"The F Word" (Roll Call)

Posted on Wed Jan 10th, 2024 @ 1:16am by Lieutenant Tate Sullivan Ph.D.

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Various
680 words - 1.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Taking one last look at the children and families having fun before retiring for the day, Tate exhaled peacefully. As always, the ship and crew of the USS Elysium had been through hell and back and there was still healing to do, but for the moment, all seemed right in her corner of the universe.

As Sullivan made her way back to her quarters, she couldn’t help but reflect on all she had been through to get to this moment. If someone had told her seven-year-old self she would one day find joy and satisfaction in the company of family, not only would she have denied it, she would’ve run away in panic.

***


“Tate, I love you! Don’t you ever forget that, ok? No matter what happens, no matter where I am, we’ll always be family!” These words, uttered by Ava Salinger, or at least some version of them, had been spoken on at least two occasions separated by a length of time young Tate couldn’t have articulated, but this time felt different to the seven-year-old object of the desperate woman’s affection.

The mother knelt beside her on her right, frantically trying to keep hold of her little girl’s right hand and to maintain eye contact even while members of law enforcement tried to end the bizarre emotional standoff by yanking on slender shoulders that were more skin and bone rather than distinctly human.

Because Ava was at eye level, Tate had a clear view of her mother’s current state: bloodshot eyes, tattered clothes, and greasy hair. It was a look Tate could’ve described with her eyes closed. Even though she was too young to know exactly what her mom was shoving up her nose or in a vein, in other ways she was knowledgeable beyond her years. Even as she nodded in some form of reassurance, she also understood at some point in the future, they would be right back where they started.

To Tate’s left, her third social worker in as many years yanked at her elbow, working equally hard to pull her in the opposite direction and into the hover car that would take her to yet another foster home. Bizarrely, the social worker could only grasp at an elbow because in the crook of her arm was a stuffed teddy bear she had been given for comfort at the start of today’s domestic drama.

A not insignificant part of the girl’s heart wanted to drop the teddy bear altogether. She didn’t need someone else to take care of, but as would be true in her adult life, she couldn’t bring herself to surrender care of anyone placed in her orbit, not even if that person turned out to be a grown woman who had given her life or a stuffed bear who asked nothing from her.

“We’ll always be family!” It was at the precise moment the final syllable of the F word was uttered the physical connection between two human beings was finally severed, leaving the older woman to continue grasping at the air as if searching for a missing limb even as she was being shoved backward into a hover car of her own.

Meanwhile, Tate had to thrust herself forward toward the social worker to avoid tripping over her own feet and falling flat on her face.

She didn’t look back. She knew it wouldn’t do any good.

A few months later, she would be in a courtroom with two new women on either side of her. This time, the woman on her left, Michelle Sullivan, was asking a man in a dark robe if she could become Tate’s new mother, a proposal that still confused Tate, but seemed to make Michelle happy.

If there was one thing Tate knew to be important, it was making people happy.
When the man in the dark robe pronounced they were now “family,” Michelle took Tate’s hand and smiled.

The F word was a strange one indeed.

 

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