An old man walked into the kitchen just as I was about to take the first bite. I didn’t know who he was, but everyone else seemed to, and they all slowly put their forks down and pushed away from the table. I did the same, even though I didn’t know why.

“I’m not here to interrupt!” the old man had said, laughing, and the tension broke like glass.

Evie cut a piece of cake for the old man—he got the piece that said love. Then he pulled up a chair beside mine. He was kind and funny—he acted like he didn’t know how to use a fork and let me show him how. He kept dropping it, or using the wrong end of it, or trying to balance the cake on the handle instead of piercing it with the tines.

I remember everyone at the table laughing—true, hooting, uncontrollable laughter—as the old man just gave up and ate the cake with his fingers.

He nudged me. I grinned—there was icing on his nose, I recall—and I scooped up a handful of cake in one hand and crammed it in my face.

And then we were all eating cake with our hands, not even bothering with plates as we reached for more. Crumbs and icing were everywhere—smearing the tablecloth, in our hair, under our fingernails—and no one cared at all.

It was the happiest day of my life.

The next morning, Evie woke me up and helped me pack my few belongings in a bag. I would be spending the next year with the butchers, and there would be no cake at all that year.

“Who was that man who came yesterday?” I asked.

Evie was crying as she folded my clothes, but she laughed at my question. “Silly! That was Eldest, of course!”

•••

I close my eyes and think of the way my teeth cracked the paper-thin crust on the top of the creamy icing, the way the cake filled my mouth as I chewed.

I glance at my bed, at the threadbare old blanket I had as a child that Eldest kept for me—or for himself. I pick up the blanket from the edge of my bed, press it against my face, and think about all Eldest was, and all he wasn’t. All this ship has been, and all it will never be.

For a moment, I forget that today is the day I leave the ship, shut my eyes, and breathe in the scent of a thousand dreams.

Before heading to the Shipper Level, I re-activate the wi-com system for the rest of the ship. Within sconds, Shelby coms me.

“We’re prepped and ready to begin planet-landing, sir,” she says in my ear.

I smile as I walk away from my room. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 56

56

AMY