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All seven O'Keefe children were asleep and the house was so quiet Meg could hear the surf crashing on the beach outside. She'd sat down to work through some calculations, but hadn't made one iota of progress. She'd told herself there wasn't much point in fretting about Adam and it'd be a better use of her time if she could lose herself in work. On the bottom corner of her notes she drew a parabola and an asymptote, a line that got infinitely close to the arc, but never touched it. Parabola were comforting. Neatly defined by their parameter.
She threw her pen and papers on the sofa beside her and rubbed her temples. Calvin's intern, Adam, had only been with them on the island a week. He was seventeen and not a child, but Meg wanted to mother him a bit anyway. She wanted to tuck him inside a parabola where he couldn't get hurt. Instead she'd sent him off have dinner with Typhon Cutter and his daughter.
In the old days of her childhood--her little brother, Charles Wallace, always knew when she was in a mood. She'd wander downstairs in the middle of the night to find him making her cocoa and waiting for her. She couldn't call him, because she didn't know where he was at the moment. Classified information.
Not classified. Secret, Meg. There is a difference.
Meg sat bolt upright. She hadn't heard Charles Wallace in her mind like this in ages. "Where are you?" she said it aloud.
It doesn't matter. Go outside and look at the stars. That usually makes you feel better. I miss you.
She waited, but her little brother said nothing else. She stood up because she might as well go outside. They might not be in Gaea much longer and the stars were breathtaking. The air was so clear of light pollution that you could see the bright band of the Milky Way.
Meg stepped outside and paused to let her eyes adjust to the the light of the half moon. She glanced at the door to her husband's lab and as much as she wanted to run to Calvin, she didn't want to distract him. If he was able to lose himself in work and stop worrying--at least one of them could. Calvin had gone back to check something right after Poly had gone to bed. All through dinner he'd been distracted, but the children hadn't noticed. Except Poly, who knew more than she should about her father's work and about Adam.
It was a beautiful night, even for the Azores. Meg walked, sifting cool sand between her toes. She spotted Arcturus shining fierce and orange at the bottom of the Plowman, Bootes. Next to him was Hercules. She’d been out there somewhere once a long time ago, but that seemed more like a dream or something in a book she’d read a very long time ago.
The sand damped sound so she felt rather than heard Calvin loom up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her. They looked out at the water and the stars for a few silent moments. The stars helped. Calvin's presence helped, but she was still on the edge of worry. Was Adam safe? Would they hurt him?
“Do you think he’s all right?” Meg couldn’t help asking.
“The food isn’t terribly good up at the hotel, but I’m sure he’s as safe as any of us are.”
Meg hummed. Adam was with Typhon Cutter, who probably had kidnapped Poly. A memory that still made Meg feel cold and sick even though Poly was safe and asleep in her bed. She reminded herself to be rational. No one is ever truly safe, but most of the time nothing really bad happens. Worrying doesn't prepare you for hard times. It exhausts you.
"Breathe, Meg." Calvin waited until she'd taken two deep breaths and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be right back. Keep breathing.”
Meg looked over her shoulder, but he’d already disappeared into the house. She dug her toes down into the sand until it grew hard packed and slightly damp. Calvin returned with a blanket and a bottle of wine. He spread out the blanket and flopped down, most of his lower legs off in the sand. She knew better than to try to persuade him to lie diagonally where he’d almost fit. He never would. He never wanted to take up more room than he should.
She sat down and he passed her the bottle. It was about a ⅓ full. Perfect for swigging from on the beach when one’s children are not looking. It was a nice, cold vinho verde. She took a sip and passed the bottle to Calvin who leaned up on an elbow to take the bottle, but he held it against his chest and looked at her. He’d been so busy and worried that he’d been drifting from work to meals to work to sleep and she hadn’t really felt SEEN. He was definitely seeing her now. The wind was blowing her hair every which way. Her dress was faded and worn. All of her fingers had hangnails. And yet...
“Hello, gorgeous.”
Still. All these decades later. Warmth crept up her chest and neck into her hairline. She had to look away, look at her toes for a minute and think, “Yes. These are my toes. This is my husband. This is real.” It seemed too good to be real. And then she immediately felt guilty because she'd forgotten about Adam.
"Meg, worrying isn't going to help."
