Starting over

Started by Alese “Alice” Westergaard, December 01, 2019, 05:51:19 PM

Alese “Alice” Westergaard

"Alese.... Alese you must eat..."  The food sat untouched.  It didn't matter what anyone said.  The young woman had no desire to eat.  She had not left her room for days.  She had cut her hair off in mourning, her face marked with ash.  She had done nothing but mourn for days since her child died.  The sickness had not been swift, but it had been brutal, burning the child up from the inside out, no matter everything the desperate mother had tried.  The medical supplies she so desperately needed hadn't come.  Delayed by the war.  A blockade by the Alliance. She had cursed the Purplebellies each and every one. 

The letters she had written her husband didn't make it to him in time.  In fact, they came back to her unopened, along with her husband's body in a box.  After that she stopped speaking entirely, wouldn't leave her room, wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep.  Finally, the doctor was called in.  She didn't fight when they doped her up and her family took care of her. 

The ashes of her husband and child were placed together in an urn.  It sat on the table beside her bed, which is where she spent most of her time, curled under the double wedding ring quilt she had made for her marriage bed.  Her family tried to get her to come out. To socialize.  To live. 

Finally, in a last-ditch effort to try to give her something to live for they decided the best thing to do would be to marry her to her husband's older brother.  His own wife had died some years before and he had been injured during the war. They thought having someone to take care of might do her good. The families decided it would be a good match.  The problem was no one bothered to ask her what she wanted.

She didn't protest but two days before the wedding was to take place she was just gone.  The wedding quilt, the urn with her husband and child's ashes and her clothing...all gone.

She spent the next several years traveling the 'Verse, working as a cook on this ship or that.  Never staying in one place too long.  All during the war she kept moving and even after it was over.  There was no going home for her.

She was a good cook and was able to find decent work.  She kept to herself mostly, taking care of the vitals but not socializing over much with the crew.  Her last tour ended early when one of the crew members got too handsy and she cracked him in the head with a skillet. They left her at the Iscariot space station and that's where she decided to make her new home.

The rooms above the restaurant weren't much, but they were hers.  The furniture was all second hand, but comfortable enough.  She used some drapes to separate the sleeping area from the rest of the apartment, the double wedding ring quilt covering the bed, a plain but polished urn setting on the table by her bed next to the lamp.

There was a broken in couch that folded out into an extra bed, a desk and a small table with personal sized fridge and microwave in the main room. Her own private bathroom.  More than enough space for just her.

She was excited about opening the restaurant.  Tired of traveling.  Ready to maybe have some sort of a life.  It had been nearly 7 years now of constant moving, it was time to settle down and start over.

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