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 wordberryso 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 nudgeof 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 inThe Inquirerabout 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.
