Unification - Jeri Taylor [66]
“Your brother and sister… did you ever just— play with them? Children’s games, that kind of thing?”
Ensign Naylor smiled. “Sometimes. Not a lot. There were always chores, and of course there was—”
She stopped and looked down, as though stricken.
“There was what?” Troi asked gently.
“Chores,” repeated Gretchen, “all the time—we had acres of herbs, and of course there’s a lot of work in natural herbs, weeding, weeds are awful since chemicals were outlawed, and everybody had to pitch in—”
“Gretchen,” interrupted Troi, “what are you trying not to talk about?”
The green eyes stared at her. Troi saw deep-seated pain in that look; she knew she had tapped into something. Gretchen tried to laugh, but it came out in a strangled cackle. “What do you mean?”
“There was something else in your life, something you have trouble talking about…”
Ensign Naylor rose abruptly, paced the room, worked to control herself, and finally turned back to Troi. She seemed composed once more. “I guess you’re talking about Casey.” Troi’s head tilted. “Casey?”
“My brother. Baby brother. You probably read about him in my biographical profile.”
“I haven’t read your profile, Gretchen. I do that only if there’s a problem.”
“I see.” Naylor looked as though she wished she hadn’t brought it up. “Tell me about Casey.” “He was sick. He died before he was two.” “Sick with what?”
The young woman hesitated. “I—don’t know. My folks never talked about it much. It was hard on them.” “And how about you?” “Pardon?”
“It must have been hard on you, too. How old were you when he died?”
A brief hesitation. “I was twelve.”
“It must have been awful for you.”
Gretchen Naylor seemed to be trembling slightly, mouth open, eyes focused on empty space in the room. She drew a breath, struggling once again for composure. “Actually, I didn’t even go to the funeral. I had divisional tests that day.” And she burst into tears.
Troi offered her tissues and let her cry for a while, occasionally patting her shoulder and murmuring supportively. She knew the accumulated grief of years was coming to the surface, a mourning that had never taken place. Crying wouldn’t erase that pain, but it would help bring it closer to the surface.
After a while, Naylor mopped at her face. Her words, when she spoke, were occasionally interrupted by bouts of fresh sobs. “I never got to take care of him. Everyone else held him, and took him for walks, and sang songs to him. I would hear them from my room while I was studying. But they wouldn’t let me take the time from my work.” She cried for a few minutes more, then looked up at Troi. “He was a beautiful little boy… so tiny and helpless… but he had eyes like mine. We were the only ones in the family with green eyes… and I always thought he belonged to me a little… but I hardly even got to hold him.”
She rose and started pacing again. “Once I snuck into his room when everybody was asleep, and I sat by his bed all night and whispered to him, about how much I loved him and all the things we’d do together when he got well. The next morning I fell asleep in class, but I didn’t care.”
She stopped pacing and looked at Troi. “That night, he got a very high fever. Before they could bring it down, he went into convulsions, and… and he died. I loved him so much I thought my heart would crack into pieces. But I couldn’t even go to his funeral.”
She sat down again, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry, Counselor. I haven’t thought about this in years.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” “This won’t happen again, I promise you.”
“I hope that’s not so, Gretchen. You’ve never grieved for that little brother. It’s time you went through that.” “I don’t want to think about it.”
“I know. But you must acknowledge the pain, not bury it.”
Naylor took a great shuddering breath, tried a crooked smile. “We were talking about finding a hobby, and it turned into this.”
And a thought struck Troi. “Do you think you might like to volunteer in the nursery?” Naylor looked at her curiously. “The nursery?” “There are always a number of babies being cared