10…
“When you look down at Earth, what do you think you’ll see?”
Planetary departure is inevitable. There’s nothing left here for her to do. Mandatory isolation is T-minus three days. The dishes reside as permanent tenants in the stainless steel sink—water rations. Seeds from last year’s harvest, pocketed away in small business card-sized envelopes.
Some for Harry to take, and the rest to stay with me, tucked away in a waterproof bag.
“Layers and layers of blue, and you. I think I’ll always be able to see you.”
Her fingers dance alongside the back of my hand, past the scar from the time I tried to remove the pit from an avocado. A long-ago fruit. A long-ago scar.
She’ll still be here, but not really.
9…
“Do you have to go up there?”
Stevie Nicks sings about time casting a spell on both of us from a spinning vinyl in the den. Harry cocoons herself against my back, wrapping her thin arms around my hollow stomach and up between my breasts. It’s too hot to lie like this, but we do it anyway.
“The Ruby-crowned Kinglet and the Nashville Warbler—”
“Gone?”
Harry nods her forehead into the nape of my neck, loosening my thinning braid. I want to tell her we can do more, convince the neighbors to turn their lights off at night, compost, but I know better.
She says, “Without the birds…”
Between her and me, it’s the things left unspoken that make me understand her the most. I hope Stevie is right and that she won’t forget me.
Without the birds, the crickets won’t chirp.
The petrichor will be but a faint memory.
8…
“It’s about the tilt, then?”
Harry mouths delicate words—morrowlight, aurorae, lustrate—into my chest. Natural oil ran out long ago, but it doesn’t stop her from drilling straight through the core of my heart.
“During Spring Equinox, the sun crosses the celestial equator, and the Earth’s axis doesn’t tilt away or toward the sun.”
The reflection of my eyes in hers is a tiny dwarf planet, expansive and deep. I’m reclassified like Pluto, no longer clearing her orbit.
Glow-in-the-dark stars constellate the ceiling of our bedroom into heart-shaped glaciers and ice.
A forgotten planet is on everyone’s lips.
7…
“Would it be so different? ”
Harry paces the rug at the foot of our bed like an invisible spacehook is tugging her back. I spent last night buzzing her wavy shoulder-length hair down with a number two guard.
“Gene expression changes in space, but they’re changing here, now. You can see that, can’t you?”
I think about the phantom tether between me and my mother and my grandmother, how our lives begin and end in a hypoxic state. With Harry, the air continues to evaporate.
With the window open, nothing moves through.
6…
“Do you remember our first date?”
There’s a Polaroid of us on the fridge.
I stand at the portable camp stove, poking at what should be Harry’s favorite meal—Pho. But it’s mainly broth for her to eat one last time. Protein pills sound like such a drag.
“You named all the planets from biggest to smallest in less than ten seconds.”
I’d never met a real astronaut before.
“JupiterSaturnUranusNeptuneEarthVenusMarsandMercury.”
The planet’s names whistle through the gap in my teeth. A party trick, maybe, but two pieces of metal in space will collide eventually, only to fuse with the other.
Pale, yellow garlic scapes lay on the cutting board. Overflowered.
But the bees don’t come.
5…
“Did you ever love me?”
Harry stops packing her 3.3 lbs of personal items. Everything that matters is right here in this house, on this land, even if it’s not thriving, too big for a bag.
“I won’t spend our last days together proving what you already know to be true.”
She steps into my space and pulls the shirt off my body. A threadbare old cotton thing from a Pride run we did together at the beginning of our relationship. She rolls it with precision, tucking it into a sealed Ziploc bag, next to her other personal preference items.
I think of all the flowers I’ll never get to smell again if she doesn’t go now.
April hasn’t been the same since the lilacs stopped blooming.
4…
“How much time do we have left?”
This existence is intolerable. I used to count the days, weeks, and months we’d been together until the years were a blurred mess of always.
“An eternity if we’re lucky. The rest of our lives if we’re smart.”
But we’ve done all the smart things, reduced our carbon footprint. Washed on cold. Went vegan. Showered together.
What a waste.
A day on Earth is almost a year on Venus. Twin sisters. Fraternal but not identical.
3…
“And if you don’t come back?”
Warm droplets pelt our skin, and what a relief to know, March’s rain wasn’t the last we’d ever feel.
“Do you feel that? The world wants to soften, to grow again.”
Forehead to forehead, she peppers her lips across my cheeks, nose, and mouth.
Rain on a wedding day is a good omen.
But what about on liftoff?
2…
“If it all goes dark?”
A Harvest Moon casts an orange glow on an inky sky. But she has her seeds, and I have mine.
“Stars twinkle. Don’t forget to romanticize the darkness, too.”
Phosphenes bloom behind closed eyes.
Flashes of light, sparks, and color.
1…
“What’s left to say?”
That we haven’t already said to one another.
Some things have disappeared over time, like the chamomile lawn Harry grew and the good coffee.
“We’re on a parallel countdown, you and I.”
Desperation lingers, along with the impression of her on the mattress. I wait for the tilt—for the sunbeams to scatter light across the room again before I break the earth with the spade.
But for now it’s only darkness.
We’re an Ark split in two.
