Page 75 of To the Moon and Back

STEPH DUST AND ASHES

Strangely, in the days since our mother passed, the house was more full than ever before.

Then the funeral guests left, and then Nadia.

Felicia went to her friend’s house for a sleepover, the same girl whose mother had taken care of her when we were at the hospital.

The mother seemed nice and had brought us a tray of macaroni.

The daughter had four piercings, at least that we could see, and this time Kayla didn’t say a word about it. It was good that Felicia had a friend.

Kayla and I were alone. “Can I take you to a bar?” I said.

“No thanks,” Kayla said. Her voice was calm but cold.

I went to the kitchen for a bottle of wine. I’d bought it days before, in hopes that at some point I’d have a chance to talk to Kayla. She must have run out of ways to avoid me.

I uncorked the bottle at the counter, knowing we’d both consider it a waste to not drink now.

(I’d been thinking about drinking again, in moderation.

I’d also been thinking about giving up the four a.m. workout required for maintaining abs but not, as it turned out, a strict requirement for space travel.)

“Kayla?” I said. I called her name as I returned to the living room, like she needed to be warned of my presence.

“Hm?” she said. She was looking down at a book, though I wasn’t sure she was reading.

I put the wineglasses on the coffee table between us. I remembered the early morning it had been covered in dirty mugs and plates and waffle crumbs, the mess of it. The warmth between all of us, even in a conversation that had felt unbearable. I wished our mother were here.

“You don’t have to drink it,” I said. “And you don’t have to go out on the town with me.”

“Cool,” she said, returning to her book.

“But can we talk?”

She looked at me, blinking. Her eyes were tired, her face flushed and puffy from a week of tears. She was in the same sweatpants and sweatshirt as the day before, her hair trapped under a faded handkerchief I remembered from the camp. She left her wineglass untouched.

“I sabotaged the protest in Hawai’i,” I said.

Kayla leaned back in her chair.

“I wanted to tell you,” I said. “I hadn’t figured out when, or how, after everything… Well, after Mom. But—”

I couldn’t make excuses. “I traded information about what I’d seen at camp, to up my chance at a mission assignment. I knew what I was doing.”

Kayla nodded.

“I saw the water hoses that night,” I added. The worst part. “I saw you, even. And Felicia. I’m so sorry.”

Kayla leaned still farther back, away from me. “I knew it was you. It was obvious. But yeah, I’d hoped you’d say something.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so—”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Better yet, I forgive you. I’m unemployed, I’m getting divorced, and Mom’s dead. I don’t have the bandwidth to be the right level of mad right now.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t expected this.

“But! I need you to get that it wasn’t you who ended the movement.”

“I mean, I’m the one who—”

“I don’t care. I’m not trying to let you off the hook. I just don’t want you to think you’re, like, such a big deal?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re one person. One phone call, or whatever batshit thing you did that night. At one point there were hundreds of people building up that movement, putting everything they had into it. They’re the ones who decided it was over.”

I leaned in closer. What Kayla was saying was the reverse of something I knew to be true, which was that every person had a role in improving the world. Every action mattered.

For the first time in a long time, I remembered my old thesis adviser in college.

How much we’d frustrated each other; how hard he’d tried to guide me when I wasn’t ready to be guided.

We were barely in touch now, but I’d remembered all his stories.

There was one about a rabbi in Poland who’d carried two slips of paper at all times, one in each of his pockets.

One said, “for my sake the world was created.” The other said, “I am only dust and ashes.”

“You couldn’t have stopped us if you’d tried,” Kayla said. She closed her book, put it face down on the coffee table, and lifted the wineglass to her lips.

“What you did really sucked,” she said. “I’m glad you finally said something. But you aren’t as powerful as you think.”