THE WOMAN WHO LOST THE STARS

When Susan came downstairs, the maid was helping the Salvation Army men squeeze the last box through the door. The living room looked much larger without the armoire, the end table and sofa. The bookshelves, too, had been cleared of their vases, onyx bookends, Mexican pottery, and other souvenirs she'd once happily collected. Now only an old battered rocking chair shared the room with a large trunk.

Donnetta closed the door behind the laboring men, shaking her head.

“The room sure looks bare. Now you gotta buy more furniture. What you gonna put in here?”

Susan shook her head. Even if she could explain, she didn't want to tell anyone about the black dog which was ruling her life. She'd had depression before, but this was different. She couldn't work and couldn't sleep without medication, and spent the day huddling inside, sleeping sixteen hours a day. There was no hope left. She'd gotten a few days off work from her job as a grant manager in the cardiology department of the medical school, but now she'd have to make something else up. She'd been used to working fifty hours a week and usually loved her stressful job. She couldn't tell them the truth. Even though depression was supposed to be a medical condition, it wouldn't fly well with her demanding boss. But she had no energy to think about fighting anything anymore.

“I like it cleared out. Did you find any of my clothes that your daughter could use?”

Donnetta frowned. “I didn't know what you wanted me to take. You put all them dresses out on the bed—they going to the cleaners?”

“No, I don't want them. I'm not going to wear them again. Kamesha can have whatever you want to take, it's okay.” Susan went to the book boxes on the floor and began loading the heavy decorative books.

The maid was still standing uncertainly by the door, dust rag in hand.

“You're getting rid of all the picture books, too? That's a lot of good money you paid for  those books.”

Folding the carton flaps and reaching for the tape, Susan shrugged. “I don't want all this stuff around me. It feels heavy, like everything's on top of me. Did you want any of them?”

“Maybe this one with all the pretty stars.”

Susan handed Donnetta a hardback copy of the Hubble Telescope Anniversary Gallery and smiled as the chestnut brown hands turned pages of photographs of star fields, dust clusters that looked like an eagle, and an exploding nebula whose pink streaks were like a flower unfolding. Donnetta couldn't possible understand how they'd been produced, with color filters for oxygen, hydrogen, and other atoms.

“You remember when you showed this book to me? When I was growing up we had a lot of stars back in the country. But here in Dallas they wasn't as many as they was then. I thought maybe they had gone away, in a natural way, you know? When I went back to east Texas to my auntie's, they still had the stars there. So I guess they was there all the time?”

Susan's dullness gave way to shock. She knew Donnetta had dropped out of school in the third grade, but obviously she'd never understood what that meant. Imagine not knowing that it was the light from the city that blocked the stars, thinking that they had faded like endangered species.

“Yes, they were there. There are still a lot of stars you can see even in the city, you know,with a telescope. Wait a minute, I have a little one.”

Looking for the three inch refractor she'd put in recycling, she refused to think of her CelestronNexStar 130 SLT with all the accessories she'd sold last week to Murray Turner, an old friend in the Sidewalk Astronomers Club. His eyes told her her didn't understand why she let him have her prize reflector at a tenth the cost she'd paid for it. But he'd loaded it onto his battered pickup after counting out worn twenties into her hand. Another part of her life she didn't want anymore.

She found the telescope and frowned. Donnetta's grandkids wouldn't be able to see much without the tripod to steady the tube, which was why she'd tossed out the battered old thing, anyway.

“Donnetta, this is broken, but I think I could fix the mount. Can you wait a minute for me? Your grandkids would love it—they could look at the moon with it.”

Donnetta was shaking her head. “No, I'm gonna miss my bus if I don't go. I'll take the book and get a dress for Kamesha. You keep that telescope, Miz Waters. I'll see you Monday."

Susan nodded, but she was only pretending. She wouldn't see anybody Monday. The room was quiet and empty. Sunset poured orange through the windows and made the bare bookcases glow. After getting a glass of water, she started to set the glass on the end table, caught herself, and put it on the floor. She lifted the lid of the trunk and took out an old quilt, wrapping it around her tattered Saturn T-shirt and the paint-stained pants she'd crawled into. She opened her purse and caressed the medication bottles. Soon all the blackness would be over. Now she had enough pills. She had counted them twice today. But did she want to take them with water, just like an ordinary day? Surely she had some wine.

