In Search of Hope

In Search of Hope The hover car cruised slowly down the street in the black, cold night. It was oh one thirty on a Sunday night and most of the homes they passed were dark, but the home at the end of the street seemed to brood in its darkness. The young man at the helm steered the little craft into the driveway and, after positioning the vehicle correctly in its parking spot, carefully settled the car onto the ground. He switched off the lights but kept the power on, maintaining the interior heat against the cold of the exterior, the gentle hum of the reactor the only sound in the otherwise silent cabin. His companion, his sister, sighed in the darkness, her eyes trained on the house before them. She sighed again deeply and when she spoke, her soft lilting voice showed her worry. “Do you think he made it to bed tonight?” James Picard shrugged brusquely and although his heart squeezed in sympathy, his voice was derisive. “Probably not.” Adele Picard turned to her brother and gently admonished him. “Don’t be so hard on him Jim.” The eighteen year old grunted and shook his head. “He’s so bloody stubborn! Why Delly? Why won’t he just accept the truth?” “Because he can’t Jim, to do so would be to admit she’s gone.” In anger and frustration, James hit the steering yoke. “But it would help him Delly! He’d be able to grieve and get over it. God…the way things are now…and have been for the past two years…surely it would be a relief to him.” Adele closed her eyes against her pain and sighed. “He can’t Jim. He’ll keep searching…and hoping…to do otherwise…” The young man’s eyes glittered in the darkness and he muttered, “You know about the drinking don’t you.” Adele lowered her head and nodded, saying softly, “Yes.” “If he shows up at Headquarters pissed he’ll lose his job, his reputation…all those bloody years in the fleet, all he’s achieved will count for nothing.” “I don’t think he drinks during the day, just at night. Maybe it helps him to sleep.” James snorted. “Oh yeah…sleeping at his desk in the study doesn’t count Delly. Besides he’s not asleep, he’s passed out.” The callous disregard for the man saddened the young woman deeply. She sighed. “Come on Jim be nice, he’s going through hell.” James turned to look at the darkened house and growled. “It’s a hell of his own choosing Delly. I can’t find sympathy for a man who insists on wallowing in self delusion.” Her patience beginning to wane, Adele’s voice sharpened. “It’s not self delusion James. Look, try and see this from his perspective. There was no body…no incontrovertible proof of her death! You’re asking him to accept the 1