Speculative Journeys by Irene Radford

Author:Irene Radford [Radford, Irene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Short stories, Irene Radford, P.R. Frost, Sharon Lee
ISBN: 9781611384321
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2014-11-18T08:00:00+00:00

This story began as a response to the Deep Water Gulf Oil Spill. I didn’t have time to finish the story for Breaking Waves, a charity anthology for relief of the oil spill. Editing the anthology cost me a lot of emotional energy. Writing my story had to wait. Later it found a home with Buzzy Multimedia. The message is still valid.

Litany of Hope

Irene Radford

My life has evolved in ways I never could imagine. Now I must live the life of a fugitive . . . This is the first day of my new life. But wait, it did not begin today. It began . . . it began half a lifetime ago. Half of my lifetime anyway.

<<>>

“Hope Sally Henderson, must you walk like an elephant?” Mama didn’t turn away from her dishwashing or watching the morning news on her laptop on the kitchen counter.

I paused one foot halfway into the kitchen. I was in a hurry on my way to grabbing breakfast and not paying attention to manners or walking “lady like”. My birthday breakfast and maybe . . . just maybe I’d have a surprise awaiting me.

Only reason Mom would notice I walked heavily was if she had a cake in the oven.

I peeked to make sure the big mixing bowl was among the dirty dishes. At twelve, while too sophisticated to demand a birthday cake, I still wanted one. The special one, three layers of white cake with boiled icing topped with coconut and nests of jelly beans. That was my cake.

More cake than just Mama and I could eat. I looked for evidence that Daddy had come home—the only present I really wanted.

His ship captain’s hat wasn’t hanging on the rack in the mud room off the kitchen. My stomach plummeted at yet another birthday spent without him. Three years in a row now.

“Are you remembering today, Daddy?” I asked the air, hoping he’d hear my thoughts on his oil skimmer ship in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. “Please, Daddy, have a weekend off soon.”

At least he was in the Chesapeake, close enough to come home to Virginia Beach on his days off. If he ever got another one. That damned oil spill kept him and every other skimmer crew busy every damn day, day in, day out. They only made port to take on supplies or send an injured crewman to hospital.

“Sorry, Mom,” I grumbled to the only parent in residence. If I couldn’t have Dad, at least I got my cake.

I let my netbook drop onto the kitchen table, while I fished for my flash drive in my backpack. The tiny thing always slipped out of its pocket and nestled in the bottom, beneath all my other junk.

Mom rounded on me with a glare. “You will never be a lady, clunking and thunking about.” She snapped a lot when dad was gone. Not that she was home much either.

I wondered if the news held information that would send her off on another job analyzing fish and water and seabed samples for UNOMA, the UN Oceans Monitoring Agency.

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