Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

But I think it is also the relief I feel that those stars are immovable.

Nothing you or I could do will ever alter them. They are so much bigger than us. And they will not change within our lifetime. We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes.

Everything about space exploration is about preparedness over impulsivity, calmness over boldness. For such an adventurous job, it can be achingly routine.

probably just the cool night air, but Joan also suspected that Frances was starting to focus, perhaps even taking in Joan’s finger, bright against a dark sky. Maybe this was who she could be to Frances. Maybe this was their language.

But that clarity was fleeting. The rest of the time, caring for Frances felt like trudging through mud up to the knees.

Frances had been born just yesterday; Joan was sure of it. And yet, Frances was going into second grade and Joan was going to be an astronaut.

look up at the night sky, just aching to touch the stars. I’d sit there with my hand stretched out as far as I could reach, trying to convince myself I could scoop them into my hand.

“Absolutely. To do something so few people have ever done? No one will ever be able to take that away from us. If we do it, if we leave the planet, we will carry that with us into every room we enter for the rest of our lives.”

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

NASA, we honor the people we have lost by referring to them as being ‘on an eternal mission.’

almost everything except the sound of her own voice inside her mind. Which was such a gift. She had always been her greatest friend, her greatest guide. Up here, all she could hear was that voice. The kindest version of her. Look at the clouds, take a breath, do you see how pale the blue of the sky can be? Suddenly Hank’s voice crackled in her helmet: “Tell me that’s not the heavens.”

Joan so loved the beauty in this world: showing people the stars, spotting the fuzzy glimmer of the Orion Nebula with just her eyes, the rare moments when auroras are visible even in the southern states because of intense geomagnetic storms, trying one more time to really nail Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor, rereading The Awakening, listening to Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, drawing for so long, so late into the night that her palm cramped, running so far that she forgot to think, taking Frances for ice cream and watching how long she deliberated over which flavor to choose, the smell of Frances’s hair… That was the stuff that made life worth living. And she worried Barbara didn’t see that.

She has been through enough in her life to know that there is no value in long-term thinking right now. In a crisis of this magnitude, you are best served by evaluating second by second.

When we learn about the constellations,

we also learn how earlier generations made sense of the world. The stars are connected to so many other elements of our life. It’s the gray areas that are most fascinating: ‘Is this astronomy or history?’ ‘Is this time or space?’ ”

“That the night sky is a map, and once you know how to read it, it will always be there. You’ll never be lost.”

Being human was such a lonely endeavor. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another. Joan was always moved by the fact that everything—all matter on Earth and beyond, up past the atmosphere, going as far as the edges of the universe, as it expands farther and farther away from us—is made from the same elements. We are made of the same things as the stars and the planets. Remembering that connection brought Joan comfort. It also brought her some sense of responsibility. And what was kinship but that? Comfort and responsibility. “It

Joan did not believe there were gods up there, but she did believe that God was there. Was everywhere. The wonder of the night sky was as good a place to connect with it as the smell of a grapefruit or the warmth of a pocket of sun.

“Of course we look for the gods there,” Vanessa said. “And if we make it up there, we’re going to have to fight against that sneaking suspicion that we might just be gods ourselves.”

Did Vanessa know that, on some level, Joan could not resist the idea that to go up there would be to touch God? That Joan could not help but wonder if, among the stars, there would be answers to questions no human had yet found?

But there was something about Frances that made Joan believe she was better—held more goodness—than anyone she had ever met. That kind of faith was a lot to put on a six-year-old girl. Joan tried to keep it in check. To be ready to accept all the ways that Frances would grow and change and blossom into her full imperfection.

“Your commitment to the world around you. How much you care.

“The whole sky makes sense to me now,” Vanessa said. “Because of you.” And Joan thought, Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

The amber of Vanessa’s eyes was almost gold when the light hit it. The look of them, especially in this moment, was so complex that they reminded Joan of what her mother always said about her favorite landscape painting, which hung above the dining room table at their house. It “rewarded your attention.” Joan could stare into Vanessa’s eyes for hours and still never tire of all that they held.

Joan knew then that Donna was not an idiot. And the Beatles were not nonsense. And that there had always been a place for her in this world. She had just been walking past it over and over again, never noticing that there was an unmarked door, waiting for her to discover it.

