Page 13 of The Light Year

“Sorry. There’s a big protest at the end of the month, and I’m the point of contact,” Carrie says apologetically as she tips her head in the direction of the ringing phone. She reaches out to ruffle Huck’s hair. “These guys can come over anytime—they were as easy as pie,” she says, blowing Barbie a kiss as she dashes off to answer the ringing phone, nearly colliding with her daughter, Christina, as she does.

Barbie lets herself out, still holding Huck, as Henry and Heath look both ways and then race across the street towards their house.

She could use a nap, but it’s only three-thirty, and Barbie still has hours of mothering, cooking, laundry, and now caring for Todd and making sure he doesn’t do anything that the doctor wouldn’t want him to be doing. The excitement she’d been feeling about having all of her boys home—even Todd—has dissipated slightly.

Barbie sets Huck down inside the front door and then drops her purse on the table in the entryway. There is a mirror over the table, and she pauses and looks at her tired, heat-wilted reflection, leaning in close as she swipes a hand beneath each eye to try to wipe away what are actually dark circles.

“God, Barb, you could use a break yourself,” she mutters, fluffing her hair and making a face. When she glances down, she sees the pile of mail that Todd has brought in and dropped inthe wide, flat dish where they leave their keys. Barbie picks up the envelopes and shuffles through them: bills; a notice about a neighborhood barbecue; a heavy, expensive envelope with a wax seal on the back flap and a return address in Westport, Connecticut. She flips it over again and frowns at it. It’s addressed to Todd, but it’s from George Mackey.

Barbie kicks off her shoes and wanders into the main room, where the boys are already wrestling on the carpet in the middle of the giant open area. “Todd?” she calls out, still holding that one envelope. “You got something from my father.”

Todd is reclined in the chair that faces the giant picture window. He’s facing the street with his eyes closed as the boys roll around in a tangle of limbs nearby.

“Hmm?” Todd says, opening one eye. “What did I get?”

Barbie sits on the arm of the recliner, perching her rear end next to her husband and handing him the envelope so that she can watch as he opens it.

Todd sighs and slips a finger beneath the flap, popping open the wax seal. The heavy card stock inside the envelope slides out, and Barbie can see a short message that’s typed out and signed in blue ink—the scrawl at the bottom of the note is unmistakably her father’s.

“Dear Todd,” he says aloud, clearing his throat before he goes on. “Thank you for your service to this country, and for your bravery in undertaking the exciting frontier of space exploration. I am thrilled to hear of your safe return, and wish you all the best during your tenure at NASA.” He pauses and turns to look up at Barbie with a slight smirk before glancing back at the note. “It’s signed ‘Senator George Mackey.’ I feel so special,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Todd hands the note and the envelope to Barbie. “Better put that in the scrapbook you keep of all my newspaper clippings.”

Barbie takes the note and re-reads it, hoping that Todd has left out a few words or lines that make the note more personal, but his reading of it had been faithful: her father has sent him what amounts to a form letter. Without a doubt, Bill Booker got precisely the same message.

Barbie is about to defend her father when the phone rings and she slides off the arm of the chair, taking the note with her as she steps over the kids on her way to the kitchen.

“Roman residence,” Barbie says into the receiver.

“Barbara?” It’s her mother-in-law, calling from Connecticut, but the way Theresa Roman shouts down the line, you’d think that she was calling from a distant planet. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Theresa,” she says patiently, leaning her head out into the living room so that Todd will hear that she’s got his mother on the phone. He turns his head slightly and looks in her direction, then makes a show of closing his eyes and pretending to snore. Barbie waves a hand at him. “I can hear you.”

“Honey, how is Todd? Is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine,” Barbie says, wedging the phone to her shoulder so that she can open the refrigerator and poke around to see what there is to cook for dinner. Her exhaustion has ratcheted up several notches at the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice. It’s not that she doesn’t like Theresa—and she’s always adored Todd’s dad, Benny—but her hands are truly full here. And Theresa Roman is famous for being overly dramatic about every single thing.

“But he was in that terrible situation in space, Barbara,” Theresa says, as if Barbie might not have heard. Barbie can picture her twisting her rosary between her fingers as she talks. “And he’s already been through so much.”

It takes all of Barbie’s strength not to sigh audibly as she looks down at the stupid note her father had sent, and as shelistens to Theresa work herself into a lather on the other end of the line.

Without asking or waiting for further clarification, Barbie guesses Theresa thinks Todd has “been through so much” due to marrying Barbie, and while she and Theresa are on good terms as women, Barbie knows well that she will never be good enough for Todd—at least in Theresa’s eyes. The combination of her father’s public persona, his well-known dalliances with other women, and her mother’s untimely death, had left a stain on Barbie’s family that Theresa has never quite gotten over.

As Theresa yammers on, Barbie’s mind wanders. She remembers her own mother right before her wedding, attending dress fittings with Barbie, and helping her to select flowers for each table, to taste different wines, and to choose the band for the reception. It had all been so much fun, and Barbie had felt as though she and her mother were on the same page—that they were doing something that Marion Mackey understood and knew how to do: put on a party.

The day of her last dress fitting, the two women had stood in the back of Love & Lace, the dressmaker’s boutique in Westport, with Barbie posing on a small pedestal to show off the length of her gown and train. Her mother was next to her, looking up at Barbie’s face with wonder.

“Oh, honey,” Marion Mackey had said, eyes misting over. “You look lovely.”

Both women turned to look at Barbie’s reflection in the mirror. She’d chosen a dress with a sweetheart neckline and a layer of lace over the skirt that fanned out into a five-foot train behind her. On her head was a veil made of the same lace as her skirt, and her blue eyes shone through the netting as she imagined the way Todd would look, standing at the end of the aisle and waiting for his bride. She knew that marrying Todd was the right choice, and possibly the best thing she’d ever do, butthe battle to get there had been long and hard. George Mackey hadn’t approved, and wouldn’t relent on sharing his displeasure.

“Thanks, Mom,” Barbie said, turning slightly to one side to admire the way the lace caught the light with its little hand-sewn seed pearls.

Marion turned her body away from Barbie and walked over to where her pocketbook was resting on a chair. She bent over and opened the purse, searching for her handkerchief to dab her eyes.

“Barbara,” her mother said, not meeting her gaze in the mirror. “I want you to know how proud I am of you. You found love, and you’re doing what feels right to you. That’s rare in our world.”

Barbie tilted her head to one side; it wasn’t often that her mother dropped her guard and spoke freely, but they were alone in the back of Love & Lace, and perhaps she felt as though she had something that needed to be said.

“I do love Todd,” Barbie said carefully. “And I’m over the moon to be his wife.”

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