Sugar Rockets

On Independence Day, Bev and Raúl sat on the porch and watched little Fancy Hurd light homemade fireworks on her father’s unruly lawn. Gene Hurd’s grass was already too long in some sections and blighted in others, so Bev didn’t see what difference a few scorch marks would make. She was getting too old to give a flip about whether or not people chose to maintain their lawns.

A rocket sputtered into the sky over Gene’s grass jungle, leaving a westward-tilting trail of vapor to coil and shift in the yellow slash of streetlight. A second later, the rocket made a tight popping noise and bloomed turquoise, then magenta. Bev couldn’t help noticing that the patterns were out of round, the colors not as brilliant as she might have expected from store-bought fireworks.

“Isn’t that lovely?” Bev said.

“Hinch-a-sheeve,” Raúl said, shaking his head. He’d had a stroke back in May—the hemorrhagic kind—and doctors said he wouldn’t recover. Bev was trying to stay hopeful, but after weeks of feeding him kale and wild salmon and omega-3 oils, after weeks of therapeutic flute music and endless viewings of Blazing Saddles and Caddyshack and the rest of Raúl’s favorites, she feared that western medicine had it right, that he would only get worse. Some nights, she lay awake counting the seconds between Raúl’s breaths and crying into her pillow, each pull of air his last, possibly. Other nights, she lay awake and cried because maybe his last breath would never come. He might outlive the stars.

Manny and Steph, Bev’s children, had already paid their uneasy visit and then retreated back to their careers. They had patted Raúl’s shoulder as they left. They had said that if there was anything they could do to help, etc., but Bev knew that was just something they felt obligated to say. They’d never forgiven Bev for marrying Raúl so soon after their father Gordy died, and even though Manny and Steph had both cried the moment Raúl started jabbering nonsense, Bev wondered if maybe they also felt a little glad to see the wealth of suffering that she had in store.

Raúl wasn’t looking up in the sky, where the color had been. He mooned at the porch railing, tilting back and forth in his chair, as if mistaking it for a rocker. Bev cupped her hand around Raúl’s lean knuckle of a knee. Could be worse. Could be so much worse. Raúl never drooled, and he always made it to the bathroom by himself. There was no paralysis, and his face was getting nice and tan from sitting on the porch so much. Bev took a swig of her Arnold Palmer. She and Raúl were lucky. They had survived one more Independence Day. The air felt mild, and there weren’t too many of those stealthy Alabama mosquitoes, with their uncanny ability to zero in on the tender backs of her arms.

The neighborhood’s tract houses were packed molar-tight, the road that divided them so narrow that Bev could hear Gene Hurd talking to Fancy across the street. His voice didn’t sound cruel so much as crew-cut, the syllables clipped short, like his hair. Sometimes Gene would step close enough to the streetlight that Bev could make him out, the dull glare of a V8 bottle in one of his ladylike hands. One of the great mysteries of Gene—and the neighbors could never agree on this—was whether he drank the juice straight or stirred in vodka. When he got excited, Gene’s words raveled into a slur, and you couldn’t tell whether he was buzzed or just marble-mouthed with the effort of speech.

Gene was correcting his daughter again—something about inefficient oxidation rates and erratic trajectories. “Flawed protocol,” he kept saying. Back when Fancy was a tot, Gene had come close to landing his dream job at Boeing, but his designs weren’t up to snuff. He ended up with a less prestigious job at AMCOM, where he was in charge of dropping hunks of aircraft from a tower in an effort to learn more about air safety. The whole household had been fanatical about airshows, but, before their home and its blimp-shaped mailbox were even a year old, Fancy’s mother became enamored of a certain dimple-chinned Blue Angels pilot. She disappeared from the neighborhood with such haste that—as Raúl had put it—she left a contrail.

