“She was an astronaut.” He said, staring at me with the coldest, deadest eyes I think I had
ever seen.
“Why do you keep saying that?” I asked again. This was, like, the twelfth time within
forty minutes.
He turned to me and just pointed to the picture frame with his late wife once more. I
finally got up from playing my Nintendo and looked at the photo intensely.
“There’s no astronaut here.”
She was tall and had red hair that went a bit past her shoulders. She was holding a book
in her arms but it was impossible to see the title of it.
“She couldn’t eat alone, you know?” He said unprompted.
I sat down in front of my grandpa and listened to his tellings. Might as well. He was old
and I really had no clue how much time I had left with him.
“I remember, having to practically carry her to the table every time to eat. She would
scream and cry like a little kid. It sounds funny, hearing it come out my lips now, but it was
much too difficult. She just kept saying ‘He’s here! He’s here! He’s poisoned the roast beef! He’s
poisoned the mashed potatoes!’ Quite the sight to behold, a grown woman screaming like that.
But god knows we couldn’t laugh at it. As hard as we tried to, we all knew that it was something
severely wrong with her. These fears were a lot less irrational when we knew what he had put her
through.”
He paused to take a breath.I looked at the man and he didn’t give me any eye contact.
Just a disconnected stare forwards.
“Her brain was never the same after the incident. I wanted to yell at that wicked man so
bad. Say ‘Hey! Hey, you! You’ve broken her and now she will never be the same.’ I knew I
would never get the chance, given he was in prison for at least twenty-five years, but I felt that
fire that could never be doused until I could holler at that .
“Then, there was the main issue. She could not go out of the house at all. Every time I
suggested to her she could help me go out for groceries, she would confidently walk to the door
and then decide maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Even when she made it out of the door, she
couldn’t make it further than the porch before having what I assumed was a panic attack.
And there was the mail dilemma. One day, it was awfully cloudy I remember, and the
mail had just arrived. I was in my home office and was busy, so when the mail had arrived I told
her I would get it in an hour or so. Apparently, that was not satisfactory for her because, without
a word, she took it upon herself to accept the challenge of walking to the mailbox and grabbing
the mail. At that point, she could barely walk to the door without help, so when she was finally
able to press down on the handle and push the door open, it was probably the greatest rush of
adrenaline she could ever feel. Made it to the edge of the porch…to that last step…and then…”
The man paused before continuing his story. I held my breath.
“She took her first step on the grass. Wearing her dirty white converse with no socks. One
small step on what was, to her, a different world.
She was an astronaut.
And somehow, someway, she was able to grab the mail and make her way back into the
house and I remember hearing the door close as I walked into the living space and staring in awe
as she dropped the envelopes and a small package onto the table. It was quite the event.”
Grandpa wiped a tear off his cheek.
“I hope she’s on the moon right now…”