Chapter Twenty-Six Rose
My neck is strained as I stare at the constellations.
If you look up at the stars long enough, they lose their meaning, like reading the same word over and over again until it no longer holds any language at all.
My favorite course in college, second only to my psychology classes, was astronomy.
Coincidentally, it was also my daughter’s least favorite.
We’re currently at the Loines Observatory, standing on the porch sandwiched between two great domes.
The ridged silver tops of the telescopes look like giant soda bottle lids, but the cylinder bases are covered in the same gray shingles as the rest of the island.
Even science must adhere to the beauty standards of the Nantucket Historic District Commission.
It was my dad’s insistence that we come here on a “family bonding” trip. It’s been three days since my accidental double date with Lily and Theo.
“You two have been busy every night since we arrived,” my dad chided. It’s not like him to want to spend time with me, so I was surprised by his frustration and even felt a little guilty.
Luckily, James stayed home tonight. Lily has been avoiding him all week. I wish she would give him a shot. He’s certainly not a wonderful father, but at least he’s trying.
She stands to my left now. “You know, this was number six on Lottie’s bucket list. Just saying.”
“We’re doing this because Grandpa wanted to, not because of her,” I remind her.
I’m still mad at Lottie. Even though logically I know I should let it go, a part of me wishes she was here so I could tell her how I feel. It’s not easy trying to love a ghost, but it’s even harder fighting with one.
“Still,” says Lily, looking smug. “It technically counts.”
The sky is clear, every constellation visible in the darkness. The air is brisk but not chilly. The whole universe is open above us.
A few people in line shuffle ahead until we’re right at the edge of the telescope’s entrance.
A staff member in a black windbreaker puts out a hand to stop us from going any farther.
In the smaller dome we have just come from is an antique eight-inch Alvan Clark telescope from 1908.
In the one we’re waiting for now is the modern twenty-four-inch research telescope they use for active projects.
A slit in the ceiling of both domes allows visitors to look up into the cosmos.
“I’m cold,” Elizabeth complains, even though she’s wearing a thick fleece she borrowed from my closet. “We’re going to get sick standing out here like this.”
“It’s almost August, Elizabeth,” I say, trying to be patient. “We’re not going to get sick from being outside.”
I’ve often wondered why Elizabeth never found anyone.
Growing up, she was always the more beautiful of the two of us.
With her pretty blond locks and heart-shaped face, she was constantly admired in high school.
She’s six years older than me, and I remember how much I admired her back then, too: her poise and self-assuredness, even when it bordered on vanity.
When our mother died, Elizabeth was older than me, the ripe age of eleven, the age a girl needs her mother the most.
The doctors called what happened to our mother a “berry aneurysm,” a term that disturbed me even as a child—the word berry so light and fanciful. The world ended on a random Tuesday. The sun was hot and bright; Thanksgiving was two days away. The cause of death was compared to a fruit.
“You don’t know that,” whispers Elizabeth now. “You can’t know that.”
I soften my tone. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Do you want me to get an extra blanket from the car?”
She looks happy to have her suffering acknowledged, a faux-stoic tilt to her chin. Her exaggerated shivering slows. “No, I’ll make it through.”
Minutes later two young female research fellows take our group through a brief history of the astronomer Maria Mitchell’s life: how a Quaker education and a mother who worked at the library contributed to making her the first internationally recognized female astronomer.
She went on to open her own school, becoming the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, as well as a professor at Vassar College.
She befriended suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and met other prominent intellectual figures and activists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and writers Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
And it all began here, just a few blocks from where we stand. Maria Mitchell observing the sky from the top of Pacific National Bank, the same imposing, grand brick structure that still sits above Main Street downtown today like a king overlooking his subjects.
At one point, the guide mentions that Maria went to a school named after someone called Elizabeth Gardner, and I feel the nudge of my daughter’s elbow against my rib cage. Is James related? It’s possible.
Seeing the two young astronomers talk about the cosmos gives me the kind of goose bumps I only get from watching someone genuinely passionate pursue their interests.
I imagine what it must be like to be them: working every day on this island, researching in Maria’s footsteps, before heading back to finish their own educations.
Despite my best efforts, it’s impossible to be here without thinking of Lottie.
My aunt loved history, science, anything to do with learning something new, and most all, strong, groundbreaking women.
Lottie was fiercely independent, a feminist who regularly wrote op-eds in The Inquirer about current events.
She was never afraid of ruffling feathers.
Like Maria Mitchell, she was a trailblazer.
The line shifts forward, and my dad and Elizabeth head into the telescope, leaving Lily and me waiting outside.
“So,” Lily says when we are alone. “I have to tell you something. I know it’s not the best timing, but we haven’t had a moment alone in days, and it’s eating me alive.”
I look at her, alarmed. Her red hair is wavy and her freckled face looks serious.
Her small, determined mouth is pressed together, like she’s physically keeping the secret in.
She always had the worst bedhead as a kid.
Even as a toddler, she would wake from her nap frenzied, flushed, dazed, as if she had just emerged from a coma.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
One of the young astronomers starts giving the rest of our waiting line a tour of the constellations, pointing a razor-sharp green light at the sky.
It looks as if it could reach the moon. She circles Orion, Aquarius, Ursa Major, the North Star, and a W-shaped constellation in the sky behind the domes.
“This is Cassiopeia,” the guide says. The line nods in appreciation.
Lily’s eyes look pained but she doesn’t look away from me. “I saw Thomas with Josie last weekend. It looked like they were on a date.”
She says it all in one quick breath, like she’s rushing to expel the information. Afterward, she takes a gasp of air. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I struggle to understand the sentence. Thomas and Josie? Together? It can’t be right. The shock feels more like heartbreak.
The young astronomer is speaking again, her voice the practiced diction of a professor.
“The star cluster Cassiopeia was named after the mythological Greek queen. She was characterized as so vain that she once taunted Poseidon that her daughter was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. Her punishment was being turned into a constellation and forced to rotate around the north celestial pole constantly. At some points Cassiopeia is completely upside down, left hanging from her throne for hours.”
“Are you sure it was them?” I ask Lily. I can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m sure.”
I want to ask more questions—where were they?
Is she certain it was a date? When would they even have the opportunity to have met?
Through the real estate office? Is it because I asked her to break the lease?
I suppose I can’t technically be mad because I never told Josie about my past with Tommy, and I can’t be angry at Tommy because I’m with William now.
The same way I shouldn’t really be mad at Lottie either.
Still, the thought of all of it makes me want to hide in the bushes behind us and never come back out.
The line moves up, and soon enough, Lily and I are standing together around the edges of the circular dome.
The guide tells me it’s my turn, and I take robotic steps, walking up a rickety metal standing ladder—“It’ll stop wobbling once you settle onto it!
” the astronomer promises—and place my left eye against the instrument.
I do it because it’s expected, because it’s what the line needs to happen in order to keep moving forward.
At first, it’s hard to make anything out: a scattering of white dots in the midst of deep black.
As I stare out at them, all I can see is Tommy.
Tommy and Josie together. Tommy and Josie kissing, holding hands.
I think about the legend of poor Cassiopeia, spinning and spinning and spinning. Punished for her vanity, her poor decisions, forced forever to circle the same limitless point.
Spinning, and spinning, and spinning.