Apparent Magnitudes

by Chloe N. Clark

When Theresa meets the astronaut for the first time she is too young to remember. Her mother brings her to a talk that another astronaut is giving because she can’t find anyone to watch Theresa, and she has never seen an astronaut in person despite living in Clear Lake, so close to the Space Center that she passes it every day on her walks pushing the baby stroller around. Theresa’s mother dreams of space nearly every night, of floating next to stars, but she will never see them in person. It’s the 90s and she is a stay-at-home mom who never went to college, and her husband works in oil and talks about how they’ll move to Florida when they retire because he loves the ocean, just not the ocean near them.

The astronaut talking never went to the moon, but he did go to space, and that’s something really. Theresa’s mom holds her, because she is a good baby who never cries except when she is hungry, and she’s just been fed and will probably sleep the whole time. Next to Theresa’s mom sits another woman and she holds her own son. He is two and he is the astronaut that will become important to Theresa. But, of course, he is a toddler and not an astronaut yet, not for thirty-five years to be exact. His name is Terrence, but everyone will eventually call him T. He looks over at baby Theresa and says, baby, to his mom while pointing at the red sleeping head of Theresa. His mom smiles at Theresa’s mom, as she says, yes, a baby, even younger than you.

When Theresa finally opens her eyes, she sees the astronaut on the stage and then she sees T and then her heavy eyelids close and she is zooming through the stars.

When Theresa meets the astronaut for the second time, they are both in their teens, and at the state finals for basketball. Theresa is on the girls’ junior varsity team and T is on the boys. It’s still high school, though, and if Theresa wears a basketball jersey on any day but gamedays, her peers call her names. But on gamedays, she might as well be royalty. She flies across the court and jumps like gravity doesn’t have a hold on her. She watches everybody’s games, while she’s waiting to play. She notices T because he’s the only one on his team that moves with grace. She wonders if he’s taken dance because he practically pirouettes before he jumps. After his game, which his team loses, Theresa goes up to him. She reaches out a hand, says, you were awesome, and he takes her hand and shakes it awkwardly. T only thinks about the shots he missed, he doesn’t think about how he scored the most on his team, had the most assists, or was the only one to get any rebounds, he only thinks about what else he could have done. T says thanks, eventually, but Theresa is already gone.

On the court, she hits every three she takes, she soars, she leaps, she spins. Her team wins and everyone cheers her name. And the next week back at school, everyone is back to shooting spitballs at her, and she ignores them. She ignores them as she walks down the halls, as she goes to her extra practice tests for the SAT, as she works extra shifts at the sandwich shop and her peers order footlongs from her while pretending they don’t know her, as she walks across the stage for graduation and only a handful of people clap.

When Theresa meets the astronaut for the third time, it’s at a college party, and she recognizes him but can’t place from where. T is taller and more muscular than he was as a teen, but he doesn’t play basketball anymore, instead, he goes to the gym and lifts weights, because the only one he can let down there is himself. He’s studying engineering and she’s studying engineering, but in different disciplines so they don’t have any classes together, could go another four years and never cross paths. But she says, do I know you, and he says, I don’t think so. Though he studies her red curls, her wide eyes, and the scar that dips down one side of her face from when she fell off her bike as a kid, he thinks, maybe I do know her. But she’s already walking away, headed to take a breath of air from outside.

Theresa listens to the party, from the front yard, as she stares up at the night sky. She sees the ISS pass over her head, and she waves. She wonders how many people know what it is, how many just think it’s a plane, a shooting star? Theresa calls her mother, once she gets home, and asks if she waved at the ISS too. Of course, I did, her mom says laughing. Imagine being up there, passing around the world so fast. Do you think they know the moment when they pass over their homes, her mom asks. The whole world must look like home from so far up, Theresa says.

When Theresa meets the astronaut for the fourth time, they literally bump into each other in the halls of JSC. She is heading to a meeting and he’s heading to the mock-up room to run through training. You’re one of the new class right, she says, and he nods. It’s nice to meet you, she stretches out her hand and he takes it, the awkwardness of a handshake is not something that takes hold of him anymore. What are you, he asks. She wants to say, human, but doesn’t. Flight controller, she says, so I’ll be seeing you. He likes the response, likes the idea of people watching him, guiding him, keeping him safe. He smiles, but she’s already walking away. Her long legs, brisk walk, taking her around the corner.

In her meeting, Theresa thinks about rockets, about how much it takes for lift-off, of everything that has to go right for someone to go into the stars. She hopes the astronaut she met in the hallway will be chosen for a mission. She likes the quietness of his voice. It reminds her of someone telling children a story so that they’d fall asleep.

The last time Theresa meets the astronaut, he’s visiting Mission Control before his flight. He shakes hands at each desk, the director walking him through each area. Theresa reaches out to shake his hand, and says, good luck up there. He holds her hand a second longer than he does for anyone else as if he knows the moment will stick in her mind for the rest of her life as if he wants to grip the reality of the world just a little bit longer.

Theresa goes to her parents for dinner, her father long since retired and nowhere closer to Florida even thirty years later. She talks about the astronaut, and her mother says, do you think he’s excited? How they have to be, all those stars, that distance, it must be the most thrilling thing in the whole world, her mother says.

The last time Theresa sees the astronaut, he can’t see her. She’s watching lift-off from Mission Control. The camera on the faces of the astronauts, visors down, so everyone can see their faces. He smiles at the camera, and she wonders if he thinks about them all watching or if he’s just smiling at leaving, at going up and up into the sky.

The flame, the lift off, the shot into the dark. In the stars, the astronaut sees nothing but the distance ahead. It’s so far away from him now.

But now, in this moment, everything is fine. The mission has launched, the distance is measurable, anything could go right. Theresa looks into the sky that night and thinks she sees the rocket, so far away, but it could be anything: a firefly, a plane, a satellite, a shooting star that no one can trace before it disappears.

Chloe N. Clark is the author of Collective Gravities, Escaping the Body, and more. Her next collection, Every Galaxy Is a Circle, is forthcoming from JackLeg Press.