached some sort of breaking point, and walked me back to her room and told me to get some rest, and that she'd check on me later. Then she gave me a fierce hug, kissed me on the temple and told me she loved me and closed the door behind me. I lay there in Gretchen's bed and tried not to think and did a pretty good job of it until I remembered Enzo's poem, waiting for me in my mail queue.

Gretchen had put my PDA on her desk and I walked over, took the PDA and sat back down on the bed, and pulled up my mail queue and saw the mail from Enzo. I reached to press the screen to retrieve it and then called up the directory instead. I found the folder titled "Enzo Dodgeball" and opened it and started playing the files, watching as Enzo flailed his way around the dodgeball court, taking hits to the face and tumbling to the ground with unbelievable comic timing. I watched until I laughed so hard that I could barely see, and had to put the PDA down for a minute to concentrate on the simple act of breathing in and out.

When I had mastered that again, I picked up the PDA, called up the mail queue, and opened the mail from Enzo.

Zoe:

Here you are. You'll have to imagine the arm waving for now. But the live show is coming! That is, after we have pie. Mmmm...pie.

BELONG

You said I belong to you

And I agree

But the quality of that belonging

Is a question of some importance.

I do not belong to you

Like a purchase

Something ordered and sold

And delivered in a box

To be put up and shown off

To friends and admirers.

I would not belong to you that way

And I know you would not have me so.

I will tell you how I belong to you.

I belong to you like a ring on a finger

A symbol of something eternal.

I belong to you like a heart in a chest

Beating in time to another heart.

I belong to you like a word on the air

Sending love to your ear.

I belong to you like a kiss on your lips

Put there by me, in the hope of more to come.

And most of all I belong to you

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.

[page]


"Demand something back," I said to myself as I waited for the Obin council member to greet me in my state-room. "Demand something back. Demand something back."

I'm definitely going to throw up, I thought.

You can't throw up, I answered myself. You haven't figured out the plumbing yet. You don't know what to throw up into.

That at least was true. The Obin don't excrete or take care of their personal hygiene the same way humans do, and they don't have the same issues with modesty that we do when they're with others of their own race. In the corner of my stateroom was an interesting array of holes and spigots that looked like something that you would probably use for bathroom purposes. But I had no idea what was what. I didn't want to use the thing that I thought was the sink, only to find out later it was supposed to be the toilet. Drinking from the toilet was fine for Babar, but I like to think I have higher standards.

This was definitely going to be an issue in another hour or two. I would have to ask Hickory or Dickory about it.

They weren't with me because I asked to be taken directly to my stateroom when we took off and then asked to be alone for an hour, at which point I wanted to see the council member. I think that by doing that, I messed up some sort of ceremonial welcome from the crew of the Obin transport (called Obin Transport 8532, in typical and boring Obin efficiency), but I didn't let that bother me. It did have the effect I was going for at the moment: I had decided I was going to be a little bit difficult. Being a little bit difficult was going to make it easier, I hoped, to do what I needed to do next. Which was to try to save Roanoke.

My dad had his own plan to do that, and I was going to help him with it. But I was thinking up a plan of my own. All it needed me to do was to demand something back.