She went to the yellow-tiled kitchen and checked the refrigerator. A half-empty six pack of beer looked back at her. She hated beer. This was leftover from Ron's last visit weeks ago. There was no wine. From the back of the pantry she pulled a dusty bottle of Kahlua. It wouldn't taste good without coffee, and did she want to brew any? It might keep her awake longer. The hell with it, she thought taking the Kahlua back to her rocking chair.

She was fingering the plastic bottles again when her cell phone rang. She froze, letting the voicemail pick it up. When she looked at the caller ID, she saw it was her sister Jillian, leaving a worried message.

“Sue, this is Jillian. Please pick up. I'm really worried about you. Please call me.”

I shouldn't have quoted from The Wasteland in that email. Susan thought. “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” would probably worry anyone.

But now a beautiful crescent moon had succeeded the orange sunset, with Venus bright above it. She picked up the Kahlua, drank it straight from the bottle, and shuddered. Going back to the kitchen she saw again the battered old telescope. It had been the first thing she'd ever bought with her own money, saving up quarters and dollar bills from babysitting and extra chores, poring over the scientific catalog for months until she began to despair of earning enough. Impressed by her concentration and determination, her parents had surprised her, giving her the rest of the money as a present.

For years as an eager amatuer astronomer she had watched dark sky objects and distant star clusters, trading up to bigger telescopes, pondering her next accessory purchase. This little tube was no more than a toy, used to amuse her nieces and nephews when they came over. Suddenly, before she knew it was even coming, a tear slipped off the end of her nose. I'll never have children to share this with. I'm 50 and the man in my life has dumped me for someone who could still give him...

She reached for the purse and its pills, but somehow the little telescope was in her hand. She looked again at the crescent moon. When she steadied the tube on the window sill and looked into the eyepiece, she caught her breath. The jagged edge of dawn was spreading across the moon. Dark mountains at three hundred degrees below zero were giving way to a sharp bright glare as the sun caught them. This had been the first view of other worlds she'd ever seen, and she could still remember her teen-aged awe.

It wasn't possible to look at the sky for long without the tripod, and she found it, back with the other metal recycling. The mounting screw was stripped, but she could duct tape the tripod and mount together for a rough fix. The duct tape was right there on the mantel.

I'm tired,she thought. I don't want to do this anymore. The blackness wasn't responding to the meds, or the sleeping pills, or anything, which was why she had a different new bottle in her purse. This probably wouldn't work either, but she could add this bottle to the other medications she had saved.

She tugged at the corner of the old quilt, wrapping it around her. The moonlight fell on an old scrapbook in the trunk, her report on Galileo. One of the things that impressed most about him was that he'd made his marvelous discoveries with a telescope not much more powerful than the toy next to her. When he published the movements of three tiny moons of Jupiter, he'd shattered the certainties of his world.

She picked up the duct tape. It wasn't Venus she wanted to see. Wrapped in her quilt, careless of how she looked, she carried the tripod, the little telescope, and the duct tape to the elevator. A couple dressed for an evening out looked at her curiously, but she ignored them. When she got to the roof, it seemed like a bad idea. The edge of the roof was calling to her. But the building was only five stories high. People had survived those kind of falls. She found the strength to move away from the edge.

On the dark cool roof she could see that Jupiter rode high in the ecliptic. She bent to the viewpiece and saw the ruler of the solar system with two tiny dots next to it. Tomorrow if she looked again, the little dots would be in a different place. Those tiny lights were enough to revolutionize all of astronomy and shake the foundations of the Church.

Looking at the windows of the apartments around her, she felt a tug of pain, thinking of all the people who were together and happy. But maybe she wasn't really alone. The way Murray had looked at her spoke of his interest, and she had the other club members and her sister.

Holding the quilt more tightly, she gazed at the sky again. Who had lost the stars, the woman who never knew they still existed, or the one who knew all their secrets and was willing to throw them away? For now it was enough to be here looking at her familiar friends, and to be breathing and alive. She'd call Jillian in a bit. Tomorrow she might call Donnetta and help her grandchildren look at the moon. It was time to look up.


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Note: I was once asked the question about the stars dying out, and this was the basis for the story.  There are also many Sidewalk Astronomers groups whose only goal is to encourage enjoyment of astronomy. They are free to join, and you don't have to own any equipment.