by: R.M. Giles, (2019, revised 2025)
An alert chirped on Eve’s communicator, but she was already awake. She hadn’t slept all night. She jumped in the shower and watched the hot water circle down the drain, thinking about how it was just another element connecting her to the garden. This water would be purified and used to wash and nourish again. Maybe some of it would end up in her coffee in a few weeks. If not, it might help grow the coffee cherries, or separate the flesh of the berry from the bean.
It took her years to perfect the process, but she was the woman to carve miracles out of the wasteland. She remembered the first day she made a pot of coffee, the feel of the warm mug in her hands. She got out of the shower and plaited her wild, dark hair down her back. She hadn’t cut it since she got married last year. Maybe she would soon.
Another alert chirped on her communicator. She zipped up her white suit and kissed her husband on his browbone and cheeks while he murmured good morning and told her to call if she needed anything. She pulled on her boots and grabbed her satchel. She closed the wooden door behind her as quietly as she could. There were no locks or latches to worry about, but sometimes it creaked. The halls were silent and the pink light crept through the viewports, as it did regardless of morning or night.
The metal exoskeleton of the station had been covered with smooth clay walls and floors painted white. The bright lights that lined the ceilings and simulated Earth’s sun had not begun to hum on, and the foreign star lit the hallways warmly. She normally loved this place best before its false mornings, but today, it felt eerie. Eve opened the door to the greenhouse and stepped into the warmth. Usually it was a sweet scent of growth that hung in the air, but today, rot permeated the humid dome.
On Earth, there had been morgues and morticians. There were people paid to make bodies presentable. They pumped them full of chemicals to slow decomposition before they were put in the ground. The Hestians had not had the foresight to bring a mortician with them. They had been focused on life and living well. Maybe it paid off. In twenty years on the station, no one had died until now. When Eve threw back the plastic sheeting, it was the first dead body she had ever seen.
She wanted to mentally separate the flesh from the spirit that had fled. The woman was gone. Now, the body was just carbon for consumption, nutrients for the garden’s soil. She (when it was a she) had requested this. Hestia was her baby. Her hope and prayer. Even her very physical form would serve her people. This place had no want but could make no waste. She had been so strong, and yet this body was so broken and weak. It panged Eve’s heart.
Eve knew it was dangerous to think about her, but couldn’t help herself. It was not just a body. It was Hera’s body. It was Hera. This was Hera’s white braid and Hera’s dark eyes, and Hera’s thin smile and Hera’s little scar on her chin. This was Hera. This was her mentor, who told stories of Earth to all the children.
Eve has been born on the ship, but Hera had been almost seventy when it left Earth. She had told the children stories of her mother, Maria, who had grown and lovingly tended an apple orchard in the vast acreage of her childhood home, a sprawling farm in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hera had told them all about her mother’s apple pie with a flaky crust covered with caramelized sugar sauce and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream from a pinstriped cardboard carton.
Eve thought of a photograph of her own mother on Earth, standing in front of a brick bungalow. The cracked concrete stoop was framed by two blooming hydrangea bushes. Her mother’s dress, stretched over a swollen belly, had been the same blue as the sky that stretched overhead. “It’s the first picture of us together,” her mother always said. It was the only picture of Eve on Earth.
Eve tried to think about hydrangeas as she began her work. She thought of their delicate flowers and soft scent. There wasn’t really any medical equipment to spare for this process. Eve knew that there was no margin for waste. She wondered why no one had thought about how to dispose of bodies. She wondered why it fell to her and not anyone else.
At least she got to start in familiar territory. She began to dig a hole in the soft earth of the area designated for the new orchard. She had been tilling the ground preparing it for some seedlings too big for the greenhouse now. She had thought about enlisting the help of one of her students in digging, but remembered the body. It wasn’t fair of her to subject anyone else to this task. It took her hours to dig the hole alone.
She tried to think clinically. She had managed to get a few pairs of gloves from the doctor’s office, but that was about it. She should have asked for a bone saw or something sharp. She had no idea how she was going to do this. She stripped Hera’s tunic and boots and folded them neatly on top of an aluminum stool in her supply closet. She wondered who would get them. Hera didn’t have a partner, or children. Maybe Wren would want them. They were pretty close, and she was around the same size.
Eve grabbed a heavy apron and slid it over her jumpsuit. She tied a clean rag around her nose and mouth. She snapped a pair of the latex gloves over her hands, and approached the table once more. “I know this is what you want, but I have to tell you I’m not looking forward to it,” she said to the stone cold corpse who could say nothing back.
With beads of sweat on her pale forehead, Eve managed to get Hera into the hole. She then realized that everything she has done thus far was the easy part. She picked up a trowel and smashed it into Hera’s breastbone.
–
Eve’s daughter was born the same day the first bud on Hera’s tree bloomed. The tree was too young, so there was no fruit for the first Harvest. The following, though, was like magic. Eve or Aaron would lift Madeleine up as she grasped for red apples in the tree, shining like Christmas ornaments in between the leaves.
–
Madeleine was washing the dishes one evening when Eve got home from work in the orchard. In the rich crop of years since the first blooming tree, she had become her mother’s echo. Now there were pears, peaches, olives, and oranges. She was a woman like her mother, with her father’s dark eyes and sense of humor.
Eve had gotten good at the process, but it was still messy. She still always jumped in the shower when she got home.
When she got out, Madeline was pulling a dish out of the refrigerator.
“What did you plant for Jacob?” Madeline asked her mother.
“Lemons,” Eve replied with a sigh.
“Lemons?” Madeline echoed. “Good pick. He was always a little sour.” she smiled ear to ear at her own joke, and Eve shook her head, grinning.
“You are terrible.” she said, and Madeline walked around the counter to hug her mother tightly. Eve kissed her on the forehead.
“When’s Dad getting home?” she asked Eve.
“Now,” Aaron said, as he opened the door. Madeline ran and threw her arms around him.
“How was work, baby?” Eve asked.
“It was a really great day. We were teleconferencing with Jane again, you know the Artemis station leader? They seem to be doing really well. They might even be able to visit us next year.”
“You’re kidding? That’s amazing. You’re amazing.” Eve said, and her husband smiled.
Aaron’s eyes twinkled as Madeline hugged him tightly.
“I think this calls for a celebration,” she said, and took her parents’ hands leading them to the counter.
“What did you make, Mads?” Aaron asked.
“Close your eyes!” she exclaimed, and they did. Eve could hear the quiet cacophony of aluminum tableware and stone plates as Madeline grabbed them from the cabinet. She could hear scraping as Madeline served her surprise.
“Open your eyes!” she said, and Eve looked as her daughter set a plate before her.
It was a perfect single slice of apple pie with a flaky golden crust.
Eve stared at it, thinking about the red she washed off in the shower tonight. It would go down the drain, off to be purified, to nourish plants and people and wash dishes. How long before it ended up in her morning cup of coffee? She took a bite.
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