Where the Forest Meets the Stars(23)

Every doubt she’d had about letting Ursa stay with them resurfaced during her drive back to the cottage, especially her reservations about Egg Man. She truthfully knew nothing about the man.
Ursa was waiting for her return outside on the walkway. “Did you yell at Gabe?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Jo said.
“Will he still let me come over?”
She was more distressed by the discord than expected. Jo crouched in front of her and held her hands. “Everything is okay. I only had a little disagreement with Gabe.”
“About shooting the guns?” she asked.
“Yes. My parents raised me different than his did. I never saw guns as fun . I was taught that their only purpose is to kill.”
“We only shot targets.”
“And why do people use those targets? So they can learn how to aim the bullet at a heart or a brain. He was teaching you how to kill somebody.”
“I didn’t think of it like that.”
“Well, that’s what it’s all about, that or killing a deer, and I don’t see you doing that.”
“I would never kill a deer!”
“Good. No more guns, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jo rewarmed her plate of food in the microwave, but just as she started eating, Little Bear began barking on the porch. “Now what?” She went to the porch and watched Gabe’s truck squeak to a halt behind her car. “I don’t believe this,” she said. “You drove over here to continue the argument?”
“I wasn’t arguing,” he said.
“You defended what you did.”
“That’s not exactly arguing.”
“I’d like to finish my dinner.”
“You should,” he said, ambling up the walkway.
“Why are you here?”
“To make peace. Nothing like stars to show us our little arguments are meaningless. I brought my telescope.”
“The Pinwheel Galaxy!” Ursa said behind Jo. “He promised! He said one night he would show it to us!”
“And this is a perfect night,” Gabe said. “No moon, clear atmosphere, your blacked-out utility light inviting burglars to your gun-less home . . .”
She tried to make a peeved face, but his smile bested it.
“Finish your dinner while I get ready,” he said. “Want to learn how to set up a telescope?” he asked Ursa.
“Yes!”
Jo held the screen door open as she shot through it. “This is the only way you’re allowed to look down a barrel with Gabe. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Ursa said, and Gabe saluted.
After Jo finished eating and cleaned the dishes, she joined them at the edge of the field and discovered Gabe’s telescope was much fancier than she’d expected. It had belonged to his father, an astronomy enthusiast who’d taught his children how to find objects in the night sky. Gabe had also brought binoculars, and he showed Ursa how to locate the Pinwheel Galaxy using the stars of the Big Dipper. Jo listened from a lawn chair, too tired from her long day in the field to work at finding a blurry smear of a galaxy.
Even with the impressive scope, locating the Pinwheel took a while because it had something Gabe called “low surface brightness.” This meant nothing to Jo other than that she might fall asleep in her chair before he found it.
“Okay, here it is,” he said, “Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy.”
Ursa stood on a crate he’d brought and looked into the eyepiece. “I see it!” She fell silent as she studied the galaxy. “Do you know what it looks like, Jo?”
“A pinwheel?”
“It looks like an indigo bunting nest. And the white stars are the eggs.”
“I have to see this.” Jo got off the chair and looked in the telescope. Ursa was right. The ethereal swirl was a celestial nest filled with white star eggs. “Okay, this is the coolest thing I ever saw. It’s like an indigo bunting nest viewed from above. They often have that messy shape around the edges.”
Gabe took another turn looking. “I see it. And the nest’s center spirals down into infinity. I like that so much better than a pinwheel. The Infinite Nest. From now on, that’s how I’ll see it.”
“That’s where I live,” Ursa said. “I live in the Infinite Nest.”
“Lucky girl,” Jo said, ruffling her hair with her fingers.
Ursa bounced manically like she was about to rocket into the stars. “Can I toast marshmallows?”
“Ursa . . . I’m too tired to light a fire.”
“I will,” Gabe said. “Get the marshmallows, Lady of the Nest.”
Ursa ran to the back door.
“Is that okay?” he asked.
“I’ve been up since four thirty,” Jo said. Ursa had, too, but Gabe’s unexpected visit had energized her.
“Sit down and rest,” Gabe said. “I’ll monitor the marshmallow toasting with better judgment than I had earlier today.” He started throwing twigs into the fire pit. “That was an apology, by the way.”
“Okay.” She returned to her lawn chair. “And I apologize for saying you’re a dumb Shakespeare reader.”
“I’m a Shakespeare reader who sells eggs on the road—which amounts to about the same.” He studied her face. “You must wonder why I sell eggs and don’t have a regular job.”
“That’s none of my business,” she said, though she had often pondered that very question.
“I sell eggs because my hens produce far more than I can use.” He looked away from her and took more sticks out of the woodpile. “But the egg stand is also therapy.”