Bev could barely make out the pale-lit spire of the Space Center’s mock-up shuttle where it speared the treeline. Fancy would be starting sixth grade in August, but the neighbors were already busy predicting her future. Many of them figured Fancy would end up working at Marshall, right there in Huntsville. They knew about all the science fair medals Fancy had won. They’d heard how her father only let her listen to chamber music, and only keyed in the TV’s passcode if Neil deGrasse Tyson was on. Bev didn’t think Fancy was a genius. She just liked her. Fancy’s polite exterior was like a penny’s thin copper jacket. Underneath, Fancy was coarse-grained, and wild. Bev had known that the moment she saw Fancy charge down the street clutching a rat snake, neighborhood boys screaming as they fled her path. Bev’s childhood fixation had been brown widow spiders. That was before the hormones and the teenage restlessness drove her from the safety of her parents’ house and into Gordy’s slender arms. She’d never cared much for the big-necked football goons or the ponderous baseball players. No, Bev’s preference had been swimmers and tennis players—slight, narrow-waisted men like Gordy and Raúl.

For Fancy’s grand finale, a sequenced trio of rockets whistled into the sky and burst into patriotic colors that sizzled and stank of sulfur. Bev applauded. She and Raúl had cruised the Caribbean in May, when he was healthy. Three heavy meals a day and midnight chocolate buffets, plus a twenty-four hour ice cream dispenser that tempted Raúl all hours of the night. They took an excursion to the island of Roatán, where they snuck to a quiet little inlet with a bag of overpriced roman candles and fired them over the salty shallows until their hearts filled with the enormity of all that reflected light. Like the sky’s on fire, she had said. As she spoke, the bag slipped out of Raúl’s hand. He started rubbing his left arm, which kinked, as if he had a cramp. He tried to speak, but the words didn’t make sense.

Days later, a Honduran doctor with a bristling moustache had walked Bev through a three-dimensional scan of Raúl’s brain on his laptop. He zoomed in to demonstrate where the stroke had blown a bright void into the crenellated tissue. Mostly just spinal fluid now, the doctor had said. Bev had wondered whether he meant the stroke zone, or Raúl’s brain at large.

Across the street, Gene gave clean-up instructions, though Bev couldn’t imagine what there was to clean up, aside from V8 bottles.

“You enjoy the show, Miss Bev?” Gene called, waving.

“Not a cull in the bunch,” Bev said.

“Vandala cot?” Raúl said.

Gene turned away to grouse at Fancy.

“Right again, sweetie,” Bev said, clutching Raúl’s hand.

“Ah, shit,” Raúl said.

He’d still curse when she couldn’t make sense of his gibberish, and when he did, it came through good and clear. The part of his brain that stored and processed profanity had been left intact, and Bev was grateful that she could at least hear a bit of the old Raúl from time to time. She wondered where in Raúl’s head the memories had gone. Roatán, for instance. Was the experience destroyed outright, or fragmented, random details glomming together until he carried a head full of tropical noise? The x-rays and MRIs had revealed the ruined structure of Raúl’s brain, but not what he thought, or how he felt.

Raúl brought the nail of his pinkie finger to his mouth and chewed. Did Raúl even recognize Bev as his wife? Maybe in his high-pressure head she was just a pleasant woman who heated his tomato soup. Bev was pretty sure Raúl hadn’t recognized Manny and Steph. His eyes had stayed wide and unfocused during their visit, like he could see backward into the calamity of his mind.

When she finished bagging Gene’s bottles, Fancy crossed the street and sat down in front of Bev and Raúl. Bev always offered to bring out an extra chair, but Fancy always declined. She had one of those pinched-looking faces that would probably become beautiful when she got older, but for now she looked sort of homely. Secretly, Bev even wished Fancy might always stay that way. Fancy’s arms were decorated with misshapen stars she must have drawn herself in permanent marker. She held a marigold from Bev’s garden. One by one, she plucked its rusty petals—a habit that had started after Raúl’s stroke.

“Say hello,” Bev said, touching Raúl’s arm.

“Pinslicket,” he said. He gave a little laugh and nodded at Fancy, whose visits always seemed to amuse him.

