Star Wars - Kenobi

Shadows Inn. But Lady ’s compartment dwarfed any room to be had on Kerner Plaza, and so, after dropping off their cargo, the family had simply stayed aboard.
    They’d left only to close her bank account and to dispose of Gloamer’s snazzy landspeeders. One, they’d abandoned with a note of apology in Garn Delroix’s lot. The JG-8 he’d leased to Orrin wouldn’t be coming back, after all. The other, they’d sold to a dealership close to the spaceport. They’d deposited the proceeds, along with what extra she could afford, in a parcel addressed to Leelee at the Claim, for distribution to the Settlers’ Fund members.
    It wasn’t enough. But it was necessary.
    Annileen had barely felt the ship’s launch, refusing to stand glued to the window as her children had. She’d wandered the inner halls for hours as the vessel orbited, awaiting rendezvous with a shuttle bearing more passengers. Annileen looked like she belonged, in the fancy Chandrilan gown her husband had bought her; she finally had a place to wear it. But she didn’t feel as though she’d gone anywhere yet.
    No, her thoughts had remained on the ground, still back at the little hut on the edge of the mountains. Kallie had been devastated by Ben’s refusal to join them; Jabe, simply confused. Annileen had been both. She had walked and wondered, replaying every short moment she’d spent with him. Trying to see how she’d misunderstood.
    She didn’t know if she believed Ben’s family story at all, and she wondered again and again if she’d left too abruptly. Orrin’s deception had stung her, and Ben’s words had struck her hard. But clearly the man was genuinely committed to something that kept him there, and that was what mattered.
    In the end, she’d been left with a puzzle as impenetrable as the Jundland Wastes themselves. And now, in her cabin at last, she could see that rugged land as it began to slip behind the terminator into night.
    Down there, the suns would be setting on Mos Eisley, with the scoundrels freer to work their mischief. Dewbacks on the ranches would settle down and snooze. Sand People in the hills would be on the move, preying on the helpless. And patrons of the Claim would come to terms with the new ownership and drink to forget their workdays. She hoped someone was keeping Bohmer’s carafe full.
    Her children joined her at the window. “We’ll be going into hyperspace soon,” Kallie said. She looked at her mother. “Thinking about Ben?”
    Annileen shook her head. “The store,” she said. “When your father died, I swore to myself I wouldn’t let the store go under, if it was the last thing I did. It was all I could do for him, to remember him.”
    “You did fine, Mom,” Jabe said.
    She looked at him, so handsome in his dress clothes. He looked just like his father. “I did do fine,” she said, putting her arm around him. “And I pushed you to help me, and I’m sorry. That wasn’t your dream.” She smiled weakly. “It wasn’t mine, either. But I felt like I had to stay for it.”
    Kallie moved closer, and Annileen embraced them both.
    “I think … I think maybe Ben’s doing the same thing,” Annileen said. “He’s not staying on Tatooine because he wants to. I think he thinks he has to. Maybe somebody entrusted him with something, something he feels he has no right to abandon. Someone else’s dream, maybe—like Dannar and the store.”
    Sniffling, Kallie looked up. “But you’re leaving.”
    Eyes glistening, Annileen gave a crumpled smile. “I did my time,” she said. “Ben hasn’t, yet. But who knows? Maybe in five or ten or twenty years, he’ll have done his time, too.”
    Her children at her side, she looked down from space as the ship’s engines revved up. “Good-bye, Ben,” Annileen whispered. And thank you.
    Outside, the world blurred and vanished.
    Meditation
    It has been a long couple of days. But I don’t feel tired.
    This was another test, Qui-Gon, wasn’t it? When you finally answer, you must tell me what you thought of my solution.
    I know where I am now. I’m in the rain shadow. Being near all the big events in the galaxy—I was on the mountaintop for many years. Now I’m on the back, on the lee side. It’s supposed to be dry here.
    But I’ll leave the shadow one day.
    I’ve been keeping watch tonight over the Lars farmhouse—and looking to see something else. Up there, over the horizon—I think that must have been the passenger ship. Stars don’t