Kia's Biehshah Gift

Part 4 Wedding Night? Uh, No

All the Biehshah including Garat piled onto our bed. Garat, too? A Zheien healer ran in and carried Mr. Links out. The Areonian lawyer was still asleep. Regina held Lisen and two of them carried them onto our bed, too. She smiled at me.

Our Biehshah were every color in the rainbow, all of them so pastel they were nearly white. Garat, for once, didn't say anything but slapped his forearm across Ir's forehead. Der giggled. Garat perched his fingers on top of his head and Der shushed it. I'd seen angry parents do that if a child wouldn't stop something. Maybe twice in 30 years of our colony! Kids don't misbehave like Earthan kids do. Then, Garat sighed and put his other forearm across Ir and I to put his wrist on Der's forehead. His arm trembled.

But, I learned how to just stop thinking about things. I concentrated on Mama singing Amazing Grace. How I missed her! It's been a lot of years.

Reliving my memories of her just made me grieve. All these years, I just kept busy and made jokes. Now I've got a husband. Those years in Rainbow, there was Suma The Rainbow Therapist. She helped me realize that you can't put off grief forever. What would she think about me killing that Ty'nirrhan? That didn't happen in the other future!

When Ir came back nearly dead and Der died, he realized that he wasn't in touch with his griefs, or his loneliness, or anything negative. Der got hurt a lot more often than he did, so he took care of his friend. They went on 3800 years of missions.

My husband and his friend are 3823 years old. When they were born, that was 1800 years before Jesus was born. I never could picture that. Easy to look at my husband's young face and see someone who's 32 like me.

"Ir, do Biehshah die?" Of course they do, that's a stupid question. People died in our colony in Rainbow, though Pirad could usually bring 'em back—but he couldn't bring Der back for a couple years.

His sorrow hit me like a brick. "Kia, I saw thousands of us die. Most of my friends, because of missions."

Garat sighed. "I lost my wife when I was young, and three of my sons. That is when I decided never to leave Leheren. But other family died. Friends died. Nothing I did, all the rules, all the laws, nothing worked. That's why I thought I could not love again."

How hard that would be! I never had responsibility—but I did in Rainbow. That fear of not being able to heal someone. We almost lost the entire colony, lots of times, because someone got a minor injury like a skint knee, but they got scared. "I'm sorry, Garat." I put my forearm on his head, and he held it. I got teary.

"It is the price of having long lifetimes. All of us suffer it. We should work harder and not speak of this. I have work—"

He sat up and I held his arm. "Suma said you can't hold it in forever. That it's better to talk things out."

Garat looked at my hand holding his arm. Then at me. An expression of utter anguish contorted his face. "How to speak of this emptiness, this void! She was so beautiful, she who spoke with softness, the touch that healed me when I came exhausted from arguments, the arms to cool my anger, the—how does one bear it, the grief, the depths of my sorrow?"

I felt rumbles like an earthquake, then a horde of Zheien climbed up on the bed with us! Everyone hugged, then all the twin-fingered people waved up flat cakes of bread. The one next to Garat was the diplomat who helped Earth join first the Alliance, then the Unified, 3 years from now. Ryonne~. Wow!

Garat looked from the platter to Ryonne~ eating it. Then I felt rumbles of his sorrow as he shared a memory with Garat. Who leaned his head against the orange Zheien's shoulder. I didn't hear this telepathic conversation, which took place at many times Earthan speed, but I felt his relief, and Garat's. Zheien do a Remembrance ceremony, and they did in our colony in the other future, too.