Two hundred and fourteen,Joseph Sisko thought, updating his tally as he carefully made his way down the antebellum mansion’s polished hardwood staircase. One-hundred and twenty-three.
Keeping track of the numbers had become a daily ritual, one that Joseph observed every morning as soon as he realized he was awake. He had become religious about it from the beginning; it had given him something to focus on other than the procession of new aches and ailments that each new day brought. No matter that carrying the ever-increasing weight of those days threatened to crush his frail bones. He hadto count the days, dragging them with him wherever he went.
Two hundred and fourteen. One hundred and twenty-three.The first figure represented the number of days that had elapsed since his only son, Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, had disappeared into that damned alien hellhole near Bajor.
The second marked the span of days since Benjamin’s only son—Joseph’s beloved grandson, Jake—had gone into the wormhole after his father, only to be swallowed up without a trace as well.
Passing through the broad atrium and into the kitchen, Joseph contemplated the sunlight that streamed in through the French windows, and yet brought him no joy. The August day—was it August already?—was already shaping up to be hot and muggy, but would surely be easier to face after he’d had his morning cup of coffee. He glanced up at the old-fashioned analog clock hanging above the range. Twelve fifty-five.
Afternoon coffee, then.He shrugged, then set about grinding the beans, ignoring the cold, persistent ache in his fingers, his neck, his shoulders. His soul. Morning. Noon. Night. What was the damned difference?
He paused as the water boiled and the coffee brewed, looking around the kitchen. Nothing of any consequence had changed here in years. On the far wall, above the sink, hung a framed photograph of the façade of his restaurant. The building that housed Sisko’s Creole Kitchen for the past quarter-century had been a landmark in New Orleans’ French Quarter for more than two hundred years. For Joseph, working in his kitchen among his loyal staff—serving a daily procession of new and regular customers—had always provided refuge from life’s troubles. During later years, marked by heart trouble and too-frequent entreaties from employees, friends, and customers that he slow down, he found in the charming old building a comforting reminder of easier times, when Judith and Ben were still children. In those days, he’d never heard of shape-shifters or the Dominion, and never had cause to consider the casual damage that Starfleet could inflict on ordinary people who were just trying to make lives for themselves.
I raised you to be a chef, Ben. For all the good it did me.
On the shelf beside the sink lay an upended plastic bottle, its cap askew. The heart medicine. Joseph had been planning on getting the prescription refilled for the better part of a week now, but it hadn’t seemed all that urgent. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he heard Ben’s voice rising in wrath: Damn it, Dad! Ask somebody on your staff to help you. Can’t you cooperate just one time?
The glare from the early-afternoon sun revealed the thickening patina of dust that covered the picture’s glass frame. He reached up to touch Ben’s inscription of one of Joseph’s own favorite aphorisms: “Worry and doubt are the greatest enemies of a great chef.”His finger came away streaked with a paste of old dirt and cooking grease. Searching his memories, he found he couldn’t recall the last time he’d given this place a really good cleaning. Perhaps this, too, simply didn’t matter all that much anymore.
A few minutes later, Joseph stood before the kitchen sink, holding a mug of hot, strong coffee in his hand. The hand trembled sharply, and a copious splash of near-boiling liquid forced him to place the cup on the counter. Cursing, he plunged his scalded hand beneath a stream of cold water—and glimpsed his own reflection in one of the metal pans he’d left on the drying rack.
He shut the water off, staring at the gaunt image he’d been trying so hard to avoid seeing in the bathroom mirror over the past few months. He wondered when exactly he had decided to stop shaving, but couldn’t recall. And when had his hair gone so completely white?
Joseph lifted the pan and stuffed it haphazardly into one of the kitchen’s lower cabinets. The motion seemed to have displaced several other objects located farther back on the shelf; he ignored the sounds of tumbling crockery.
The house stood silent again, except for the thready beat of his own heart and the hum of the wall clock that tirelessly measured out his remaining hours and days.
Was I supposed to do something today?He picked up his coffee, more carefully this time, and considered the coming evening without any real enthusiasm. The dinner crowd would arrive tonight, just as it always had, first in dribs and drabs, and later in waves. It would be just another night, indistinguishable from the years of nights on either side of it.
Enough of this.He set his half-full cup aside and pulled his thin cotton robe tightly around his narrow frame. Opening the blinds above the kitchen sink, he looked out into the vegetable garden. The sight immediately jogged his memory, bringing the day’s agenda to the front of his thoughts. Walking to the back door, he slipped his feet into the work boots he’d left on the mat. Grabbing the gardening gloves from the peg beside the door, he ventured outside.
Jays and yellowhammers sang through the green canopy of longleaf pines and cypresses as Joseph deliberately picked his way down the narrow stone steps, wary of falling. Soon he was approaching the neat, green rows that had called to him from the kitchen window. Looking closely, he could see that all was not well in the garden today. Ropy, hairy strands of grape-scented kudzu vine had wormed their way through the neatly manicured rows of squash, cayenne peppers, and new potatoes, like some implacable Jem’Hadar road-building project. We can send starships to the ends of the galaxy. But we still can’t do a blessed thing about these damned weeds.
There was something oddly reassuring about that.
Donning his gloves, he knelt on aching knees, pausing as his heart began to race disconcertingly. Minutes later, after he was satisfied that the worst of the discomfort had passed, he thrust his gnarled fingers into the black earth and got to work.
Gabrielle Vicente let herself into the house with the emergency key that Judith Sisko had surreptitiously given her during her visit last Easter. That day, Mr. Sisko’s daughter had asked every member of the Creole Kitchen’s staff—out of earshot of her father, of course—to keep a particularly close eye on Joseph. Gabrielle had been among the first to notice the old man’s gradual deterioration since he had learned of his son’s disappearance last Thanksgiving. Then, some four months later, when his grandson Jake had also gone missing, Mr. Sisko’s decline had grown precipitous.
She stepped into the foyer, fearing the worst. “Mr. Sisko?”
There was no reply. Other than the clicking of her flat shoes on the ancient hardwood floor, the house was as silent as a tomb. The thought made her wince, and she banished it.
She continued calling out as she made her way through the large living room and entered the kitchen. A cup of coffee sat on the countertop beside the sink. She touched it, noting that it was still warm.
She heaved a sigh of relief.
Then she raised her eyes to the kitchen window and looked out across the vegetable garden.
Joseph Sisko lay sprawled in the dirt, silent and unmoving.