Page 46 of To the Moon and Back

STEPH NAUGATUCK OYSTER BAR

The day before graduation, Della’s parents flew in from Utah.

Kayla and Felicia took the bus to Hollis from Boston, where they lived with Jason in graduate family housing at Harvard Law.

I had told my mother not to come, knowing both the expense and the rumors that the factory where she worked might be closing.

Still, she came. She insisted on a big, celebratory family dinner.

And family, she said, “of course” included the Ericsons.

Naugatuck Oyster Bar was a restaurant, not a bar, with white cloth napkins and a real pianist in a black turtleneck in the corner. Vintage canoes hung upside down on thin wires from the ceiling. I worried one of them would fall on our heads.

My mother complimented the visible grain of the wood at her place-setting, covering her disappointment with the lack of tablecloths, and the waiter told her it was reclaimed pine from the White Mountains.

“White indeed,” she whispered to Della in the leather-backed chair beside her, and Della laughed.

When Della had stayed with us in Oklahoma, the two of them spent slow, early mornings together.

They sat together on the front stoop, even in December, under the blue quilt my mother had noticed was missing and made me give back to her.

They’d never told me what they talked about.

“I’m so darn proud of our girls,” my mother said, raising a glass of wine.

Heavy pour , I thought. Since dedicating my body to a more serious pursuit of NASA, I had stopped drinking not only alcohol, but also soda and (for the most part) coffee. Now I was healthier and also more judgmental.

“To the graduates!” Mrs. Ericson said.

Kayla, Della, and Della’s parents knocked cups of Sprite against my water. My mother’s delicate wineglass looked out of place, her grip too tight, her hands calloused and heavy and scarred. This was my default, judging her. Hadn’t she said “darn” instead of “damn”? Couldn’t I just chill out?

My mother talked. When other people talked, she responded with laughter, exclamations, theatrical gasps.

She talked constantly and stopped to excessively thank the waiter every time he approached (“We couldn’t be happier,” or “No, we’re more than fine here, honey”).

It was me who had changed. I’d lived in New England for four years, where the waiters were thin, quick, and sharply dressed.

They were thanked discreetly, and in moderation.

But my mother was a hit. It took me shamefully long to realize that. To see how they smiled at her, how even baby Felicia delighted as her grandmother bounced her in her lap. Della’s dad laughed, too, between long gulps of Sprite.

Mr. Ericson folded his arms, smiling, and leaned back in his chair. The waiter, passing behind him, had to flatten himself against the wall.

“ Steph ,” Mr. Ericson said. His tone was weird, and I thought of dads cleaning shotguns before prom. “What are your plans for a year from now?”

Kayla shook her head at me. Everyone at the table knew I had plans.

I had a prioritized list of advisers and schools I was already talking to.

The Fulbright year in Russia was just a stop on my way to probably-Berkeley (where my thesis adviser thought his old colleague might be “hostile yet open” to me studying both astronomy and geology).

Then I’d do a postdoc and then a fellowship or two, maybe even an actual job, while I waited for NASA’s next call for astronauts.

“I’m strongly considering a PhD, sir,” I said.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “Ambitious!”

Della had warned me that “ambitious” wasn’t a compliment. Especially for a girl. Growing up it had been shorthand for caring about the wrong things.

I thought there might be more to it. I was too ambitious for a regular girl, but Della thought her dad would still expect me to take care of her.

I figured that meant paying for things, and doing our taxes, and being strong enough to save her in an Earth-ending event.

I wanted, just as much as he did, for Della to be safe.

“Those programs sure are hard to get into,” my mother said.

She was trying to be kind; I’d told her privately about Della’s many rejections from PhD programs. This recent failure—along with Della’s interest in getting immediately pregnant despite no serious engagement with the problem of sperm—had prepared me for the idea that I’d be the primary earner.

“Well, apparently not that hard,” Mr. Ericson said.

I bristled. “As a matter of fact, sir, some of the smartest people in our class were rejected. Getting in can be very hard, especially if you’re applying for one of the fully funded programs, in which case—”

“Are we ready to order?” Della said. Her hand was on my leg, but not in a sexy way. Like I was an animal to pin down.

The waiter stood at Della’s side, holding a pen and a black leather pad.

I made a little show of ordering coq au vin for Della, though I should have ordered oysters. For myself, I panicked and pointed somewhere on the menu.