“Tell me why your rockets don’t throw sparks,” Bev said, turning to Fancy.

“Mine burn sugar, so mostly there’s just white smoke.”

“You’re pulling my leg,” Bev said.

“My rockets burn powdered sugar and ground-up kitty litter, Miss Bev. Plus some chemical my daddy has to order special.”

“Who likes building rockets more?” Bev said. “You or your daddy?”

“Me, I guess. He says it’s a waste to make rockets that don’t win wars or blow stuff up, but I think he likes it just the same. We’re working on a secret project.”

Across the street, Gene called for Fancy to come home. Even when he shouted, the words moved in ropes and chains.

“Grab a few chocolates before you leave,” Bev said, motioning to the door.

Bev knew that the snack drawer might be the only part of the visit that kept Fancy coming back. Bev wasn’t going to become one of those doughy grannies who doted on housecats and offered guests the same bowl of clotted ribbon candy. Her snack drawer was always stocked with the good stuff: peanut butter cups, red licorice, and whatever new confectionary fad the clerks at the mini-mart suggested.

While Fancy rushed inside to dredge for sweets, Raúl futzed with the band of his gold Seiko, which could stretch accordion-style. Rapt, he yanked the links to their elastic limit. The watch had been a retirement present from the power plant. He couldn’t tell time anymore, and Bev knew it was ridiculous to let him wear it, but he’d earned the watch, and he didn’t look right without it. Raúl nearly had the band turned inside out when Fancy came through the door carrying a fistful of sour gummy space invaders.

“Bye, Miss Bev,” she said, walking backward over the porch. “Bye, Mister Raúl.” She packed a few more gummy bodies into her mouth and blew them a pitiful kiss. As Fancy stepped down from the porch, Raúl’s bushy eyebrows knitted together like he was trying to work out a calculus problem set in fine print.

“Bish panny,” Raúl said.

“Righto,” Bev said. She couldn’t quite work out the expression on Fancy’s face as she blew that kiss. Not guilt, exactly. More like sadness, or pity. The part Bev couldn’t figure out: Was the pity for Raúl, or for Bev, or for Fancy herself?



Karen Bonnar scheduled her annual neighborhood barbecue for the first Saturday in August, and Bev decided she’d bring Raúl. To hell with any neighbors who got uncomfortable around him. Raúl might not make for great conversation, but he wasn’t the Elephant Man, and she wasn’t going to keep him under lock and key just because he was a little damaged. She figured maybe it’d do him good to see people and try to form words, even if the words didn’t make sense.

On Friday, she bought Raúl new khakis and a new collared shirt with a golden lizard embroidered on the pocket. She spent Saturday morning in the kitchen, working on her signature potato chowder. She always started with a heavy cream base, green onions, diced portabella mushrooms, and cubed ham. She’d always loved the original recipe, largely for its simplicity, but the closer the chowder came to completion, the more Bev distrusted it. Why should the dish reflect a sense of stability that was nowhere to be found in their actual lives? The recipe needed a ragged edge, so Bev mixed in a good helping of goat cheese, which had been appearing in all the latest episodes of Rustic Chef Challenge.

She stuck an exploratory spoonful into Raúl’s handsome mouth and watched his eyes brighten. He chewed and chewed, then licked the spoon.

“Humphen crandle.” Raúl said the non-words slowly, like he was in awe, his voice sinking into that bread-warm register she’d always found so sexy.

“Thanks, babe,” Bev said, bending to kiss his cheek.

When Karen Bonnar leaned in to hug him later that evening, Raúl laughed along, as if he could remember neighborhood barbecues and mixers of old. Bev sat Raúl down next to Karen at the kitchen’s big folding table, where he could look through the sliding glass door at the sparkling swimming pool water. Karen’s place was done up in the vibrant colors of the tropics—all cotton candy pinks, sherbet oranges, pastel blues. Reggae music chimed from the den.

