Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)

one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and ... now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement."
    "It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live."
    It took a moment -- a sob, and then a hiccough -- but then she did laugh. A sweet, soft chuckle that was such a welcome sound to Miro. Welcome because it was a voice he knew and loved, a laugh that he liked to hear. And it was his dear friend who was doing the laughing. His dear friend Jane. The laugh, the voice of his beloved Val. One person now. After all this time, he could reach out his hand and touch Jane, who had always been impossibly far away. Like having a friendship over the telephone and finally meeting face-to-face.
    He touched her again, and she took his hand and held it.
    "I'm sorry I let my own weakness get in the way of what we're doing," said Jane.
    "You're only human," said Miro.
    She looked at him, searched his face for irony, for bitterness.
    "I mean it," said Miro. "The price of having these emotions, these passions, is that you have to control them, you have to bear them when they're too strong to bear. You're only human now. You'll never make these feelings go away. You just have to learn not to act on them."
    "Quara never learned."
    "Quara learned, all right," said Miro. "It's just my opinion, but Quara loved Marcão, adored him, and when he died and the rest of us felt so liberated, she was lost. What she does now, this constant provocation -- she's asking somebody to abuse her. To hit her. The way Marcão always hit Mother whenever he was provoked. I think in some perverse way Quara was always jealous of Mother when she got to go off alone with Papa, and even though she finally figured out that he was beating her up, when Quara wanted her papa back the only way she knew of to demand his attention was -- this mouth of hers." Miro laughed bitterly. "It reminds me of Mother, to tell the truth. You've never heard her, but in the old days, when she was trapped in marriage with Marcão and having Libo's babies -- oh, she had a mouth on her. I'd sit there and listen to her provoking Marcão, goading him, stabbing at him, until he'd hit her -- and I'd think, Don't you dare lay a hand on my mother, and at the same time I'd absolutely understand his impotent rage, because he could never, never, never say anything that would shut her up. Only his fist could do it. And Quara has that mouth, and needs that rage."
    "Well, how happy for us all, then, that I gave her just what she needed."
    Miro laughed. "But she didn't need it from you. She needed it from Marcão, and he's dead."
    And then, suddenly, Jane burst into real tears. Tears of grief, and she turned to Miro and clung to him.
    "What is it?" he said. "What's wrong?"
    "Oh, Miro," she said. "Ender's dead. I'll never see him again. I have a body at last, I have eyes to see him, and he isn't there."
    Miro was stunned. Of course she missed Ender. She had thousands of years with him, and only a few years, really, with me. How could I have thought she could love me? How can I ever hope to compare with Ender Wiggin? What am I, compared to the man who commanded fleets, who transformed the minds of trillions of people with his books, his speakings, his insight, his ability to see into the hearts of other people and speak their own most private stories back to them? And yet even as he resented Ender, even as he envied him because Jane would always love him more and Miro couldn't hope to compete with him even in death, despite these feelings it finally came home to him that yes, Ender was dead. Ender, who had transformed his family, who had been a true friend to him , who had been the only man in Miro's life that he longed with all his heart to be , Ender was gone. Miro's tears of grief flowed along with Jane's.
    "I'm sorry," said Jane. "I can't control any of my emotions."
    "Yes, well, it's a common failing, actually," said Miro.
    She reached up and touched the tears on his cheek. Then she touched her damp finger to her own cheek. The tears commingled. "Do you know why I thought of Ender right then?" she said. "Because you're so much like him. Quara annoys you as much as she annoys anyone, and yet you look past that and see what her needs are, why she says and does these things. No, no, relax, Miro, I'm not expecting you to be like Ender, I'm just saying that one of the things I liked best