Della’s parents, she’d said, needed me to “be the boy.” Kayla would hate that. She’d call it benevolent homophobia, and tell me to rebel against the gender binary. But Kayla would’ve made a better lesbian than me. I liked taking care of Della.

When this was over, I could take her home. I’d pull the fabric flowers from her braids and put them carefully into the etched clay pot by our bed. I’d hang her dress on the hook by the door, promise to take it to the dry cleaner, and ask her what she’d thought about our evening.

Felicia stood on Kayla’s knees and stared, open-mouthed, at Della’s mother. She gave a series of little claps, her latest party trick.

Mrs. Ericson smiled tightly and reached for her husband’s hand.

There was the soft curve of her silk collar, and the necklace that matched her daughter’s.

Only hours ago I had closed the clasp on Della’s, the gold cross dangling over the ridge of her collarbone.

I’d kissed her like I’d seen men do in movies—rough fingers buttoning, fastening, zipping things up the narrow backs of girls.

“Speaking of next year,” said Mrs. Ericson. “Hannah, I assume you’ve already heard? Della says she’ll be investigating how salty the water is in Russia.”

She looked at me, not at Della, for the answer to a question she hadn’t directly asked. Della’s research would be more sophisticated than that ! But barely.

Felicia whined. Kayla shushed her and leaned in closer to hear.

“She’ll have the opportunity to work under the esteemed Dr. Dmitri Fedorov,” I said. “I’m very proud of her.”

Was that patronizing? I was proud of her, persevering through two straight months of rejections. I pictured her standing alone in the campus mail center, ripping up each letter before coming home to me with a brave face. Her parents should know I’d been there for her.

“Well, thank God he’s esteemed ,” Kayla said.

So what if Dr. Fedorov wasn’t esteemed? Since when was it Kayla’s job to rank marine biologists?

I thought of Jason’s email to me that morning, how he’d said he was too “stressed-out” with law school to make it to my graduation.

This was different from what Kayla had told me and her blog readers, which was that she’d insisted on a “girls’ trip.

” Reframing the truth was apparently fine, but only when Kayla did it.

“The things we do…” Mrs. Ericson started, the words sharp in her mouth.

For love , I wanted to say. But that felt incriminating, like I knew Della’s how-salty-is-the-sea assistantship was kind of dumb.

The problem with going to college somewhere like Hollis is that you spend the rest of your life categorizing people’s choices as adequately or inadequately prestigious.

When Sam was announced as one of thirty-two Rhodes Scholars, nationwide , Della baked him a pan of brownies.

I went to the gym to work out my rage. I spent an hour deadlifting above my training regimen, even though I’d never even applied for a Rhodes.

Two years at Oxford was not part of my pre-NASA strategy.

There was a long silence. I didn’t know what kind of meat I’d ordered, only that it was new to me and I didn’t like it. The pianist started playing a new piece, and my mother said, “I love this song!”

Della would be no help; she was making faces at the baby.

Della’s dress was new, and surprisingly short for a meal with her parents; under the table it rode up her thighs. In the candlelight, its shades of blue glitter shifted, like waves at night. I wanted to stand up already. I wanted to take her back to our room, lie underneath her, and drown.

Mrs. Ericson said to Della, unprovoked, “We get it now, honey. You know that.”

“You get what now?” I said.

Mrs. Ericson took a slow, careful breath.

Kayla leaned forward again. Felicia raised a steak knife over her little head. Della gently took it from her.

“We just—It’s important that you two are on the same page,” Mrs. Ericson said, “what with Della’s sudden change in plans.”

“What change in plans?” I said.

“Oh, no,” my mother said. “Della, you didn’t .”

“Mom, Hannah,” Della said, “everything is okay.” She smiled between the two women, pleadingly. My mother had begged Della to call her Hannah, forever ago it seemed.

“Emma doesn’t need a big-shot career,” Mr. Ericson said. “She’s wanted kids since she was a kid herself!”

“No. Her name is Della ,” Kayla said. She unbuttoned her shirt, cupped a whole boob like a grapefruit in her hand, and put it in Felicia’s mouth. Mr. Ericson threw his neck to the side, averting his eyes.

“Jeez, Dad,” Della said, ignoring the matter of her name. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“What your dad means is that we want you to have some stability,” Mrs. Ericson said. “Someone with your best interests—always—at top of mind.”

“Guys?” Della said. “Wherever you’re going with this… it’s my graduation dinner.”