After supper (meat loaf and icebox cake), it was both warm enough and light enough to take books out on the porch. Nana had two big chairs (“What are those called again?” “Adirondack chairs”) and two big bushes, one on either side of the steps, heavy with clusters of teeny purple flowers (“What are those called again?” “Lilacs”). Her neighborhood was peaceful and boring. Occasionally, someone walked by with a dog; that was it.
“How’s your book?” asked Nana after a while.
“Good. I’ve read it before. How’s yours?”
“In progress.” Nana held it up to show Annamae the cover. FIVE YEAR DIARY was stamped in gold.
“I didn’t know you kept a diary.”
“I’ve been keeping one for decades. Though it’s not really a diary.”
“It says diary.”
“But look.” Nana showed her how the book was laid out. This was the third year of five, so the two sections above today’s entry were already filled in with Nana’s distinctively slanty script, telling what she’d done on this exact day last year and the year before. The two sections below were empty, waiting for next year and the one after that. “You can see there’s just enough room to record a few lines per day. More of a captain’s log than a diary.”
“What do you mean, a captain’s log?”
“Basic, minimal facts. I guess a real captain’s log would record things like latitude and longitude, weather. Provisions, supplies. Any passengers you happen to take on or let off.”
“Did you put me in for today?”
Nana read aloud: “Jo brought Annamae for weekend while she attends wedding in Balt. Took comforter and wool coat to cleaner’s. P.O., library. Meat loaf, peas, Ellen’s pilaf. A. made icebox cake. Weather mild. Lilacs at peak.”
“Who’s Ellen?”
“The friend who gave me the recipe for the pilaf.”
“That was good.”
“Did you like it?”
Annamae nodded. Nana’s neighborhood was boring, but it had more sky. The sky was huge and lavender. Already you could see the moon.
“Do you still keep a diary?” asked Nana.
“I never did that.”
“No? I thought there was one you used to carry around with you wherever you went.”
“That’s not a diary. That’s my notebook. Coco. I lost it.”
“Would you like to borrow some writing paper?”
Annamae nodded.
Together, they went inside the house. It smelled more like life now, like meat loaf and lilacs and dusk. Nana went to the piece of furniture she called a “secretary” and opened the hinged top. There were cubbies inside with cream-colored stationery and envelopes and stamps. Nana took out a few sheets of stationery. Then she set them down and took out a little notebook instead. “Do you think you’d like to have this? The first couple of pages have notes I took for a class, but you could just tear them out.”
“What class?”
“Oh.” Nana looked embarrassed. “An adult education class. On the cosmos. I think most of the students must have had some background in physics. I couldn’t keep up. Here’s a straightedge, let’s just tea—”
“No.” Annamae laid a hand on Nana’s arm. “Leave them.”
They looked over what Nana had written:
There was a diagram showing spheres and orbits with dotted lines between them and the labels: EARTH, SUN, STARS, DISTANCE.
“What’s that about?” asked Annamae.
Nana scrunched up her nose. “I think we were learning how to measure the distance to the stars.”
On the next page was a feast of unknown words and terms:
STANDARD CANDLES
CEPHEID VARIABLES
HUBBLE LAW
PARSEC
SEXTANT
CELESTIAL NAVIGATION
STELLAR PARALLAX
SECULAR PARALLAX
THUMB TRICK
“What’s parallax?” Annamae asked.
“Oh honey. I want to say something to do with sailors? A way of measuring distance maybe? Between yourself and an unknown object—or no, between the horizon and a star?”
“What’s thumb trick?” Annamae asked.
“That one I actually think I remember.” Nana closed her eyes a moment, then opened them again. “Yes. Okay, pick an object on the other side of the room.”
They both turned to face the far wall.
“Got one?”
“The clock.”
“Okay. Wait, can you wink?”
“Sort of.”
“Okay. Hold out your thumb and wink one eye shut so the clock’s completely covered.”
“Okay.”
“Now, keeping your thumb exactly where it is, open that eye and shut the other.”
“Oh!”
“Did it jump?”
It had. The clock had jumped several feet to the left.
“You know what that proves?” said Annamae with sudden inspiration. She might be a little bit of a genius herself.
“What does it prove?”
“That it’s impossible ever to see eye to eye—even with yourself.”