Chapter Thirty-One
“That quote you loved from the Carl Sagan article—how, somewhere, something incredible was waiting to be known? You were my something incredible, you were my known, you were my voyager. I love you, Mars, and I miss you so much, I can’t stand it.” —Greeting from Margaret Vittorio
Three weeks later, I watched the tracking of my package as it moved from Chicago to Seattle. The day it was expected to arrive, I got all nervous. I didn’t even tell Sandrine or Maurice that it was coming. It felt huge. I maybe needed a moment alone with it first.
That night, I drove over to Maurice and Sandrine’s. Before going up their steps, I rested my hand on the curved top of your old VW, and then I gripped the driver’s-side door handle, then placed my hand on the hood.
“What?” Sandrine said. Her beautiful face was full of surprise. “You made one for me?”
“There were two,” I reminded her.
We held them up. Their edges touched, two circles.
A figure eight.
At home, alone in my room once again under the wise and compassionate gaze of Carl, I set the record on my windowsill, the black night beyond.
I took a photo. It’s finished, I typed. I added an emoji, the gray infinity symbol.
My last post. It was over. At that thought, my stomach wrenched. I held your record to my chest, and I sobbed, and then I was quiet, my sorrow doing its own figure eight.
I pressed share. That word could have been another one, a favorite word of yours. It could have been connect.
She didn’t call, and we didn’t see each other again or even speak, but a few days later, she was there.
JaniteGooligan. It was a new account, and your mom was following only one page.
The notifications went on and on. JaniteGooligan liked your post. JaniteGooligan liked your post. JaniteGooligan liked your post. JaniteGooligan liked your post. The shirt, the houseboat, the welcome mat. The leaf, the sounds, the everything.
She’d left only one comment. One beautiful heart on that photo of her holding baby you.
It was enough, you know. Her heart there, with mine.
As we headed into winter, my dread grew.
October, November, Halloween. Thanksgiving, December first, then second, then third—we were getting closer, you know, to the worst day.
It felt like a march, the heavy, horrible boots of soldiers, bringing devastation.
It was the most ominous cloud, descending.
I tried not to look at the calendar. I avoided dates.
Every time one snuck in, I counted. How many until.
How many were left. It was not just the anniversary (just), the way it would brutally smack and pummel, but it was the change into a new year, a year where you wouldn’t be, wouldn’t have been living in at all, any day of it, or day before it.
It had been a bad idea, maybe, to take a gap year.
To just be at the studio with the band, and delivering pizzas, and hanging out with Addy and Priya and Maddie when they weren’t in class.
It wasn’t enough, distracting enough. I’d open the My Voyager page and look at the images.
I would play the sounds. I would see and feel everyone there, all the human beings who had experienced this part of human beingness.
It made me feel less alone, but that hole was there and there and there, and I missed taking those photos.
I missed the project, and the way it kept you with me.
I had worked most of that Sunday, a frigid, frigid day, wearing my fingerless gloves as I drove to Green Lake and Lake Union and Westlake, to all the people who greeted me with anticipation, reaching their hands out for a warm box.
It was eight or so when I headed back to Papa Angelo’s, done for the night.
The golden glow of the store looked snug and welcoming when I arrived, but I felt so sad, you know, the kind of sad that would hit hard at moments, a sad that seemed like it would go on and on.
I didn’t go in yet. I sat in the car, and I took out my phone.
God, it was cold! I was going to open Snapshot.
I wanted to just see your shirt, or your shells, or Pelican.
Just something. I wanted to hear the glug, which would bring back your laugh, and the way you’d crawled on that floor, gathering the cups.
I wanted to hear a song that would bring back your dancing—on the crowded floor of Neumos, or on the grass in the evening at a summer concert, or in your living room, barefoot.
Doing your signature move, the little shimmy plus the occasional finger snap for flair.
Oh, Mars.
Right on my screen, I saw the notification that indicated a message had arrived. There used to be many, many every day, but since I’d stopped posting, they’d gone down to a trickle. That night, there was just the red dot with a number one inside.
I tapped the icon, hit the message squiggle. And then, in the small circle, I saw the profile photo of a woman next to a rocket. Abby Oliveras.
