Brian and I were going to be the first brother and sister in space and the idea of making that trip without him had me thinking about why I lost him, the way I lost him, and how powerless I was to do a damn thing about it. We’ll never know if it was suicide, an accident, or an accidental overdose that caused an accident, just that we got a call from a concerned friend who saw him on the North Pier over Lake Michigan. Brian hadn’t been home for a few days. I bugged David to either take me to the pier or let me use his car.
“So what?” he asked. “Brian’s hanging around like Brian does.”
“She said ‘staggering.’”
We got there but no Brian and no one else, either. The pier, which extended about eight hundred feet into the bay, was deserted. I walked, then ran out onto it, toward the lighthouse. I looked out, both sides, at the end.
“Brian,” I called.
I saw David starting up the dock and gave him an open-handed shrug. I kept looking over the sides and he kept walking and then I caught him out the corner of my eye pointing and running.
“Over there,” David cried and pointed. “Against the pilings.”
I ran to the other side and followed his lead. He ran down the pier and jumped into the lake just before we met and swam to the pilings that supported the pier, where the water was shaded at most angles this time of day. I scanned the side of the pier and finally saw what he saw, something blue floating, drifting against the pilings with the gentle tide. I was on it and poised to jump in as David reached it.
“No. Stay there,” he said. David bobbed up and down in the current as he pushed his way to the object. Holding onto the pilings with one hand, he reached and pulled the object to him, and partly pulled it over.
“Oh no,” he gasped.
“Is it Brian?” I said.
“Yes,” I think he said.
“Is it Brian?”
“Yes, goddamn it! Help me. Lean over. Can we...pull him up.”
I leaned over but what were we thinking? Pulling wet, dead weight out of the water onto the pier? How? From under his shoulders, by his collar, his jacket, what? I reached down but David immediately got the problem.
“Forget it. I’ll take him this way.” David flipped Brian onto his back and tried to push toward shore. But the current fought back and they didn’t move much.
“I’ll get in,” I said.
“No. No way! And have three drowned?”
“Is he drowned? Is he dead?” I asked.
David didn’t say anything. “State swim champion,” I reminded and jumped in. The water was cold.
“Other side,” David said.
I took the water side and he kept grasping the pilings, trying to push back along them, toward land. I pushed backward with my legs. We floated in place.
“Let’s switch,” I said. “Let me try.”
“This side? If I can’t—”
“Let me try,” I insisted.
So he took the water side and I took the pier side. With each rising wave, I pushed off a piling with one hand, clutched Brian with the other. David looked at me, kicking his legs and fighting the current, both of us keeping Brian afloat. With David kicking and me pushing and kicking with the tide, not against it, we started moving. One piling to the next, we moved toward land. We finally got Brian to shore and dragged him onto the sand. David collapsed on his back and stared at the sky. I tore open Brian’s coat and started CPR. David looked at us and tried to drag himself over, but the fatigue of the water and the emotions and the currents left him spent.
“It’s no good,” he said. “It’s no good.”
But I kept breathing. Kept thumping, then pounding my brother’s chest, watching water gurgle out of his mouth, saw a little blood, washing away, where maybe he hit his head on the pier.
“He’s dead, Jennifer.”
But I wouldn’t stop. I knew he wasn’t dead. How could he be dead? How could my sweet, beautiful, loving baby brother, my guardian, my staff...I refused to stop. Then David took my arm and squeezed. I only quit when thoughts crept in, that I was mocking Brian’s death, that I was being selfish, that I was assuaging my grief rather than restoring his life, in an aftermath of watery denial. I screamed and collapsed over him and cradled his head in my hands and kissed him. I don’t remember much after that. I think a cop walked down and found us. We didn’t have to call anyone.
Brian and I the first humans on Mars? What if there were humans or someones there millions or billions of years ago, and Crimsy was all that remained? What had reduced the planet to such a godforsaken state that only the hardiest of tiny things could survive? (Maybe there were other types of life, but I doubted it). I daydreamed about Brian and our first voyage toward a new horizon together, just us, on the SS Badger where we decided we were crossing the ocean instead of a Great Lake. It was during that interlude after David moved out, leaving our sibling dynamic stuck in the stills, like a tricycle without its third, big wheel. Two little tires, supporting the rest of the apparatus. If one toppled, so too the other. We made the crossing on a warm spring day, a short sojourn to get away from parental drama and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.
