The Long Goodbye

T-Plus Seven Months

It was close to four in the morning, and I was sitting in my backyard, looking up to the night sky, and glass of merlot on the table beside me. She'd been gone seven months, and I missed her. I know I’m not the only person who is missing someone because they are gone, forever, but at that moment, sitting in my backyard, I believed that no one else could feel as lonely as I did.

I scanned the sky. There was a sliver of a moon. I could see Orion’s Belt, Betelgeuse, Sirius. Venus and Mercury were huddled at the horizon. But the star of the show was Mars, riding high in the sky, passing right through the horns of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The red planet was always where my gaze travelled, and stayed.

T-Minus Fourteen Days

“So, are you and Dad going to be okay?”

No, I screamed in my mind. No. We. Are. Not.

Instead I said. “We’ll be fine. It’s you and Martin we’re worried about.”

My daughter, Charlotte, fixed me with her green-eyed gaze. “We’ll be fine. We have the best team working on it. I couldn’t ask for a better team.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that I worry. There are so many ways that this could go sideways.”

“I understand your fear. It’s not like I’m not anxious. I am. I worry about the whole procedure. I know that one wrong move could spell disaster.” She paused. “But, we’re not the first. It’s just that the stakes are higher when it’s forever.”

Charlotte, who was sitting on the floor, bent down, and rubbed the heads of her two dogs, Goose and Buster. Both were rescues, and loved by Charlotte and her husband Martin as deeply as others loved their children. To Charlotte and Martin, Goose and Buster were their children.

“I don’t understand why the dogs aren’t allowed.” She didn’t look at me, but I could hear that her voice breaking. “They would help. A lot.” She was now rubbing Goose’s belly, while Buster sat in her lap, still getting his head stroked.

“I promise you that we’ll take good care of them. You don’t have to worry. You know that we love our ‘grand dogs.’”

Charlotte made a hiccuping sound, wiped her eyes, and looked up at me.

“I know. That’s why Martin and I asked you guys to take them. The dogs love you, and they love being here.” Charlotte and Martin had lived in an urban home, on a considerably smaller footprint than our suburban home. Goose and Buster loved running around our big back yard. There was so much to do — other dogs on both adjoining properties, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits. So many sniffs. They were in heaven, with enough room to play a good game of tennis ball fetch. Tennis ball fetch was where someone threw the tennis ball to Goose, who chased it, but refused to bring it back. So, whoever threw the ball had to fetch it, and throw it again. 

Charlotte looked up. “What about Will? We’re twins. He says he’s going to be okay without me, but I don’t think he will be. I know it sounds kind of ’twinnie,’ but we’ve always had one another, and now he’s going to be alone. I’m worried he won’t be able to handle it.”

I looked at Charlotte. She and Will looked similar, and shared a number of similar traits — both of them had a wicked sense of humour, they liked the same music and movies, both would call BS on anyone not telling the truth. They also shared an almost unspoken ability to communicate wordlessly. They were close now, but not so much when they had been teens. There had been quite a few battle royales, each giving as good as they took. But, as they matured they once again embraced the special bond that twins share. 

“Sweetie, he’s got Sonja. And he understands. It’ll be hard, but he gets it.”

“I’m glad that we had our time we had together.”

I knew that she was talking about the week they had spent together, just the two of them. They had booked a cabin up north, no cell reception, no internet, just the two of them, talking, remembering, saying goodbye.

It was goodbye forever.

T-Plus Seven Months

I looked up at the sky. I could see the lifting of the absolute black of night fading towards dawn in the east. The moon was low in the sky in the northwest. Venus and Mercury had blinked below the horizon. The Big Dipper had spent the night swinging around the north star with its handle now pointing to the west, still high in the sky.

Michael and I had spent many nights when Charlotte and Will were younger, gazing at the sky. We’d used a telescope and binoculars to focus on the individual planets, but we all agreed that being able to see the entire night sky using just our eyes was the best way to experience the vastness of space.

T-Minus Five Months

Charlotte and Martin had come to tell us that they were selling the house. Of course they were. Neither of them was ever going to live there again. They were getting rid of everything — car, furniture, stuff. Everything must go, go, go! Final liquidation sale! Going out of business! I had sighed.

They had asked us to come over and take anything that we wanted. Michael had laughed that it was our chance to get everything back that we had lent them. 

