Anna

 

“The Rosetta spacecraft missed its original launch and had to circle the perimeters of the solar system for ten years before another comet came by. To prepare for landing, it had little hooks in its legs that prevented it from bouncing too many times—in case it bounced right of a cliff,” the voiceover accompanies a model of the spacecraft bouncing, dotted lines tracing each projection. As she watched, the TV panned out to an image of the galaxy, deep purple black studded with a swirling mist of stars and light.

 

“Isn’t it fascinating that they anticipated all these potential pitfalls?” she looks around and pushes her blond hair behind one ear excitedly.

 

Every Wednesday night she watched the Nature channel and picked up on little pieces of science from all over the world. It was so fascinating to hear about the extraterrestrial missions, the habits of polar bears, the archaeology, and everything else that was being done outside of this sphere they lived in. The DNA from the mammoth they had found in a pocket of ice was finally going to be injected into an Asian elephant for cloning. The Youtube videos of animals were endlessly entertaining and even the Big Bang Theory had finally captured her attention after months of her writing it off as mindless.

 

Looking around now, however, she realizes her daughter is hardly listening even while her husband nods encouragingly, albeit absent-mindedly. Her smile falters slightly and she sets her wine glass on the coaster. It’s 8pm and the family is arrayed in the living room on the white coaches circling the cream-toned walls. The TV is still transmitting deep space knowledge and her daughter looks so small sitting there in the pajamas they had bought together two Christmases ago.

 

She searches her mind for some way to reach those slumped shoulders, “Honey, how was the interview this morning?” But the minute she says it, she realizes it was the wrong choice.

The shoulders stiffen and the brown bun perched precariously on top of her daughter’s head quivers slightly. Her own green eyes stare back at her in that face with the thin lips of her husband. Right now, they’re narrowed and the air is forced out between clenched teeth, “Fine.”

 

She tried to salvage the situation, “What job was it? Does it sound like something you would like to do?”

 

“Honestly, no. It doesn’t,” the thin wrists throw the remote onto the sofa and the green eyes turn away to focus on the TV, but she can still see the clenched arms pulling the pajama fabric tight around the hostile body.

 

***

 

She had never studied particularly hard and had been okay. Some of her friends had tried to mimic her study habits and quickly decided that daily naps and 11pm bedtimes were not sustainable. Others had given her the cold shoulder and folded into their study groups. At the time, she’d been hurt by the coldness and jealousy others showed. She had generally operated in her own, sheltered world and had never understood the darker motives in people. She was rarely jealous of other people and never gossiped or plotted. And because she never did so, she never understood when others did. Defenseless, she had been bewildered when they attacked and had, only over time, been able to put those out of her mind without feeling the old frustration and bewilderment creeping up. 

 

Her first job had been a geology teacher. But as jobs became more difficult to find, she had changed careers and studied computer science. Her last job had been with a large, public company, and she still remembered the day she had submitted her resignation notice. She wasn’t one to stand up for herself and she wasn’t quick with defenses. Her boss had been arrogant enough to micromanage but incompetent enough to avoid responsibility. She had never been good at hiding the emotions on her face, and, everyday, she dreaded sitting down at her desk. At night, she would come back with her blond hair frazzled and her green eyes shooting sparks. It was her husband who first brought up the idea of quitting and doing something else, maybe even just staying at home.

 

At first, she had been shocked with the possibility. Raised on the need to be independent at all times, a self-fulfilling person in her own world, her mind rejected such an alien choice. But she was lucky to have stability and security in her family, and as the days wore on with the pit growing in her stomach each time she entered the office, the idea of handing that form to her boss became more and more tempting.

 

Ten years later, she was glad she had exited an environment that had drained her energy and her positivity. And it wasn’t nearly as black and white as her career-oriented mind had screamed at first. The anger from those years would sometimes still surge up, but it was tinged now with a shade of understanding. There is an endless array of tedious, exasperating, and inexplicable people out there. There are an endless variety of opportunities and choices. There are so many choices and so many paths to get to the same destination.

 

She once had a teacher who always said people needed to “scratch their itch.” Evidently, geology and computer science weren’t her itch. She had always loved observing and creating stories in her mind. She would instill voices in the trees in the yard and plotlines in the birds pecking through the grass. Maybe, one day, she would write a children’s novel. But then again, there are so many choices and so much time for these choices.

 

***

 

Now, she watches her daughter watching TV, and wishes she could find the right words. Nobody had told her that as a parent, you only have once chance in each moment to do the right thing, to say the right thing. Because the very next second, that point in time would be gone.

 

Looking at the button nose profile that managed to stay the same through all the height and personality changes, she searches for the right thing to say. You’re still so young. You have so much time and so much opportunity. There is so much more that you have to learn and experience, this is but a drop in the bucket. Everything is an opportunity and you’ll end up just fine. She knew these wouldn’t help. It hadn’t helped when her father had sat her down on the old leather couch back in her childhood home, and it wouldn't help now. But that didn't stop them from being true. Wisdom accumulated from the years just had a way of causing young people, who had neither the years nor the experience, to balk. You can’t empathize and understand until you’ve experienced.

 

So instead, she walks into the kitchen and cuts the banana bread, placing generous pieces on three plates. The knife sinking into the moist interior brings out a puff of banana scent that diffuses slowly throughout the kitchen. Bringing it back to the living room, she hands one to her husband and another to her daughter.

 

When her daughter was younger and had still lived at home, they had mixed and baked bread together from scratch every Saturday morning. Sometimes, they would put in chocolate chips. As she passes the plate to her daughter now, the green eyes widen just the smallest bit with delight, and she feels that maybe, this time, she landed in the green.

 

“Honey, you have more choices than we did growing up. Whichever choice you make, you will learn, and that’s all that’s important right now. And whichever choice you make, we’ll support you.” She studies the uplifted corner of those green eyes from the side and watches as those long hands cut off a corner of the golden brown bread still steaming in the middle.

 

On screen, the deep voice is still explaining why Rosetta had to orbit an extra ten years due to scientific errors and miscalculations. 

 

“I guess even Rosetta got a second chance,” Jane looks at her mom and the green eyes meet. The thin lips curl just slightly into a smile before she takes a bite, savoring the taste of the banana bread and relaxing, for just a minute, into the matching smile from those same green eyes but for the warm wrinkles around the corners.