Chapter 2
Chapter 3 - The Empty Table for Two
The gate swung open with a heavy, oiled click that echoed down the quiet suburban crescent.
Sky stepped through. She didn't hesitate or gawk at the six-car stone motor court, the weeping Japanese maples, or the slate fountain where water slid silently over black river stones imported from Hokkaido. She walked with her shoulders back, holding her grocery bag against her ribcage like a secret.
"Take off your shoes if you want," Nova said gently as Sky reached the brick patio. "Or don't. The grass is dry."
"These shoes have seen worse than your lawn," Sky noted, looking down at her frayed soles with mild amusement.
Juny let out a sudden, involuntary laugh—the first genuine sound that had come from an adult in that garden since dawn. She quickly masked it with a cough, but her eyes were wet as she stepped back to give the girls space.
Grant lingered five paces away, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his charcoal trousers. He felt out of scale, an oversized monument to useless wealth standing beside two children who possessed an economy of their own.
"What's in the sack?" Nova asked. Her hands were folded on her lap, trembling just enough for Grant to notice.
Sky sat down right there on the bluestone pavers, crossing her skinny legs in front of Nova’s front casters. She unfolded the top of the brown bag carefully, uncrumpling each crease with her thumb.
From inside, she pulled an object that made Grant stop breathing.
It was an old aluminum oatmeal tin, stripped of its paper label until the silver metal showed bare and scratched. The entire surface was covered in thousands of tiny, irregular perforations, poked through from the outside with what must have been an awl or a thick sewing needle. Affixed to the bottom with layers of black electrical tape was an inexpensive, heavy-duty hardware flashlight with a yellow plastic switch.
"It's not new," Sky said, her voice dropping into an apology she couldn't quite hide. "My dad made the first one for me when we lived in an apartment that didn't have windows that faced the water. We couldn't see the horizon. So he made this. If you turn off the lights, or if you go into a dark room... it does something."
Nova reached down. Sky handed the tin up to her.
Nova’s fingers traced the tiny punctured holes. She didn't see junk; Grant could tell instantly that she didn't see garbage. She saw the hundreds of hours of labor, the careful mapping of magnitudes—some holes were tiny pinpricks, others were punched wide to let more light through.
"You mapped the southern hemisphere too," Nova whispered, turning the cylinder in her hands. "That's the Southern Cross. And Alpha Centauri."
"Centauri is double-punched," Sky explained, leaning forward, her eyes catching the pale daylight. "Because it's a binary system. Well, triple, if you count Proxima, but Proxima’s too faint to punch with a needle without tearing the tin."
Nova looked up from the oatmeal tin, her face transformed. The dull, polite mask she had worn all morning—the brave smile she had pasted on for the magician and the caterers—cracked open, revealing the vibrant, electric child Grant loved more than his own life.
"Juny," Nova said, her voice urgent. "Take us to the cabana. The one with the heavy linen curtains."
"Nova, sweetie, the cake—" Grant started.
"Dad," Nova said, turning her chair toward him. "The stars don't work in the sun."
The three of them moved toward the garden cabana—a stone-pillared structure at the edge of the lawn that Grant had built two summers ago when Marin’s illness made direct sunlight unbearable for her skin. Miss Doway, moving with sudden, frantic efficiency, hurried ahead to drop the thick canvas drapes, plunging the interior into a cool, velvety twilight.
Sky slid through the drapes last. "Can I turn it on?"
"You do it," Nova said.
Sky flicked the yellow switch on the flashlight base.
A breath caught in Grant’s throat.
The canvas ceiling and the dark stone walls of the cabana vanished. In their place exploded a universe of sharp, pinprick brilliance. Because of the curvature of the tin and the intensity of the LED bulb, the light didn't blur; it threw thousands of razor-sharp white diamonds across the fabric, stretching in long, curving arcs that mimicked the actual curvature of the night sky over the Pacific Ocean.
Nova let out a soft, sharp gasp. She tipped her head back, her throat long and pale in the projected starlight.
"It's the night sky from the middle of the sea," Sky said softly, sitting on the floor beside the wheels of Nova’s chair. "Where there are no streetlights. No billboards. Just forty miles of open water in every direction."
Nova didn't say thank you. She reached down, took Sky’s hand—the one with the ink stains on the knuckles and the dirt under the fingernails—and squeezed it until her own knuckles went white.
"Stay for the cake," Nova whispered.
"I don't have good clothes on," Sky said.
"Neither do the chairs," Nova said. "There are twenty-eight of them. Pick any one you want."
Outside the cabana, in the harsh glare of the garden, Grant stood near the empty banquet tables. Miss Doway approached him, her clipboard trembling slightly in her manicured hand.
"Sir," she said quietly. "Mrs. Sterling’s assistant just called back."
Grant didn't look at her. "What did Victoria Sterling say, Doway?"
"She said... she heard there might have been an error on the invitations regarding the time. She wanted to know if Nova was still receiving guests this afternoon. Apparently, several mothers from the committee are at the Bellevue Club having tea, and they were wondering if the celebration was ongoing."
May you like
Grant looked toward the closed curtains of the cabana, from beneath which a thin sliver of artificial starlight leaked out onto the grass. He could hear Nova laughing—not a polite chuckle, but a deep, ringing, belly laugh that he hadn't heard since the day Marin went into hospice.
"Tell Mrs. Sterling," Grant said, his voice flat and dead as iron, "that the guest list is full."
