Luna: Episode 12

Another plague

Calypso dies

Each time a new virus emerged the conversation about it went like this around the McKenzie family’s dinner table.

First, Mac, who viewed himself as a realist, would always start with the worst-case scenario, speculating, “I hope this isn't the virus that wipes us all out. I’m convinced that is what will wipe us out. Could you pass me the Almond milk?”

Carlos, being the elder would take this as a cue to go on at length about his long health history, ending with, “The last one going around put me down for a month. But I survived it.” Giving credit to his genes, his stamina, and his positive attitude, suggesting to everyone at the table, “You could learn something from the old man.” He’d sprinkle his history with graphic details about the impressive quality of his urine, stool, blood and sputum samples sufficient to make Luna gag. Carlos enjoyed making Luna shiver with disgust and say, “Ewww.” 

Cassius, the trained medic, would shine a ray of hope into the doom spiral. “I just hope the quick response team has a vaccine in time this time.”

Luna usually asked Calypso, her mother, the astro-biologist, “What’s the source animal this time?”

Carlos made the same joke again and again.”I thought they were all extinct. Didn’t we play violins over the bats, and the pigs and the Pangolins?”

This time it wasn’t Pangolins. “Vultures,” said Mac. Luna knew this one. She followed news. “They’re calling it the vulture virus. It’s spreading fast. You don’t want to get it.”

Cassius downed his Creosote Tea. “Lu. Who wants to get a killer virus?”

Mac ferried everyone’s plates and bowls to the sink and sighed. “We know the drill. Masks outside. Isolate here. Everyone’s working from home again.”

Luna said, “Trapped again. If it’s not haboobs or extreme heat waves, it’s another virus. I’ll go stir crazy. I hate this place.”

Mac offered a halfhearted smile. “From everything I've heard about this virus going stir crazy in here beats the alternative out there.”

Within three days of cases of the virus being reported in Pima County Calypso was the first to show symptoms. Fever. Nausea. Red welts. She isolated herself in the back of their home. Within days she was vomiting blood and Mac took her to the Medical Center.

It was Calypso’s second week in the hospital when Luna and Rin visited her. The nurse gave Luna scrubs and a full mask to wear over her paper mask. From her bed, from behind her mask, draped with tubes, Calypso said, “Oh, those are lovely masks. I like Rin’s.”

“Thanks mom. That’s one of Cassius’ socks. You sound weak. You look- “

“I like your get up. Like a spaceman. What’s the weather today?”

“118°. How are you-”

She laughed. “I’m better off in here.”

“Yes, you are. You sound delirious. Are you high on something? How long will you-Are you still- “

“Yes, baby… the doctor told me this is a tough one. But I'll be OK. You should go. You have... you've got homework to do.” Calypso sat up, coughed and spat into a tissue and examined what she had coughed up. Luna saw the clots of blood her mother saw. Calypso sank back into her pillows. “Baby, I’m exhausted.” Luna watched her wad up the blood-soaked tissue and toss it in a clear bag next to her, hanging off her bed. It was full of blood-soaked tissues.

A quarrel next door distracted Luna.

Someone said, “Can you do this? My shift’s over.” Probably a doctor.

The other voice said, “He died on your watch. You declare time of death.”

Another added. “We need the room.”

“Mom. Hear that? Is that your nurse?”

“You should go.” Another harsh cough.

“I love you mom.”

“Let me walk you out of my room. That’s as far as I can go.” Calypso coughed, reeled from the pain and slowly raised herself up from her bed and with her adult daughter’s help shuffled to the door of her room. “Nice gloves, Lu. Looks like I produced an adult. Damnedest thing. Gods and stars, I’m old.” With Luna’s help she stepped out into the hospital hallway, and then, fatigued by this simple act, Calypso leaned back against the wall and caught her breath.

“You lost a lot of weight mom.”

“I always wanted to be a fashion model. Baby this is as far as I go. I love you.”

The cheek kisses that were a family custom were foregone this time.

“I love you, too. Mom get well. Are you going to be all right?”

“Baby. I'm going to be all right.” Behind her mask Calypso smiled the smile that Luna saw on her mother’s soft face when she was a little girl. As Calypso paused to study her daughter’s face Luna studied her mother’s beatific smile. Her mother’s smile could express the unconditional unlimited love Luna needed to see whenever she was despondent, overwhelmed or bullied. Whenever she needed to be reminded, she was not alone. That she would forever be someone’s beloved baby girl. Maybe she was an O’Odham Princess. Luna walked through the nearby swinging doors of the ward with Rin prancing alongside her and hoping to wave bye to her mom through the port windows she turned to look and saw her mother leaning against the door in front of her room, shaking and weeping tears of grief that rocked Luna. Luna watched a kind nurse comfort her mother and take her back to her bed.