I read the message.
Hi, Margaret! I’m one of the astronauts on the crew of an upcoming Artemis launch, NASA’s new lunar exploration program, which will reestablish a human presence on the moon for the first time since 1972.
My mission isn’t scheduled to launch for several years, but I heard about your project and am very moved.
We’re not going as far as Voyager, but if you’re interested, let’s talk about bringing your Golden Record into space.
Was this real? It couldn’t be real, could it? I looked up Abby Oliveras, and there she was, in her orange space suit with the American flag on the sleeve, looking out at us with compassionate brown eyes and a warm smile.
I clicked her profile, and there she was again, the American flag behind her, a verified account.
My heart beat hard. My breath came out in little puffs as I sat outside Papa Angelo’s. My hands shook as I typed. I would be so interested. Thank you so much!
I pressed send, and then panicked. Two sos! I sounded childish. I sounded juvenile. I was juvenile, okay! Oh my God, I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the message again to see if I’d imagined it.
A response. A response already! Wonderful. Let’s talk. Her phone number! Her actual phone number!
I let out a little ah! A gasp. My throat tightened with tears.
This was Lily’s doing, I was sure of it.
I called Sandrine.
“OH MY GOD!” I shrieked.
“Are you all right?” She’d been answering her phone this way since you left us, even when someone wasn’t screaming into it.
I told her. “It was Lily. I’m sure it was Lily!”
“Margaret! We’re all on the mountain tonight. You’ve got to come and tell everyone! We’re in the parking lot right now, about to head up. Maurice is here. Say hi, Maurice.”
“Hi, Maurice,” Maurice said. He sounded far away, but he wasn’t. On this Earth, in the giant universe, he was right here.
“Wait,” I realized. “Why are you there tonight?” It was a Sunday. They usually met on Saturday nights.
“It’s the tenth, Margaret. Geminids,” she said.
“Oh my God. I’ve got to go. I’ll be right there.”
“Jesus Christ, drive safely. It’s so cold tonight. The roads—”
But I was already rushing inside Papa Angelo’s. There was time for anxiety later. There was always time for anxiety, but not right now.
It was harder going up that trail carrying a bunch of pizzas, that’s for sure. When I arrived, they were surprised to see me, and even more surprised to see three extra-large Sarafinas.
“Hot damn,” Chester said.
“The pizza is smiling,” Norty said.
“It sure is, and so am I,” I said. I breathed into my hands. It was freezing up there.
“What are we celebrating?” Lily said.
“December tenth,” Ben said. It was enough, actually, but there was more.
“As if you don’t know,” I said to Lily.
But she scrunched up her old face, baffled. “What?”
“The thing you did,” I told Lily.
“Tell them, tell them!” Sandrine said.
“Tell us,” Rainey said, her cheeks full of cheese and arugula and orange pepper.
“Lily, come on. Abby Oliveras? You told her about the record? You told ASTRONAUT ABBY OLIVERAS about our Golden Record and she wants to brING IT UP TO SPACE?”
“Oh my God, Margaret! Wow. How wonderful. I swear, I had nothing to do with it,” Lily said. “I wish I had. But this was all you.”
And it was, sort of. Not all me, though.
Me and you. Me and you and everyone on the record.
Me and you and everyone on the record, plus CosmicRayS32, who was Evan Dellario, an engineer on Artemis.
His dad did a report on Voyager when he was a kid, and it sparked a love of space that he shared with his son, which brought Evan to NASA, which brought him to my page, which then went to Abby Oliveras, which brought her to me on that cold, cold night.
It was another miracle of connection, maybe, or fate, or a sign, or the universe speaking.
Or maybe just a tiny shift causing another tiny shift.
New links joining other links, elements combining with elements.
Carl Sagan and his whole team, with a dream and a hope of connecting to life on other planets, connecting to generations of children on this one, my father and Mrs. Fosmire, Everett the sound guy and his diorama, Evan Dellario and his dad, you.
All the little kids and big ones, looking up at the stars and imagining what was possible.
And right then, as I stood on that mountain with a frozen nose and pizza breath, I got it. I finally got it.