Sand | Obidala

2.

The farm is rotting, falling apart, though big enough to house a herd of Bantha. Instead, there is only us, wandering through empty, dusty rooms like ghosts - avoiding each other, or piercing like stranded cats when we inadvertently meet.

I fear what I might see closing my eyes, so I don't sleep. When I am awake, I'm numb, and my head is void. I do all I can to keep it this way.

The babies were born a few weeks early and are weak and wrinkly. Padme is weak too, frail as a bird, barely able to stand, eats nothing. I somewhat expect her to simply vanish, one day.
She can't look at me, my presence alone pains her.

A few days after our arrival, she calls my name. This is the first time I enter her room or hear her voice. We have the longest words exchange we'll have for days.

Padme is sitting on her bed, looking like she's not here; red cheeks on a pale face, probably fevered, hair frames her features like dark curtains. I realise I've never seen her wearing it down before.
Her white nightgown is open, a small head covers her bare breast.

"They told me you can't do that," I tell her.

She stares at the nothing outside the window.

"You're too debilitated to feed them. They gave me a medicine I must give to you to... you know."

I foolishly hope that talking of this will spare me.

Her gaze finally sets on me. "I need you to say it out loud."

I fight to keep my eyes steady. "He's dead. I killed him."

Liar.

"How?"

She waits. I say nothing.

"Did he suffer?"

"He didn't."

Disgusting liar.

She looks down at the head on her lap, and I imitate her.

"I'm not taking any medicine."

I have no authority to make her change her mind, but I can get something back. "Provided that you stop fasting."

Over the following days, Padme still refuses to let me take care of her but is too tired to decline my help looking after her children. I try to replicate what she does, wondering who taught her.

Anyway, I learn how to change a newborn (I swear that, if I have ever been adamant about something in my life, it was that I would have never.) You grab those chicken legs in one hand and let the other do the rest. Hold steady and try to be as quick as you can, they are slippery like fishes.

At night, if Padme is sleeping or already feeding someone, I take who's crying and just... I don't know, try things until something works.

A week later, I'm half asleep in a decrepit rocking chair in the courtyard. I got outside to let Padme rest.
Luke - at least I believe is him, I can't tell one from the other until I unswaddle them - naps on my chest, in a blanket.
He has been crying for an hour straight, I have no idea why, and now is red and exhausted. I'm exhausted as well.

The desert wind lulls us, the sky is the blackest, the loneliest I have ever seen. My mind slips.

Sometimes, I forget there's nothing left. The Temple and its people might be still there, I just went away, nothing else happened.

A sharp thought, like a clean wound. Old friends, lost friends - everyone's dead.

I hold Luke closer. This child resembles him. Not who I met last time, just Anakin.

I managed to keep myself empty until tonight, and now I am making a mess.

We don't really have meals. We just grab stuff from the pantry, possibly when we are alone, and eat it standing somewhere.

Despite this frugality, the provisions they gave us on Polis Massa are not infinite. I struggle between our need for supplies and my fear of leaving her alone until I can't postpone any longer.

Finally, I decide Padme is well enough to spend a few hours on her own and rush the long trip to town on the rusty speeder I bought when we arrived.

Getting away from the choking eeriness of the farm should bring some relief, though the desert, Mos Espa... Anakin is in everything I see.
I buy all I can aimlessly, bundle it on my vehicle and hasten back.

It is dusk when I arrive to find Padme sitting on the pourstone doorsteps. Her hands and clothes are dirty, the hair is a dishevelled clump. If it weren't impossible, I'd say she is smiling.

"I cleaned the house while you were away." She wipes her sweated face, leaving a brown trail of dirt on her cheek. "Well, part of it."

"Oh," I comment.

We bring my purchases inside in silence.

"Half of what there is in this farm is broken," she continues, as talking to the kitchen counter.

We keep storing food and clothes for a while before I answer.

"I will try to do something for the vaporators, first. So that we can have more water."

She cracks a sad, distant smile.
Fixing mechanisms was someone's else field.
I wish I had kept my mouth shut.

It takes two weeks, a couple of trips to town for spare parts, some swearing and a lot of sweating under two Suns, but I fix those vaporators anyway.
They snarl and rumble like angered Anoobas, but they work.

We celebrate with long, lavish showers. Wrapped in fresh towels, we all feel brand new.

"My Master used to say there are quite a few things a hot shower can't cure," I blurt out.

You di'kut.

But Padme just nods, smiling at the baby in her arms.
Her daughter grins back, and this is the first time I see Leia's smile. I'm so excited that I open my mouth to remark it, but no word comes out.
Leia has just learnt how to keep her head steady and peers at me, as waiting for my comment.

"Your skin is burnt," says Padme, pondering my shoulders. "You are so bright I could see you from Mos Eisley."

I shrug.

She hands me Leia and starts rummaging into in a chest that laid forgotten in a corner since our arrival. She gets back to me with a small bottle in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.

"Here, lotion. Put it on."

We stare at each other until she lowers her gaze. Awkward, though in a weirdly nice way.

"What's with the scissors?" I ask.

"Cut my hair, please."

"No," I answer without a thought. "...I mean, why?"

"Too hot, too dirty. Can't take care. Can't stand it anymore." She wants to sound cheerful, but last words were desperate.

"Can't, Padme. I'm sorry."

I cut Anakin's hair for ten years.
We managed to ruin the first five lighthearted minutes we spent on Tatooine.

"It's okay." She pulls a lock from her forehead and cuts it near her skin.

I raise my hand to stop her - don't know why - return Leia, lay a towel on the floor, and put a chair on it.

"All of it," she says, sitting.

I run my fingers through her wet hair, and her eyes close.
Last time I touched her was on Polis Massa.
Last time I touched Anakin like this was a lifetime ago.

"Are you sure?" I ask, and she nods.

When I'm done, Padme looks like a child - a sad, thin, scared one. Her eyes seem even bigger, her face even smaller.

She caresses her new head once and doesn't bother finding a mirror.