“She didn’t want me to see how afraid she was. That’s who she was. Selfless.” Those were Luna’s opening words at her mother’s memorial service.

Because of the most recent outbreak the “Celebration of the life of Calypso Montaño Mackenzie” was held remotely. Peer scientists, friends, admirers and competitors from around the planet logged in.

Within months the virus had been contained and it was safe to come and be among each other. At night. When there wasn’t an extreme weather event.

Within half a year the Space Center renamed a launchpad the Montaño Launchpad.

Weeks later a new asteroid hauler was christened the “Calypso”. Once again friends and family gathered to honor Luna’s mother and Luna had the responsibility of smashing a champagne bottle against the bow of the great ship after great people made their great speeches about the great woman. When it launched the flying behemoth seemed to launch forever. Seeing CALYPSO across the fuselage of the beast stirred the sense within Luna she had best make something of her life to make her mother proud. She held the stem of the broken champagne bottle up to the north star and made a vow only her mother might hear if indeed there was a spirit world.

After the ceremony, later at home, around the big table, Mac, Cassius, Sol and Mars sat in silence, tired from acknowledging and sharing their grief publicly, yet again.

Sol said, “Maya will be here soon. Something she needed take care of back at the farm. Hey, Carlos. How are you?”

Carlos came in the room with two shovels followed by Luna. In a very quiet voice he said, “As good as can be expected. Luna’s going to help me shovel sand off the solar panels.”

Luna followed her grandfather outside, brushing past the golden marigolds that encircled a shrine the family made to celebrate Calypso. Flowers, pins, images and jewelry framed a small hologram that transformed Calypso Montaño Mackenzie from a smiling child into an earnest young girl then a joyful mother then a famous lunar and planetary sciences scientist. “Wait, grandpa.” Luna tapped the button at the base of the hologram that triggered a random recording of Calypso’s voice. “What’s my birthday wish? To live a long and healthy life. To see all my children- “

Luna tapped it off. “We’ve got sand to shovel.”

“Headlamp?”

“Thanks.”

Together they ascended the berm at the back of their home, trudging up to the slanting roof where the solar panels lay below new drifts of sand. As they shoveled sand off the roof into the darkness Carlos finally spoke. “How are you, kid?”

“Fine, grandpa…Oof. What a stupid answer. Sorry, grandpa. I am not fine. I miss her every second of very hour. You?”

“Your momma was my baby girl.” And that’s all he said. They shoveled sand in silence for a long while, their silence punctuated by the scrape of the shovels into the sand. “Not too close. This is an art, Lu. We don’t want to break the glass. I’ll get the blower to finish the job, mija.”

Below , in the yard lights, they saw Sol and Mars leave the house and head to Sol’s vehicle. Luna shouted, ”Bye. Where you going? What’s up?”

Sol shouted up, “Maya needs our help. Something going on at the farm. Got to go. Adios.”

Carlos and Luna nodded and returned to their chore. And then, after shoveling sand and wheezing hard he leaned on his shovel. “I still talk to her.”

“Me, too! I still talk to her. I think always will.”

“I know I always will.”

“When I look up at the stars...” Luna and Carlos looked up into an uncommonly clear starry night. Luna pointed to the North Star. “That’s where she is. Always there. Center of everything. And that’s where she’ll be for ten thousand years.”

Carlos retrieved the sand blower and handed it up to Luna. Luna held out her hand to the old man and yanked him up. “I am such an old man! Most of my so-called friends don’t text anymore. Most of them are dead! Used to give advice now I just give eulogies. After the Tribunal a lot of my so-called friends dropped away. Watch where you’re tossing the sand, kid.”

“Must be lonesome.”

“Yeah. And your dad? With your brother Cassius here now, he doesn’t need me anymore. You missed a spot.”

Luna shoveled the spot of sand up and off. The old man turned on the sand blower and methodically swept the sand off each solar panel. “There’s nothing here to get up for every night.” The old man caught himself.” Except for you and Cass. You still got this idea of heading north?”

“All you have to do is follow the North Star.”