A Cosmic Kind of Love(13)
Another reason I loved my aunt. Unlike my father, she didn’t badger me with questions or commands. She knew when I was ready to talk, I’d talk.
“Thanks.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I missed you.”
She beamed, her smile the same as Mom’s. There were only four years between Mom and Richelle, my aunt Richelle being the younger sibling. The Wilsons had only each other growing up. No big extended family. Just my grandparents and Mom and Richelle. My maternal grandfather had been a plumber and my grandmother a nurse.
When I was three years old, my grandparents had gone on a rare vacation to Maine. On the first night in the new lodge they’d rented, they’d died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning from the faulty flue installation of the wood burner in the bedroom.
It had devastated Aunt Richelle and my mother. I never knew my grandparents, but my mom and aunt had told me so much about them over the years, I almost felt like I had. I’d seen photographs, and both sisters were the spitting image of my grandmother when they were younger.
Thick blond hair, eyes as blue as the Caribbean from space. Tall too, at five ten. They were beautiful. Or maybe I was biased. I didn’t think so though. I think my mother’s beauty was a big part of the attraction for my father. He was a man who liked to procure beautiful things.
As I climbed the stairs to the guest room designated as mine, my gaze passed over the photos Aunt Richelle had hung on the wall of the stairwell. Photos of my grandparents, of the parties Richelle held at the beach house years ago, of Miguel.
I touched his photo. “Brother,” I murmured as I passed.
Then I stopped again at a photo I’d seen a million times.
Of my father and Mom at some gala or other.
My mother was stunning in a red gown and my father handsome and severe in a black tux. While Mom smiled at the camera, my father stared stonily ahead, his hand resting possessively on her back.
She died from ovarian cancer when I was sixteen years old.
I never saw my father cry once. I sneered before moving upward.
A photo of Mom sitting on the porch swing of the small house she’d grown up in. She was a teenager in the picture. The sight of her eased my anger.
“Te amo, jefa.”
The small amount of Spanish we’d learned hadn’t come from our father. Our father didn’t teach us anything about his Mexican heritage. In fact, it was the opposite. No, Miguel had learned that “jefa” was an affectionate word meaning “boss” that Mexicans often used when addressing their mothers. We loved it because Mom was definitely our boss and had both her boys wrapped around her finger. Whenever we were in trouble, we’d weasel our way out of it by telling her, “Te amo, jefa.” Never in front of our father. He’d snapped at Miguel to speak English when he’d overheard him call Mom that.
Staring into her laughing eyes, I missed her warmth. Her support. Her wisdom. She’d been everything to me. For years I’d had focus, I’d had goals, and now that I had none of that, it was like the seventeen years since she’d passed were but months.
“God, I miss you.” Fighting back tears of grief, surprised by the ferociousness of it, I retreated to the bedroom. Once in the shower, I let the jets of water pound down on my shoulders, slicking away the sweat and hopefully the bitterness. I thought I’d won that fight long ago.
It had never been more clear since returning to Earth that I hadn’t made peace with my father.
That’s why I’d come here to this house.
There could be no pride or ego or arrogance in an astronaut. An inability to put all that aside and listen to advice, or admit when you needed help, could cost you or your crew their lives. So I knew when to admit that I needed something.
And I needed family.
I needed support to figure out my path forward.
The only person left in my life who could truly give that to me was Aunt Richelle.
* * *
It was late. Or early. The sun had long set, the hands on the grandfather clock in the dining room had passed midnight. And for the first time in months, I didn’t feel restless. Aunt Richelle and I had eaten out back, watching the surf meet the golden shores. We’d drunk beer, talked about my worries, my future, about her paintings, and her neighbor’s hatred of Bandit.
A few hours. That’s all it took for me to feel like I wasn’t so off-balance anymore.
Aunt Richelle had departed for bed before midnight, leaving me on the porch swing out back. I sat for hours in the dark, just listening to the soothing sound of gentle waves lapping at the beach.
The sound of my phone beeping at my side jolted me, and I cursed at the disruption as I reached for it.
I frowned, seeing the notification.
Another email from Kate at NASA.
Chris,
Got another. Do you want me to bounce this one too?
Kate
What the . . .
I opened the attached video, and it was the pink-haired woman again.
Maybe it was my more relaxed mood, but this time I watched the whole thing.
FIVE
Hallie
I got to use the MinION again today. I don’t think I’ve told you about it, but I know you’ll think it’s clever. It’s a portable DNA sequencer, and today I was using it to extract DNA from samples of space bacteria. I am sequencing DNA in space without a lab, just with a MinION. Here’s how it works: I take samples of bacteria found onboard the ISS, use the MinION to extract the DNA, sequence it, and see if it’s changed or evolved. The results help us diagnose illnesses up here, and we can identify microbes growing on the station and figure out if they might be a threat to our health. These experiments are important for us while we’re onboard, but there’s a possibility this could be used in the future to identify DNA-based life-forms found in space. It’s all very cool. I feel like a mad scientist and . . . I needed the work today, the distraction. Tom said something to me a while back that’s been playing on my mind ever since, and the closer I get to returning to Earth, the more I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m . . . I’m worried about the future, Darce. I’m worried what I’ll do when I get back.