Writer's Journal

(This came out a little Schmaltzy, but it’s what I’ve got for today.)

The man walked up the steps, and rang a doorbell. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, but his thoughts were those of an old man, dwelling on the changing face of the neighborhood.

He reached out one hand, drew it back slight, then pressed the doorbell. After a silent moment, an aging woman answered the door. She was in her sixties, but still recognizable.

“Jacob,” she said, her eyes wide, “c…come in.”

They entered and sat. The two of them framed the fireplace in silent tableau, not even looking at one another.

“It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Has it?” Jacob asked, “my perception of time’s been f…off, lately.”

She smiled sadly.

“I won’t ask if you waited, Emma,” he said, “I saw the picture on the way in. foolish of me to think so.”

He got up, smiled, and left.

As he went down the walk toward the street, he saw a young woman with strawberry blond hair and blue eyes walk up to the house, carrying a backpack on one shoulder. She was reading something on a white tablet.

“Excuse me,” he said.

She looked up at him, with a startled expression.

“Yes?”

“I was just speaking with Emma in there, are you her daughter?” he asked.

“Yeah…” she said, her manner both uncertain and suspicious.

“Her eldest?”

The girl nodded.

“Thank you. Good to know.”

So he left again, rising from the pale-blue-and-dark-green sphere of the Earth to the Giordano Bruno, waiting above. When the crew was full, they left again.

They returned fifty years later.

The houses were replaced with apartment buildings, and all the squirrels were gone. Geckos sunned themselves on the sidewalk. She had always liked the neighborhood, and she was going to be moving out of it soon. No hope for recovery, just for comfort.

He didn’t knock, he walked in.

The daughter was there, her face lined by years he would never know, her reddish hair faded, and turning from copper to iron.

He said nothing, walked over to the bed, and held Emma’s hand. She stared up at him, he was maybe a few years older, by his estimation, than on their first date.

“Where’s your father?” he asked, considering the graying, wrinkled person laying on the bed.

“Dead,” the daughter answered, a slight rasp to her voice, “brain cancer.”

“It’s a shame,” Jacob said, “I would’ve liked to have met the man.”

“I know who you are,” the daughter said.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” he said, not looking away from Emma, “though I know your family. Good people, your family.”

“Jacob Straub, the astronaut.”

“Yes.”

“Are you leaving again?”

“No reason to stay.”

“My grandson’s wife is pregnant. She intends to name the child ‘Helen,’ if it’s a girl.”

Jacob’s brow furrowed, and his gaze turned flat.

“Are you trying to set me up with an unborn child while your mother dies in the same room?”

“She’s already dead,” the daughter said, “the pill was fast-acting, and her timing was perfect.”

“She committed suicide?”

“She wanted you here for it.”

The Giordano Bruno left, on a journey that took it far from home, through the inky black void between stars, empty of even gasses that would rob them of heat.  They returned thirty years later.

Jacob gave it some thought, and descended from Earth, a page of folded up directions tucked in his pocket.