We actually reclaimed a number of tools, but it was still disturbing. Pawing through Charlotte and Martin’s belongings, as if it was a garage sale. We didn’t need things. Instead we wanted mementos — things that we could hold close to help us remember them.

I ended up leaving empty handed. My heart wasn’t in it. If I took something home, I felt that I would be admitting that life was changing in irrevocable ways. I couldn’t do that yet. Instead Michael selected something for both of us — a wedding photo. It was a candid shot of Charlotte, Martin, Michael, and me laughing at something, with Will in the background photo-bombing the shot. It epitomized our family perfectly. Michael had chosen well. 

Martin’s parents and brothers and sister had arrived, just as we were leaving. Anita, Martin’s mother ignored us. I knew that she blamed us for the decisions that had been made — life changing decisions that were turning her world upside-down. I also knew that there was nothing that I could say that would change her mind, so I didn’t even try. We would always be the bad guys.

When we left the house for the last time, I looked around. There were the gardens that Charlotte had loved. She wasn’t much for flowers and bushes, but she loved her vegetable garden. She and Michael lifted all the sod and had built raised gardens. Every year she planted enough tomatoes to feed the neighbourhood. And the neighbourhood obliged, picking fresh tomatoes at her urging, sometimes gifting her back with bounties from their own gardens. 

I looked at the two fruit trees in the backyard — an apple tree, and a pear trees. I had been so excited when Michael and I had found these two trees. We ad taken them right over and planted them. In an interesting twist of nature versus humans, Charlotte and Martin had never actually eaten any of the fruit from either tree. It wasn’t that the trees didn’t bear fruit — they did. It was just that the squirrels got to them before Charlotte and Martin could. Charlotte was very philosophical about it, figuring that if the squirrels preferred not quite ripe pears and apples, who was she to stand in their way? My eyes misted up at the memory. Soon there would be another family battling the squirrels for the fruit from the trees. I silently wished them luck.

When the house sold, Charlotte and Michael divided the money evenly between the two families. We put our share into trust for them. I told them we were just being optimistic. They had laughed at my hopefulness. This was definitely wishful thinking. But, you know, just in case …

T-Plus Seven Months

Michael came out and joined me outside just before dawn. He had made me a tea, himself a coffee. This had been our routine for the last seven months. I would stay up all night, and Micheal would join me right before sunrise. We would sit quietly looking up at the sky. 

“Soon you’ll be able to join the rest of the world, and sleep at night, instead of gazing off in space. I miss you.”

I smiled. It had been this way for almost seven months. And, to be honest, I did miss sleeping in the same bed as Michael. But I couldn’t bring myself to stop watching. Not yet. I felt I would be letting down Charlotte and Martin if I wasn’t out at night, keeping vigil.

“I know. If all goes according to plan, this will be the last night.” I paused. “As long as all goes according to plan.”

Michael sat beside me, gazing heavenward. We didn’t talk, we just sat quietly, each of us wrapped up in our own thoughts.

T-Minus Nine Months

Charlotte and Martin had called a family meeting. I knew that it was to explain all the details of the future of their lives. They had explained what they had to do, when they had to do it, where they would be doing it all. They explained their legal obligations, and expectations placed on them. They explained how completely their lives would change. 

It had not been a good meeting. There were questions, of course. Charlotte and Martin could answer some of them, others they promised to get back to us once they found out the answers. That was the easy part. The hard part had been the accusations from Anita, who accused Michael and me, in no uncertain terms, of brainwashing her son, making him go against his parents. She accused us of making Martin bend to Charlotte’s will. She accused Charlotte of forcing him to marry her, buy their home, to do everything that she wanted, never what Martin wanted. She then accused all of us — including Will — of bullying Martin into doing something so absurd that it defied logic.

Martin had tried to assure his mom that he was acting of his own free will, and that no one had bullied him. Anita said of course that’s what someone who was brainwashed would say. She left saying that Martin needed to get away from our family, that we were all toxic, and this relationship was going to get him killed.

Anita’s breakdown had upset Charlotte terribly. After Anita had left, she had turned to Martin and asked him if he felt that she had pressured him into this new life. 

“Charlotte, I would never let anyone talk me into anything that I didn’t want to do. We got married because we loved each other. We bought this house because we both loved it. Everything we’ve done, every decision that we’ve made, we’ve done it together. Neither one of us has bullied the other into making any decisions. We decide things because we both agree.”