She heard Calvin take a drink deep of wine and then twisted the bottle into the sand behind them to keep it upright. He sat up and mimicked her posture. Knees drawn up to chest. "Who am I kidding? I won't feel better until Adam is back here either."
"Poly likes him so much." Meg had Calvin's open heart.
"We all like him. He'll be a good scientist and after this summer, I suspect a very careful one." Calvin drank again and passed the bottle back to Meg.
"I guess it's not like he went to Camazotz. Just the hotel." Meg managed a light tone. Whistling in the dark. They hadn't talked about that adventure, their earliest together, in years.
Calvin turned toward her, grinning. He looked... boyish. She hadn't seen this grin in years.
“What?” She bumped his arm with her shoulder.
“I forgot to tell you. The other day, Pol came into the lab to get Adam for a swim. She'd put on that black bikini and asked me for the measurements of fashion models. I told her: 34 - 22 - 34. And she said: oh, dear. I’m 20, 20, 20.” And they both laughed a little because it was the kind of honesty Poly would probably never lose and you either had to laugh or cry about that.
“I saw her wearing that. She’s not going to be 20 20 20 after this summer.” Meg held out her hand for the bottle, which she took a larger swig from..
“She asked me if you were gorgeous when you were her age.”
Meg drew her knees against her chest a bit tighter. Old wounds heal, but they leave scars. “Did you tell her that I was hideous?” She worked a fingernail underneath the corner of the label on the bottle, which was wet with condensation.
“I’m afraid the word I used was frightful.”
Meg nodded. She’d been awkward and prickly and just off. They couldn’t do a thing with her hair. She’d had braces and glasses. And she’d been so unhappy while her father was away and before she'd met Calvin. A few years later she’d bloomed, but she ached a little when she remembered those years. She'd go back and hug that child and tell her things would be all right, if she could.
“I told her to give it time,” Meg said. “She’s already very pretty.”
“She smart and kind. She cares about other people and about life. I really couldn’t ask for a better kid.”
The bottle was nearly empty and the wine had calmed her. She didn't want to be anywhere else, but there, under the night sky. With her husband. Talking. She and Calvin had survived many things. Adam would too.
Calvin finished the bottle and Meg leaned against his side, her bones seemed to have softened slightly like warm wax.
“He’s going to be fine, Meg.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Adam.”
Calvin took her hand and kissed her open palm. “I know. I was reminding myself. What are you thinking about?”
“Just wondering where we’ll be next year. If my parents will make it out here before we go. I’d love for them to see this.” Meg gestured at the band of the milky way visible overhead. "My mother would be in your lab all day. I’d find you both making cocoa over a Bunsen burner late and talking about genomes.”
“It would be nice to share it with them. But let’s call them and hint that now's the time.”
Meg nodded.
“As for where we’ll be next year?” Calvin stretched his legs so that they stuck out over the edge of the blanket onto the sand. “We’ll be near the ocean. With all our children. It won’t be this kind of beautiful and isolated. More socializing would be good for all the children. Regular school. But just think. If you want to buy clothes or milk or anything at all, you won’t have to fly to the mainland.”
“The States just seem so far away. Another lifetime.” Meg used her hands to bulldoze sand around Calvin’s feet and ankles. He didn’t protest so she kept working. “Do you think it’ll be boring? Being able to buy pants or milk whenever I want to?”
“Considering where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. What you saw with Charles Wallace. How could anything ever be boring?”
Meg nodded, and patted the sand mound over Cal’s right foot. She moved on to the left one, but they heard the helicopter nearing. Calvin freed his foot and brushed off the sand.
“Sorry,” he said. The boyish grin faded into the apologetic one she was used to.
“He’s going to want to talk and he’ll feel safest in the lab with just you. I understand.”
“And later I’ll need to be where I feel safest. Talking to you. If you’re still awake.” Calvin kissed her. Not a peck. Not a kiss in passing. A kiss that is everything in the world while it lasts.
“You can wake me up if you need to talk. Or if you need…” She gave him a look.
“I need to let him process and talk it through, but we’ll be as quick as we can.”
“Then I think I will go take a bath.” Meg picked up the empty wine bottle and shook out the blanket and put an extra bit of sway into her walk. Calvin had paused at the door to his lab. She heard him laugh before going in.