Caller ID block rescued me from my bittersweet reverie. Should I pick up? Brandy was still out there somewhere—he and Lexi never showed up at mom’s. Maybe it was him.
“Jennifer,” the soft voice said. And only a voice. No video. No cloud projection. I hesitated. “Leo Telos,” he said.
At first, I didn’t make the connection. Leo who?
“We met at the science center. The Odysseus exhibition.”
“Leon Telos,” I said. “Yes. Yes, sir. I remember.”
“Friends call me Leo or sometimes just L.”
“Okay.”
“Alex—Mr. Sparks, as he prefers to be known—informs me that your team would like a berth aboard DSG. I’m not in on every conversation, but is that what you understand?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“He also tells me you are the presumptive nominee for such a spot.”
“I am, well, kinda. I mean, nothing’s been decided.”
“I believe, as Alex does, that you are the right choice.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Your vote of confidence means a lot.”
“It’s no mere vote of confidence,” he said.
This was news. I never flew on commercial airlines. After the intercity rocket explosion that took out Telos’ biggest competitor, I vowed to stay off rockets, too. So how in the hell I was “the right choice” was a mystery to me.
“We have an expedited training—” Then he stopped and took a breath. “Dr. Brando’s custody case will be settled in his favor at the end of this month. We should get that out of the way right off, don’t you agree?”
What?
“Mr. Hawthorn insisted.”
Double what?
“So what does that mean?” I asked. “He gets Lexi?”
“He and his former bride, with admittedly some gentle persuasion, have crafted a much more equitable custody arrangement. They will share their daughter, of course. We aren’t in the business of breaking up families. But Dr. Brando will enjoy a much larger share than he presently does, or to date in their proceedings, ever has.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Never moreso.”
I stood as this kindly, non-threatening voice laid down the fucking law. This was what real power sounded like.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Mr. Hawthorn deserves any thanks,” Telos explained. “Frankly, I was a bit surprised Dr. Brando and his daughter meant so much to you. Alex assured me you would not be unpredictable before we brought you aboard.”
“Dr. Levitt hired me. And I really don’t know Mr. Sparks.”
“It wasn’t just Dr. Levitt who hired you. The Executive Research Committee, Alex, myself.”
“I didn’t realize I was that big a deal,” I quipped, trying to get a rise out of him. But he was all business. “I don’t know anything about aeronautics, astronauting, whatever it’s called,” I said. “I hate to fly. It kills my ears.”
“It won’t anymore,” Telos said. “And you know more than you think. But no matter. SpaceTek has expedited mission training programs for commercial crew and payload specialists, as you will be classified, and space tourists. Virgin, Disney, LunAir—we work with all of them. Perhaps you’ve read the list of unlikely space travelers who’ve completed our program. The King of England, Donald…”
“I have, yes,” I said.
“The commercial crew payload program is six months long. You will finish in four, roughly.”
“How do you know? Are you sure? I could totally blow it. Wash out.”
A long pause. Given how much money he earns in one second, a pause that probably cost Telos two billion bucks.
“You won’t,” he said.
“Jennifer.” Dr Levitt stepped into the post-doc office. She looked concerned and I immediately worried if I should be, too. “I’ve been thinking—” she said.
I looked at her. She pulled up and straddled a chair.
“I seem to be the sole holdout on the idea of you going to the space station,” she said. “Normally, I’m all in on expeditions in the name of science.”
“Of course,” I said. Talk about stating the obvious.
“I just...it’s asking you to put your life and your future in considerable harm’s way. You’re not trained,” she said. “None of us is. It’s not your life’s dream to go into space...is it?”
“No. Well, I mean...my brother and I fantasized about going to Mars together. But being an astronaut. I’ve always thought of it as a calling, a total life devotion kind of thing.”
“Like anything you love. Like this,” she said.
“Yes. But like you said, it’s a lot more dangerous.”
“That’s right. Which is why I can’t ask you to do it. It seems like the ultimate in asking a person to do way more than they ever signed up for. If anything happened to you—”
“What if you didn’t have to ask?”I interrupted. “What if I said I wanted to do it because it felt, well—right?”
“Does it?”
I thought. I considered. I had been thinking, considering. Each time someone encouraged the idea—me on DSG, doing whatever it took to get there, maybe, hopefully, bringing Crimsy home, or at least, doing something meaningful—I thought even harder. But since it was the kind of choice that could kill me, I’m not sure I had made up my mind until now, right this minute, sitting as close as I’ve ever sat to my scientific and professional mentor.