“We can stop doing this right now, if you want.”

“No, Charlotte, we are doing this because it’s what we want. Not what anyone else wants, but what we want.”

T-Plus Seven Months

It was full light. I was restless, and wandered aimlessly around the house, looking at my phone, willing it to ring. I knew I should ring any moment -- with either good news, or the worse news possible.

T-Minus Eighteen Months

When Charlotte and Martin came into the house, we could tell that something was up. Apparently they had called Will, and he and Sonja arrived at the same time.

“We have something huge to tell you." We all waited. Charlotte took a deep breath. "Do you remember, about two years ago, when NASA asked for applications to travel to Mars?”

“Vaguely,” I said.

“Well, Martin and I have formally been selected for the program. We're going to Mars. To live. Forever. ”

I was dumbstruck. Mars? I thought it was a joke. I didn’t even realize that it was a real thing. I had been hearing about different missions travelling to Mars, and remember reading about plans to colonize the planet, but I hadn’t paid too much attention, because it really didn’t pertain to me. But, from what Charlotte and Martin had just told us, it really did concern us. In a big, big way.

Will spoke up. “Uh, isn’t that the program where you go to Mars, but you never come back.”

“Yes. That’s exactly the program.”

“But, we’ll never see you again.”

“That’s right.” Charlotte paused, and looked at the three of us. “We will miss you all very, very much. But this so important, for us, and for the planet.”

“Why?” asked Michael.

Martin spoke up. “It's something that we both believe is the right thing. We’re going to be the first people to live on Mars. NASA’s been sending missions up there for years, building and perfecting a self-contained environment. It’s been online for six months now, and they are ready to send people to live there permanently. We’re part of the first group of six.”

Charlotte started to explain. “We leave in eighteen months. The journey is seven months. In a little more than two years, we’re going to be living on Mars." She smiled widely. "We’re really excited.”

We had so many questions. We found out that they had been chosen because of their science and engineering backgrounds. Also, because they were young, and a couple, there had been hints that the powers-that-be hoped they would have children in the future.

“My grand babies are going to be Martians?” I was stunned.

Charlotte and Martin took turns explaining what they knew, which, considering the magnitude of their undertaking, was not so much. In addition to Charlotte and Martin, the first group included two doctors, a psychologist, and an astronaut. Their training was scheduled to start in two weeks.

There was so much to take in. But there was an ache in my chest. I was so happy that Charlotte and Martin were able to follow their dream, but that didn’t mean that my heart wasn't breaking. Once they they left Earth, we would never see them again.

We sat talking late into the night. There were tears and laughter. Tentative future plans were made, rough timetables discussed. Around three in the morning we were all talked out. Charlotte, Martin and Will stayed the night, because it was so late. 

In the morning, during those first seconds before I was fully awake, I was fine. Then I realized that I only had two short years to say goodbye to my only daughter.

T-Plus Seven Months

I thought back to the hoopla surrounding the journey. Charlotte and Martin, and the four other members of the mission had been hailed heroes. They were considered modern explorers. There were always naysayers, but for the most part the public was solidly behind the mission.

Never once did Charlotte or Martin waiver in their decision to leave Earth. Both were devoted in their belief that what they were doing was for the good of the planet.

The last time I had hugged Charlotte and Martin was two weeks before blast off, when they had brought the dogs to our house to live with us, permanently. They had to quarantine and undergo extensive, last minute medical testing for two weeks before the flight. Both passed with flying colours.

We had been able to see them from behind glass walls just before lift-off. It had been hard, and we had all cried. But, thankfully, the launch had gone without a hitch. I had stood in the V.I.P. viewing deck at the Kennedy Space Centre, Michael on one side, Will and Sonja on the other, all of us watching their craft, The Genesis, disappearing from site.

That had been seven months ago. Now we were waiting for word that The Genesis had landed safely on the surface of Mars.

My phone rang shortly after noon. Michael came running in from the other room, where he had been watching CNN for word on the mission. We looked at each other. I took a deep breath, answered the call, putting it on speaker.

“Hello?”

All I heard was static.

“Hello?”

More static. Then a voice.

“Hey, Mom and Dad. It’s me. We made it. We’re safe.”