Dear Aunt Harriet,

If you’re reading this note it means you survived. That’s wonderful news: I always loved you the most. The notes I sent out with Aunt Anita and the cousins are friendly letters, I promise, us being kin and all, and I surely hope they survive too. But I’m happiest about you. Not that I’ve ever forgotten that time on the beach when the seagull swooped down and took my cotton candy, and the five of you all laughed like drains, and nobody would buy me another one or even any saltwater taffy, though I’m ready to let bygones be bygones if you are too.

I like to imagine you’re reading this apology on a tropical paradise vacation planet with a breathable atmosphere and an air temperature between twenty and thirty-five degrees, in a lounge chair looking out onto a black sand beach. I hope you’re drinking a cocktail made with the bottle of rum I strapped to your leg before ejecting you, savoring the mix of old Earth liquor and local fruit juices, while some planetbound attorney figures out all the visa paperwork. You deserve that kind of a break after so long in the icebox. I mean, even in the best case, which this definitely wasn’t, interstellar travel is no joke.

I’m not going to pretend that I had no choice. Of course I did: it was all y’all or it was me, alone and hurtling through darkness so fast the ship outran starlight.

You’ve never been awake out there on your lonesome, only seen it in ten thousand videos, but it’s enough to make anybody lose the plot for a spell. Imagine it happened to you, the only one conscious while everyone else was in deep stasis cryosleep in the icebox. You could only watch so many episodes of Sanctuary Moon while eating standard rations before you lost it. Soon enough you were talking to the coffee dispenser, which said you had enough already, or the timelock on the liquor cabinet which said you had too much entirely. You forgot the names and faces of everyone who wasn’t a character in a video drama, and you couldn’t even stare lovingly at your family because the icebox windows were frosted over. Even if you could, you’d just want to yell and scream and ask how they ever talked you into being pilot anyway. It helped that they’d paid off your gambling debts, though surely you’d have broken your losing streak right soon regardless.

Anyway, on my flyby near the Zeta Herculis trinary system, I put in at the outpost to fuel up. It’s a tiny thing swallowed by the deep darkness, orbiting a safe distance from the stars, which in its case means they’re pinpricks of light, hardly bigger than Venus appears from Earth. The docking bay reported room for half a dozen ships, no more. I figured I could have my own rum cocktail or two that didn’t require negotiating with the liquor cabinet, and if anyone was around, talk or maybe a little something more. I didn’t have high hopes for either the cocktails or the companionship, it being an automated outpost, a tiny little pimple on the ass-end of nowhere, but between when I checked with their docking bay and when I arrived, a freighter had pulled in. The captain, one Octavia Gwynne, was as charming as I might have hoped and mixed a spectacular Mai Tai too. I talked the timelock into releasing some rum, she juiced the pineapple straight from her own cargo. I was smitten.

Right now, Aunt, I can imagine you clucking your tongue at me, a young woman led astray by a temptress. But you don’t understand: she didn’t merely possess a cargo of pineapples, but also ribeye steaks, whole chickens, wild-caught salmon, broccoli, baby lettuce, genuine homegrown tomatoes, and the sweetest plums you’ve ever tasted. (Also, zucchini. So much zucchini.)

At this point, I can see you shaking your head. A young lady making parley with a harlot pirate, but it’s not so! I saw the paperwork: she owned the cargo outright, and was willing to sell or trade. But Captain Gwynne was a wholesaler, not licensed for retail, so I couldn’t just buy a week’s worth of groceries and be on my way. I would’ve, I promise, but that offer wasn’t on the table.

Do you know what Duck a l’Orange was worth to me after years of sprinkling protein and vegetable powders on rice? I was half-mad of loneliness too: it was all I could do to put my hands on Captain Gwynne and make sure she wasn’t a Sanctuary Moon extra I’d imagined had come to save me.

Now, I had a little bit of money thanks to my salary as captain of our little voyage, even after all the garnishing, and nowhere much to spend it. I asked how much twenty thousand interstellar trade dollars would buy me.

Would you believe it’s quite a lot at wholesale prices? More than I could eat before it went bad, alas, but Captain Gwynne had an answer for that: if I cleared out five of my iceboxes, I could fit my purchase. The same cryosleep chambers keeping my passengers young could keep food farm-fresh as well. Funny how nobody’s thought of that before, isn’t it?

Aunt Harriet, I had to. It was all y’all, or it was me. I couldn’t space my mothers—either one of them—or my own sisters, could I? The four of us and our two moms are definitely a package deal. I swear on a stack of bibles that the seagull incident had nothing to do with my choice! Trust me, you wouldn’t want to have to explain to Delilah or Hannah what happened to Miriam, or the other way around either. And so I was forced by fate to put the plums, the pineapples, and all the rest of it in your icebox. At least I left each of you with a hand-written note to show you I cared.

After Octavia’s gracious assistance with the unlading and the lading, I threw in my carnal favors for free. Or she did; I don’t remember which way that deal was supposed to go, but both parties were thoroughly satisfied in any case. We said goodbye happily and without so much as exchanging contact information, and I continued the contracted voyage with only half the crew.

You recall where we were headed; I hope to hear from you, but will not specify our destination in case my hopes are not realized and some petty planetary authority charges me with murder, unlawful dumping, or some other offense.

I’ve apologized already, but surely you can let bygones be bygones?