She had to exist only in the base of her brain, the heavy putty of her heart. And so she put everything away except Yes, and I want, and More, please.

want to take you everywhere. And do everything with you. And ask you every single question that’s been on my mind for months. And I want to know when you knew what was happening between us and I want to tell you when I knew. And I want to hold your hand in a quiet corner

and I want to lie in bed and hear your heartbeat through your chest. I want to bring you coffee in bed. And I want to hear you tell me anything you’ve always wanted to tell someone. Because you know that you’ve met someone who desperately wants to listen.”

Could you burn up from a gaze this bright upon you? “Oh.”

“Now I will settle for the stars.”

Joan had had no idea how quickly you could learn another’s body. How swiftly their legs become your legs, their arms your arms. She was no longer Joan, or no longer only Joan. She was also

part of this larger body, this larger self. That could only exist when they were together.

“You’re saying you don’t believe in a God who would hate, right? And if that God does exist, you’ll remain defiant.” “Yes, that’s…yes.” “Yeah, that’s incredibly daring! And it’s beautiful.”

In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn’t picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very center of everything. And even though you knew better, you’d allow yourself a moment to believe you were worthy of being revolved around, too. “Okay,” Joan

“The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God.”

“When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another?”

know it exists. But I also believe in it because I want to believe in it. I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me. Life is God. My life is tied to yours, and to everyone’s on this planet. How does that not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?”

Joan laughed, too, but these were the moments of legacy she found the most compelling: the chance to share something of the past with a person who could bring it further into the future. She knew most of the world was focused on bigger triumphs—scientific discoveries, great works of art—but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a strawberry milkshake seemed to Joan, at that very moment, a grand thing to carry forward.

As they flew over the Grand Canyon, Joan pressed her forehead to the window and looked as far down as she could at the vastness of the chasms below. She marveled at the millions of years of time Earth had existed without humans on it, at how unhurried the Earth had been to unfold.

Joan felt, so acutely, that the incurable problem with life was that nothing was ever in balance.

That she could not have toddler Frances and fifth-grade Frances at the same time. She could not meet adult Frances and have a moment to hold baby Frances all at once. You could not have a little of everything you wanted.

She still ached for every version of Frances. But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

Later, before they fell asleep, Joan said, “Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.” “That’s because you’re too good for the world you love so much,” Vanessa said.

“Because it feels good to love someone,” Donna said. “It feels better than anything on this Earth. And I bet better than anything up there.”

Space belonged to no one, but Earth belonged to all of them.

Nothing happening across Texas mattered to the universe. Joan had always known that. But, oh, how it mattered to her. It made the whole Earth look bright and vital and urgent to her. It made that thin line of the atmosphere the most beautiful thing Joan had ever seen.

Vanessa can hear the breathlessness in Joan’s voice, and she wants to reach through the microphone and hold her and apologize. She wants to tell her that given the choice, she would deny herself the joy of having met Joan, just to keep Joan safe from what she has to do now.

is possible that Vanessa has asked too much of the world, pushed it too far beyond its limits. But if Joan’s voice is the one with her now, she must have done something right.

“Listen. It’s okay. We asked for so much, didn’t we? We wanted to touch the stars, and look what we did. There’s nothing more we could ask from the universe, or this God you always talk about, than that. So it’s okay. It’s fine. Okay, Joan? For me, as long as you all know what you meant to me, it all worked out fine.” She knows that Joan is crying. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows. But, for once in this godforsaken day, Vanessa doesn’t feel sad at all. How could she? She had asked the world to please let her earn the love of that gorgeous, brilliant astronomer with that beautiful smile. She had asked the world to let her leave a legacy she could be proud of. She’d been given everything.

Vanessa had been right; Joan should have told her that. They could not back down. Joan should have told her that she was determined to rail against the world at every turn. She would scream and she would fight against how the world treated people like them, treated anyone on its edges. Because Joan knew they would win in the end, they all would. They would hold on long enough to see the world change. To make it accept what Joan knew to be true. That her life was complete only if lived next to Vanessa’s. They say love isn’t always enough, but Joan knew, in that moment, that it could have been. It could have been for them. She should have told Vanessa that.