The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(86)

Snorting, I sat down on the sofa and reached for the phone. The number of the Red Gables nursing home was on the letterhead. Two letters and five numbers later, the phone was ringing.

“Good afternoon, Red Gables Home.” The voice on the other end of the line was the soft mellifluous stream of a native Southerner.

I felt the shape of my words shift to match hers. “Yes. Could you please connect me with one of your residents? Esther Wexler?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Wexler is at dinner now.”

I’d half expected her to say “dead.” Clearing my throat, I picked up one of the papers that Nathaniel had dropped. “May I leave a message, then?” The page had a preliminary trajectory for a launch from Brazil. “This is her niece. I—”

“Dr. York?”

“Um. Yes.”

“This is Lorraine Purvis. I wrote to you.” She gave a little laugh. “Lord. I can’t believe you’re really her niece. We just … Well. She just gets so confused sometimes. Sweet as anything, but … Listen, why don’t you hold on for just a minute and I’ll go get her.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“It’s fine. I won’t pull her out of the dining room if she’s still eating. Be right back.” The phone clunked against a desk or counter and I could hear her footsteps tapping away in the distance.

Nathaniel had moved across our studio to the kitchen and was taking the dishes out of the drying rack. The plates clattered against each other as he put them away in the cupboard. Cleaning was probably a good way to distract myself. I reached down to pick up the rest of the papers Nathaniel had dropped.

The report had pages covered with equations in Helen’s handwriting. Stacking them, it was hard not to look over the calculations. As a sign of how disordered my mind was, it took me a moment to recognize them as orbital trajectories for Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia.

All three spots were equatorial and had lower fuel consumption than anywhere in the United States or Europe. And all three had eastern coasts, which would be nice, since it meant that a failed rocket would drop into water instead of—

The phone rustled and clattered as someone picked it up. “Dr. York?”

“Yes.”

“One moment, I have your aunt here.”

“Thank you.” I set the pages down on the coffee table and closed my eyes, waiting.

The phone rustled, then a voice like an aged and beloved canary flitted through the line. “Anselma?”

“Aunt Esther.” My voice cracked and the room blurred behind yet another veil of maddening tears. It was like hearing a ghost. What do you say to someone you thought was dead? For that matter, she must have thought the same of me until she saw me on Mr. Wizard. What came out of my mouth was a banal and safe social noise. “How are you?”

“Well … well, well, well. As I live and breathe. Isn’t it wonderful to hear your voice.”

“I’m sorry. I only just got the letter. I didn’t know.”

“Lands, child, I didn’t know you were alive, either. After Rose and I got out of Charleston, well—I thought it was just the two of us.”

It was good that there was a phone line between us. At the sound of my grandmother’s name, I had to move the phone away from my mouth and cover it for a moment. She had lived. When I read the letter— She had been living with a sister, who has since passed away—I hadn’t known which sister.

Goddamn it. My grandmother had survived the tidal waves that swamped Charleston, and I had done nothing to find her.





TWENTY-EIGHT

ASTRONAUTS SUFFER BONE LOSS

Special to The National Times.

KANSAS CITY, KS, April 18, 1957—The medical report on the astronauts who recently spent 43 days aboard the Lunetta orbiting space platform illustrated how their organisms responded to the unprecedented conditions of prolonged life in space. The astronauts were found, for example, to have about 14 percent fewer red cells in their blood when they returned. Projecting the impact of such changes on future astronauts coming back after a long stay in space suggests that these returnees could become instant invalids on Earth. One goal of Lunetta will be to see whether increased exercise in space slows down these adjustments so that future spacemen can become earthmen again with minimal trouble.

When I put the phone down, Nathaniel looked up from the newspaper he had been reading. He’d long since finished putting the dishes away.

“That sounded like a good phone call.”

“She’s doing well.” Standing, I rubbed my forehead, still a little shocked. “But I don’t think she’s happy there. I was thinking…”

“You want her to move in with us?” He lowered the paper and leaned back in his chair. “What about going to live with Hershel?”

I shrugged, crossing to join him at the table. “Sure. She could. But he already has two kids, and I don’t know that they need another mouth to feed.”

He grunted and drummed his fingers on the table. “We’d need a bigger place … and I’m willing to do that…”

“But?” The studio was fine for the two of us, but adding a third really would be too much.

“We can’t afford a house yet, and paying more in rent for a larger place…” He spread his hands, trying not to call attention to the fact that we’d spent our savings to cover the damage to the plane in the air show. “It’s something to think about.”