Chapter Twenty-FiveThiago
Remember the movieInterstellar? You have to. That amazing Christopher Nolan flick with Matthew McConaughey traveling through space to try to find a new home for mankind. It has all these crazy plot twists and incredible sequences and almost everything happens somewhere far off in the galaxy. When I saw it, I remembered there was one thing that got my attention. It didn’t have to do with the plot, per se, it was about this one scene that everybody seems to remember, just one: when Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey are supposed to find Miller’s planet, which is orbiting on the edge of a black hole, making time slow down; an hour there is like seven years on Earth. Can you imagine walking on Miller’s planet and coming back to find your mother, your children, or your grandkids seven years older?
It would be insane, right?
Well, that’s what it was like for me, as if I’d been forced to go spend the night on Miller’s planet, as if someone had said,Get some rest, pal, don’t worry about anything, we’ll wake you up soon and you can get back to your normal life.
My normal life?
But why would I go back when I was so comfortable?
Why would I want to leave when I had her with me, by my side?
“You want to play again?”
I opened my eyes, and there she was. Her blue eyes, her blond hair. She was still just five years old, which didn’t make any sense, or maybe it did, if I told myself this was how things happened on Miller’s planet.
“Again?” I asked, drawing the word out, which made her smile even wider.
“But this time, I get to hide,” she said, her eyes wide as she ran off.
“Fine.” I smiled. “One…two…three!”
It was an endless pleasure, playing with her again after all those years without seeing her, after thinking I would never see her again.
We had our little routine now, our pattern. For days, we’d been walking around that nameless lake, then eating macaroni and cheese (she never wanted anything else), then playing cards, hide-and-seek, or having tea parties with her dolls. Sometimes, if she was in the mood, we even shot some hoops.
It was like a retreat, and I was enjoying it. I had needed it, I’d needed to make up for lost time with my little sister, the sister who had died so many years ago. I’d never had a chance to say goodbye.
I used the time with her to talk about the day she was taken from us. She could barely remember anything. I cried and begged her to forgive me. She kept asking for Mom, constantly. She told me she missed her, especially when she went to sleep. But otherwise, she was happy where she was.
But where was she?
In my head, it was Miller’s planet, but that was because I watched too much sci-fi. We did have to be somewhere, though, right?
Did I ever tell myself we were in heaven? Of course I did. I think that was the first thing that went through my head when I saw her, but come on—where was everybody else? Were we the only ones who lived there, in heaven, in that other world, or whatever you want to call it?
That was impossible.
But since I didn’t have answers, I stopped asking questions.
I liked being there. It gave me space to think—and to start healing, even if it was alongside the person who’d made my heart ache in the first place.
Was I dead?
There was a moment when I started to think so. I even started accepting it. But then, why was it that I still had dreams, and why wasshealways in them?
Her, the girl I was in love with. So in love that I kept wanting to go back, even when Lucy was curled up on my lap. At times, I thought I heard her, not often, but I did. Somehow, I always felt her near me.
I could sense my mother and brother, too. I heard Taylor’s apologies so many times I knew them by heart. And I wanted to tell him to forget me, that he didn’t need to ask for my forgiveness. I was fine, I was with Lucy, I was…happy.
But was I?
Deep down, I think I always knew I could go back, and that’s why I was calm. Calm especially with regard to my family, my mother. I knew how much she’d love to hear all about Lucy, how it would ease her soul to know that her daughter was safe and sound.
As for Kam, I could remember one time when she screamed a bunch of things at me. It had only been a few days ago. Or at least, it felt like a few days. I know when that happened, I had really wanted to go back and tell her how I felt. I wanted to apologizefor not keeping my word, for letting her down. And I wanted to ask her to wait—just wait for me a little longer.
That was the only time I felt closer totherethan to here, closer to my life on Earth than on Miller’s planet, but the feeling lasted only a second.
