Don sniffed. “I don’t remember that at all. And it wasn’t tea, it was teacakes. There’s a difference.”
Rodney said, “Yeah, yeah.” And then he split his cookie and ate half. He didn’t look at Don as he chewed, gaze firmly fixed on the fire. “Probably all stems and seeds. Won’t even feel anything.”
An hour later, Rodney had a flower crown of his very own. Someone had also given him a pair of fairy wings, strapped to his back like a backpack. They were sparkly and pink and he didn’t seem to mind them very much, even if he’d threatened the first three people who’d tried to put them on him. Don laughed, feeling floaty,feelingfine. He loved the way the grass felt against his hands, the soft give of the earth.
The fire stayed large and hot, sparks rising toward the blackened sky. People danced, people sang, people painted each other with greens and blues and reds. One woman—a tiny little thing, kissing five feet, but barely—walked across burning coals, her face a tight mask of concentration.
Pantomime sat next to Don, her arm through his. They watched as Juniper tried to convince Rodney that a little body paint never hurt anyone. Rodney did not seem to agree.
“You love him,” Pantomime said to Don, her head on his shoulder.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I choose to,” Don said. “He’s funny. And sarcastic. Keeps me in check. Never once has he said a dream of mine wasn’t possible. Never once has he made me feel like I’m somehow lesser. I’ve tried to do the same for him because that’s what he deserves. At one point, early on in our relationship, I worried that I was holding him back. We weren’t out, not really, and I thought maybe he’d be better off without me.”
“What did he say to that?”
Don smiled quietly. “Said I needed to get those foolish thoughts out of my head because he was in this for the long haul. I believed him. I believedinhim. Still do, in fact. Now more than ever.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Hundreds. Thousands. When you get to be as old as we are, you rack them up like a collection of gaudy knickknacks.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “I try not to be, but I am. Not of dying. I’ve made peace with that. But how will I act in the moments just before? Will I cry? Will I beg for more time? Will I pray to a god I don’t believe in on the chance that there’s something else,something more? I’m not scared of the end, but of what it’s going to be like just before it comes.”
“You said it yourself. Right now, we’re all the same. Everyone is thinking some variation of what you are.”
“Do you think there will be music? Wherever we go when we’re gone, do you think we’ll still be able to sing?”
“I hope so,” Don said.
“Remember theVoyager?”
Don nodded. “The satellite sent to space. The one with the gold record.”
“Actually, it was a space probe,” Pantomime said. “A lot of people don’t know there are two versions ofVoyager, the first and the second, and both held the gold record. Do you know who made them? Carl Sagan and Timothy Ferris. On the records, they put photographs of the Earth, of the life-forms on it. Size comparisons of humans to animals. Pictures of men in competition, pictures of gridlocked traffic, pictures of buildings, of mountains, of trees. A South Asian woman breastfeeding. A Black woman looking through a microscope. Thatched huts. People with spears. Drawings of animals. Math equations. Pictures of astronauts, of the moon. But you know what my favorite part is?”
Don shook his head.
“The sounds they included. Music from all over the world. ‘Tsuru no Sugomori’ from Japan. Bach performed by a German orchestra. Chuck Berry with ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ Stravinsky. Louis Armstrong. Beethoven. A Navajo night chant. And the noise of Earth, too. Volcanoes and earthquakes. Wind. Rain. The crashing of ocean waves. The sounds of footsteps, of laughter, of a heartbeat. And thelanguages. They had people from all over the world record greetings. In Burmese, in English, in Korean, in Polish, in Urdu. It was all pretty simple, an economy to the language. ‘Peace and happiness to all’ or ‘We wish you everything good from our planet’or, my favorite: ‘Greetings from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on planet Earth.’ That one was in Swedish.” She looked away. “I think about that a lot.”
“Why?” Don asked.
Pantomime shrugged. “If either of the Voyager probes escaped the pull of the black hole, then they’re still out there, somewhere. Maybe one day, they’ll be discovered. Maybe our voices will be heard again, even though we’re no longer here. And what a legacy that is. Coming together to make something so impossible, something sohuman, and then sending it to the stars. We filled it with so much of what makes us tick that it’s overwhelming. But isn’t it a lie? Say that the records are found. They’re listened to. We’re heard, even though there’s no one left to confirm. What will those beings think? That we were loving, kind, and hopeful? Is that what we deserve?”
Funnily enough, it was Rodney’s idea. With bloodshot eyes and a goofy grin, he brought Juniper and Pantomime back to Don, holding both of their hands. Rodney still wore the wings. The other half of his cookie was gone. He’d eaten it.
Which explained why he said, “I’m going to marry Juniper and Pantomime.”
Don—ever the voice of reason—said, “Congratulations, but I’m pretty sure we’re married, and that constitutes bigamy. Which is illegal.”
Rodney grimaced, pulling his hands away from Juniper and Pantomime. “That’s not what I meant. ImeantthatI’mgoing to marrythem.”
“Funny, that sounded like you just repeated the same thing.”
“Officiate!” Rodney shouted.