A Look Back at Home

Alice would wait until Friday to tell the kids. There was no point telling them on a Tuesday so that they could sulk about it all week. If she told them on Friday, and then told them they could have their friends sleep over, there was always a chance they’d forget about the whole thing in an instant the way pre-teens do in between crushes and rocket maintenance.

Her optimism was dampened when Ari, her eleven-year-old, informed her in between bites of Moon Mounds at breakfast that he did not remember anything about their last trip. She balked until she reminded herself that Ari was only three when they went back to Earth. Ava, her daughter, was a year younger. Even Allen, her husband, confessed before pouring out his coffee grounds into the compost bin that he had virtually no memories of the week they spent on a boat in the California Ocean. All of this was dropped in her lap as her little family boarded the morning shuttle and surged towards the main colony.

If the memories of floating just above where Los Angeles used to sit had vanished from the minds of everyone but her, she may have underestimated the disappointment that would arise when she let them know that her promotion hadn’t gone through, which meant no extra money for a vacation this year. Even Allen wasn’t aware of this yet, and she felt like she was letting her family down, even though her bonus from two years ago helped get Ari and Ava into the best private school in the colony.

A private part of her mind let itself wonder if her decision to cancel the trip home had something to do with her lack of nostalgia for the flooded planet. While it was common in the colony for every bar and restaurant to be filled with conversations about the glory days for those who originated on Earth, Alice guiltily preferred her years spent here on Satellite #4 to the ones she spent watching cities get swallowed up by water and the war that sprung up between Virginia and West Virginia right before her parents got their travel voucher.

Most homes on Satellite #4 were designed to get the best views of Earth possible. When people arrived at Alice’s domicile for the first time, they usually assumed she got a raw deal. None of her portals showcased the planet--not even the viewing wall that made up the seventh wall of the house. They would never guess that this is the exact reason Alice had chosen the house when she and Allen were looking for a place to live. She knew that he would have preferred at least one way to see Earth from their home, but she made sure to mention during the tour of the house that it was mere minutes away from the satellite’s only gravitational golf course, and before you know it, there was a sold sign out front.

It was this reflection on her absent longing that had her questioning when the last time was she had actually looked at Earth. Her office was attached to her home, and there were no portals at all in there to help avoid distraction. She worked for the Pediatric Transition Office, which meant checking in with all the new residents of Satellite #4 with children under the age of ten. She’d make sure they weren’t showing some of the side effects minors sometimes experience in the first few years after arriving, like sleeplessness and loss of appetite. These were uncommon, and so most of her day was staring at perfectly healthy babies on screen gurgling and laughing at her as she went through questionnaires with their parents.

Her first appointment of the day wouldn’t be for a few hours. Whenever possible, she would give herself the time after everyone left to catch up on paperwork and adjust the air quality. Studies had shown that poor breathing could extend a lifetime on the colony by two or three years, but nobody was quite sure why yet. Allen believed in all that, whereas Alice wanted to wait for future research before forcing their children to wheeze and cough unnecessarily. They split the difference by modulating it throughout the day, although Allen wasn’t aware that Alice was always heightening the quality behind his back. That was something she found herself doing in all areas of her life--doing what was best for people against their wishes and without them noticing.

Every so often, a quiet will come along that can propel you towards profoundly unexpected behavior. It was a kind of quiet that Alice rarely ever found in the colony. Each residence had a complex series of machines and mechanisms keeping them running. Repairmen would often pop by to tweak or fidget with parts of every house throughout the day. It was never lost on anyone, especially the heads of household, that everyone was only a small gasket snap or console malfunction away from oblivion.

In this moment, however, there were no repairs needed. The ever-present hum of the house seemed duller for some reason. More subdued. Alice, who was not a believer in signs, took this to be one. She could only argue to herself that it was important to act out of character if the chance presented itself--and here it was. She put on her suit--a process that took a considerable amount of time, despite the innovations in outer-space attire, and she ambled through the front exit of the house, stopping only to grab her key card so as not to be locked out.

Getting a good view of the planet required a painfully slow move west, and she wondered if she should have taken a shuttle. The trouble was there were sure to be other people on the shuttle, and she wanted to have the time to herself. She reasoned that she never got enough exercise anyway, and the walk would be good for her. This is what she was thinking of when Earth came into view like an old friend at a reunion.

Alice expected her breath to catch or her emotions to overwhelm her, but this was not the case. That should have been no surprise to her, as the sort of emotions she was expecting never appear when expected. Instead, she was flooded with a kind of emotional recall. The blue striking in her the day the water finally reached her shoulders and her mother was screaming into the phone, demanding a travel voucher. The blue being the same color as the blue shirt Allen was wearing when they met at one of those old Moon Mixers the colony doesn’t host anymore due to budget cuts. The blue reminding her of the ocean blue blanket she’d swaddle Ari in when he was born, and then Ava. The blanket didn’t seem to have any sentimental significance at the time. It was just something the colony gave mothers, along with a pacifier and a book on raising children in the new world. Still, she found herself wanting that blanket. Fixating on where she might have put it.

Her eyes went looking for the bits of green, but they were hard to spot. Little polka dots decorating what was once a place belonging entirely to them. Seeing them, Alice instantly knew why she had never wanted to see the planet again. She was afraid it would be different, and afraid that it wouldn’t be. The parts that she remembered brought back more than she thought she could hold, and the parts she didn’t felt immeasurable. Where would she put them? How could she continue knowing they were there and that she had no relationship to them? Knowing that there would be more and then there would be nothing and then something again, and so much of it would be strange and foreign to her.

It is not a bad idea to cry in a space suit. It’s not entirely advisable either, but it won’t put you in any danger. This is good news for Alice, who found herself crying as she looked at her former home. Not only because of how it looked, but because of how the dots connected in front of her. The pictures they made, the connections they created, and the new places born out of those connections. The way a memory of her father touching the spots on the wall in their kitchen where they took stock of her height right before they turned off the lights and left for good.

Alice couldn’t believe how beautiful it all looked. She had thought the pain might diminish the beauty, but it hadn’t. 

Miraculously, it hadn’t.