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“I wasn’t, not really. It was an act, though I reached the point where I forgot that. It hurt too much to remain whom I’d been on Earth, so I forced myself into the mold of someone else. Then I talked myself into believing I was that person, until one of my charges refused to let me remain that way. She wormed her way past that shell I’d hidden in, and I thawed a little. I let myself become attached, which I’d sworn I wouldn’t.”
“Where does Doljen come into this tale?”
“I was overdue a wakeup call when the war with Kalquor arrived on our colony. A crew that included Doljen invaded. I was taken prisoner. When I attempted suicide to avoid being mated to a clan, he was assigned to change my mind.”
“I take it he succeeded.”
She sipped her coffee and found it had gone cold. She put it aside. “As far as joining a clan, sight unseen? No. Instead, he blasted all my past lies into dust. He exposed me for who I was. Not Sister Bernadette, the most terrifying nun in the galaxy, but Bernadette Miller from Alaska, the woman who’d loved and lost too many times to count but still wanted her happily-ever-after. He made me face my truth. I fell in love with him for it. Then he left me, saying he loved me too, but we couldn’t be together.”
Silence followed her declaration. The piece of meat Tumsa had speared remained on the end of his fork, and he tapped it absentmindedly on his plate. After a few moments, he set it down, pushed his plate away, and folded his hands on the table. He gazed at her.
“Doljen was facing a court martial at war’s end. It had been postponed until then, because Kalquor needed every available man in the fight against Earth. My guess is, that’s why he abandoned you.” Tumsa pursed his lips, and for an instant, Bernadette saw a spark of anger. “He pled guilty rather than defending his actions. That was probably his plan all along. Prison allowed him to avoid Halmiko and me.”
“What did he do? Doljen was the last person I’d suspect of a crime.”
“You know what happened to my brother? Did Halmiko tell you?”
“He was an addict. His drug use and drinking led to him being killed during a kurble game.”
Anger flared again, but it faded quickly into dejection. “That’s pretty much the long and short of it.”
“Halmiko said he and Doljen shouldn’t have allowed him to play.”
“By that line of logic, I shouldn’t have left town the night before the game. I knew there’d be parties. Zakla was using again, and he’d be looking to get drunk or high. He did both.”
“You had other family obligations. Your parents needed you.” At least Hal had been upfront about that part.
“Two of my fathers were injured in a freak accident. I had to see to them, but Zakla needed me to babysit him. To keep him from doing what he did whether I was around or not.” Tumsa picked at a thread on the tablecloth.
“You no longer blame Hal or Doljen.”
“I stopped accusing them a few days after Zakla died and the worst of my grief passed. By then, it was too late.” Tumsa’s gaze had drifted over Bernadette’s head and gone misty. He stared into some far-off place. “I said such terrible things to them. Especially Doljen. A single word from him, and Zakla wouldn’t have played, no matter how hard the coach would have pushed.That’s what I kept coming back to, along with how well Halmiko understood my brother and his tricks.”
“Grief can make us monsters.” Bernadette remembered her father’s shouts after her mother had filed for divorce. His shouts, then the knife. The screams.
“Monster. I was certainly that. The whole time I was shouting at my clanmates, there was a voice in my head warning me to stop. Zakla would have eventually found a way to self-destruct no matter who was there and what they did to stop him.” Tumsa rubbed his face. “It wasn’t Doljen or Halmiko’s responsibility to take care of him. I had no cause to blame them. But I did, and I destroyed my clan.”
“Hal seems to think he was at fault too.”
“His only transgression, but it was a big offense, was defending himself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He relied on Doljen’s clearing Zakla to play. He said that was why he didn’t stop him from doing so.”
“Way to throw your clanmate under the bus,” Bernadette muttered.
“Halmiko was almost as close to Zakla as I was. They were a team on and off the field, the best of friends when my brother’s addictions didn’t set them at odds. Halmiko’s guilt, that Zakla died with himright there, was more than he could stand. He could no more accept fault in those first days than I could. Our anger came from our shame. We were desperate to avoid accepting we’d failed Zakla when we’d worked so hard to keep him sober and alive.”
“How does this end with Doljen in prison?”
“In our search for a scapegoat, we made him the villain. He’d given Zakla the test. He hadn’t kept him from playing.” Tumsa closed his eyes, as if to shut off the memories. Bernadette’s heart throbbed at the agony masking his features. “I finally came tomy senses and apologized to him. Ancestors, I chased him and Halmiko every second of the day, begging for forgiveness. But I’d lost his trust. Doljen couldn’t even look at me anymore. One day I woke up, and he was gone. Just vanished. We called law enforcement. A week later, we discovered he’d joined the fleet. Earth had just declared war, and he’d already left in a spyship.”
He stopped talking, as if that explained everything. Bernadette huffed impatiently. “I don’t understand how he goes from there to jail.”
“He lied about his clan status to join the fleet. If a clanned man signs up for military service rather than being drafted, his clanmates have to agree to it. By lying on a government document and joining without his clan’s permission, Doljen broke two laws.”
Bernadette stared at him. “They sent him to jail for that?”
