Page 31 of Starlight & Dark Nights

“Fine. Then let’s eat dinner.”

He throws the sliding door open with the kind of force that makes Jo cringe. The last thing they need is a patio full of shattered glass, and a houseful of startled children.

For tonight, anyway, she will make peace.

* * *

Jo’s determination to make peace lasts all of twenty-four hours, because the next day she comes home to find a letter in the mailbox from an agent in New York City, and it’s addressed to her.

Irene Powers, the head of PR at NASA, had asked Jo for permission to share her story with an agent she knew, and Jo had agreed. But she’s never imagined opening her mailbox to actually find a letter there from Martin Snell of Snell & Banks Literary.

Jo slips her finger beneath the flap of the envelope and opens it slowly, pulling the letter out with care. Her hands are shaking, and she looks up and down her street as if someone might be observing her.

She clears her throat and focuses on the letter.

Mrs. Booker,

I have received and read your writing sample, forwarded by my close friend, Irene Powers. She has enclosed a letter explaining that you have a unique voice and some interesting insight, and I cannot disagree. I have enjoyed reading your short work on Maxine and Winston’s relationship, and would very much like to read more from you. If you could possibly forward me the first fifty pages of whatever you’re working on at the moment, I will read them at my earliest convenience and get back to you.

Thank you so much for sharing your work with Irene—and thank you to her for sharing it with me. I look forward to reading more of your work.

Sincerely,

Martin Snell

Snell & Banks Literary

Jo reads the letter three more times and then rushes into the house. Fifty pages?! She doesn’t have fifty pages. What she has is her work cut out for her.

For the rest of the day, as she moves through her chores and takes care of the house and the children, Jo begins to plot her next story.

CHAPTER14

Maxine

She’s two months in.Two months into widowhood, and just weeks away from giving birth to her third child. Maxine Trager is a shell of the woman she’d been before December thirteenth, and she has no idea how to pull herself together. How to be a mother again, and how to put one foot in front of the other after losing Derek.

Actually, that’s not true: she knows that finding a purpose will help her to get out of bed in the morning. Wendy and this new baby should be enough—not to mention Ryan, though he’s plenty old enough now to take care of his own daily needs and to process the loss of his father without constant explanations about where Daddy is and why he’s not coming home—but Maxine has quickly discovered that the notion of endless days and nights of diapers, bottles, laundry, and cooking aren’t enough to help her see the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

What actually pulls her out of her own head surprises even her: it’s the protestors that have taken up residence on the outskirts of Cape Kennedy. They’re just enough off the property that no one can take away their right to peacefully protest, but they show up every day, without fail. They’re a motley crew of young men and women, of college age students and retirees, of people holding homemade signs, and of others just pacing and chanting things that can’t be heard when car windows are rolled up.

Maxine passes this gathering each day as she makes her way around town, forcing herself to walk into the grocery story, the pharmacy, or the bakery. She takes Wendy to the Little Spinners dance classes that Frankie Maxwell runs each Monday and Wednesday morning for girls ages two through four, and she stops at the service station for gasoline, staring through the windshield as the young men in their starched shirts and pants rush around, filling her tank, washing her windows, and checking the air in her tires.

It’s on one such morning—Valentine’s Day, in fact—that Maxine sees this group of protestors, and her first response is indignation: how can these people beopposedto NASA when they aren’t even sure what goes on there? How can they be angry at the way this country has prioritized space exploration when it’s clearly the way forward—the way of the future?

She’d been called into the office shortly after Derek’s death, and it had taken Jude Majors and Jo Booker nearly two hours to coax her out of her robe and slippers and into a dress, and then Jude had driven Maxine to the meeting with Arvin North, holding onto Maxine’s arm the entire time to offer her support.

Arvin North, along with a small faction of men in suits and ties, had greeted Maxine with gravity, leading her into a conference room where a table was laden with coffee, cream, sugar, pitchers of water, and a small tray of breakfast pastries. All of it remained untouched.

“Thank you for joining us, Mrs. Trager,” Arvin North had said. He sat at the end of the table, looking at Maxine as she perched, shrunken, in the chair at the opposite end of the room. Next to her, Jude had sat with her purse looped over one arm, chair pulled close to Maxine’s in solidarity. Jude had not been invited directly, but Maxine had refused to attend without her.

“Your husband is a hero both in this program, and to our entire country,” Arvin North said. An ashtray rested near his elbow, though he made no move to light a cigarette. “He and Bob Young will go down in history as men who gave their lives so that America could make progress towards the moon.”

This had rung hollow for Maxine then, and it still does now.

“Derek leaves behind a wife and three children,” Maxine said in response, rubbing her ever-expanding belly as she eyed the men in suits. “He lost his life before he ever got to meet his newest baby. That is a tragedy, Mr. North. There is no way for me to reconcile me losing my husband—my children losing their father—with this country making great strides towards outer space. The two things do not compare, in my book.”

“Yes, I understand, Mrs. Trager.” Arvin North bowed his head slightly, pausing before he said more. “But when a man signs on to become an astronaut, he understands that there are certain dangers involved. He knows that he must accept that death is a possibility, and that in the event of a tragic, unforeseen accident, his family might be forced to go on without him. That does not make it any easier, but Derek Trager was a man of great practicality, and he knew both the risks and the rewards.”

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