“Yes,” I said finally. “It feels right.”
“We have some exciting news,” Dr. Levitt began our faculty meeting. “Jennifer.”
“I—” I couldn’t find the words and looked at everyone. I thought about Telos, my family. David was super excited. But mom was the one who floored me.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said. “I insist you go.” She was back home, with Dr. Hale flying in shortly. “I’m doing great, honey,” she said. “Meds leave me a little foggy, light-headed, but a lot less forgetful.”
Parada entered smiling like crazy and sat next to me. This was a big deal.
“You want me to tell them?” Dr. Levitt asked.
“No,” I said. “No.” I mustered my courage. “I’m going...to Deep Space Gateway.”
Parada shot out of her chair and motioned me up and hugged me. “We’re so proud of you,” she said. “You’re all Marcia talks about, dammit.”
Everyone rose—it felt like a standing ovation—smiling and grabbing my arms and shoulders and getting all touchy-feely and wonderful. I felt like dissolving in a pile of sentiment. Whoever thought science could be so soulful?
“I’m involved in weather planning every step of the way,” Dr. Cooper said. “You can count on the best day of the year to fly.”
Dr. Marcum took my hand in a fierce grip and pulled me toward him. “Best news I’ve heard since Crimsy,” he said. And with an American twang manufactured in the finest of allied traditions, “We’re rootin’ for ya, kiddo.”
“Hug, girl,” Dr. Shonstein said. “We thought this might happen, so Malachi put our thousand hard-to-find words into a picture.” She handed it to me.
In one frame, I flew toward a blue sky with darkness beyond, all stick-figure and crayon-yellow hair, in a simple rocket with orange flames, my team—and Malachi—waving goodbye.
“You can tell that’s me, right?” Dr. Marcum said.
“Perfect weather,” Cooper said. “And I wasn’t even consulted.”
In a second frame, I was coming home, in a different rocket now, with blue flames and a blunter nose cone. “Yeah, so, Martin and I tried to explain that rockets don’t land that way,” Shonstein said. “But you know artists.”
My team, in the second frame, was waving again, but this time, hello. Malachi hadn’t aged a day. Dr. Shonstein stared at the picture.
“Just noticed something,” she said. “May I?” She took the picture from me and added some dots in my homecoming craft with her pen. She circled the dots and handed it back.
My team held off on a big going away party (that would come with my trip to the space station) and instead gathered for a subdued potluck at Dr. Marcum’s place in Columbia City. I’d never been to his house, but had been hearing about it since he joined our team. If Dr. Marcum liked you, your service, your product, whatever, he told everyone. It’s difficult to find anything to rent in Seattle, damn near impossible in coveted neighborhoods like Columbia City. Dr. Marcum prevailed, on “charm and good looks,” he said. The owner was a retired math professor who had made it his life’s work to solve the great mathematics problem Marcum ended up solving, an equation named for two scientists, Claude-Louis Navier and George Gabriel Stokes, about how fluids flow in space. Marcum liked the neighborhood for its ethnic diversity and hard-times roots (once run down, it had long since thrived). Dr. Canberry, Marcum’s landlord, was in fanboy awe.
I was piqued when I didn’t see Dr. Brando at our potluck, and I let Nathaniel Hawthorn know it.
“I still haven’t heard from him,” I said. “Telos said you guys fixed everything.”
He leaned over and in a way that disarmed me, whispered into my ear. “Chill.”
I eyed food and poised to fill my plate when I felt a presence beside me. I turned, dropped my empty plate, and hugged him. “Mike!”
“We wanted to surprise you,” Dr. Levitt said.
“Got back a few days ago,” Brando said.
“Mom said you were—”
“Got as far as Spokane,” he interrupted.
“Why didn’t you say anything? Call?”
“My lawyer said anyone who helped could be prosecuted. Then he called with amazing news.” Brando’s custody arrangement was much as it had been since he and Melissa split: PRN, medical lingo for “as needed, as required, as requested.” No schedules set in stone. No hard-and-fast time limits. “Lexi’s a different kid,” he said.
“I’m so, so happy for you guys,” I said.
“I’ll second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth that,” Dr. Cooper said. “Seventh, if you include Hale.”
Nathaniel Hawthorn and I said our “farewell-but-not-goodbyes” on the walkway outside Marcum’s house. I peered around, then grabbed and kissed him just as I knew he planned to grab and kiss me. It was a hot little moment.