Four of the neighbors asked Bev to jot down the chowder recipe. Bev could feel herself blushing, but she could tell from the way they avoided any Raúl-related questions that the neighbors had all been talking behind her back about what happened—how her husband’s brain was slush. No one even tried to start a conversation with Raúl.

“Must be horrible for you,” Karen whispered to Bev in her Minnesota accent. Karen, who wore tiger-striped glasses, had on a novelty T-shirt that said: My other glasses are margarita glasses!

“I try not to think of it that way,” Bev said.

“Well, just know that it won’t be this way for long.”

“You really think he can recover, Karen?” Bev’s heart was already rushing. It seemed like everyone had been withholding hope, especially the doctors. If Karen—if anyone—could just tell Bev that medical science was still very much a mystery, and miracles could happen, then maybe she’d have an easier time enduring Raúl’s baby talk for another week.

“That’s not quite what I meant,” Karen said. “It’s just that at his age—” she trailed off, adjusting her glasses.

Bev glared at Karen. Then she surveyed the faux tropical décor of Karen’s house. Hack paintings of palm trees, conch shells arranged on fluted pedestals, plastic margarita glasses topped with paper umbrellas. Bev could hear the music more clearly now—some strummy, reggae-inflected number that wasn’t so much a song as a sung inventory of hokey-sounding rum drinks. The whole house carried the saccharine mango tang of a Midwestern woman who wanted to appear like the life of the party, when, in fact, she was a terrible bore.

“Always been impressed,” Bev said to Karen, “with how you pull off such colorful interiors without going too full-on gaudy.”

Karen bared her teeth, trying to force a smile, but it looked more like she was trying to work a celery string out of her veneers. How often the most severe rudenesses were also the most benign. Like so many younger people, Karen favored the born without a filter excuse, as if by announcing her own social incompetence, she absolved herself from blame. Now would be the time to leave, but Bev dreaded the prospect of going back to the house, where she’d be left with Raúl and his gibberish. They would stay, by God. Bev stood over the folding table. She peeled a paper plate off the stack for her and another for Raúl and started serving their dinner.

“Goondy?” Raúl said.

“Damn right,” Bev said, adding a slice of carrot cake for Raúl.

Before the neighbors had downed their first Tom Collinses, Raúl’s paper plate gave way under the strain of Karen’s sunflower chicken, Mitch Landless’ sour cream and prosciutto potato salad, and Wendy Calhoun’s beer-battered tilapia. Caramel-baked beans drained onto his new shirt, leaving a sticky blot mark that was probably never going to wash out.

“Ah, shit,” Raúl kept saying, wiping at the stain, gumming his fingers with caramel and bean gravy.

Multiple times, Karen invited him to change into one of her husband’s shirts, and though Travis Bonnar marched out several similar shirts, one of which, though mauve, featured the same golden lizard over the right breast, Raúl kept telling him to “Fuckalong.” Raúl didn’t like to be fussed over since the stroke, or touched by anyone but Bev. He turned himself toward the wall, waiting, Bev figured, until she said they could leave. Bev told him not to worry, she’d buy him another shirt, but his face had gone red, the shame sector of his brain firing with gusto.

Raúl was still dabbing at his shirt when Gene and Fancy arrived. Gene’s little hands were occupied with a bottle of V8 and a sack of plastic tubs containing bacon and artichoke dip, tortellini salad, and a loaf of French bread, all of which—bread included—he’d labeled in all caps with his label gun. Fancy wore a pink NASA T-shirt, and Bev knew by the smug look on Gene’s face that he had asked her to wear it. As soon as Fancy saw Bev, she uncoiled her fingers from her father’s grip and hugged Bev around the neck. After he’d arranged his plate with neat little piles of food, Gene muscled open the sliding glass door and stepped out by the pool, where most of the neighbors who’d brought children were gathered.

“How’s my favorite rocket scientist?” Bev said to Fancy.

“Just wait ‘til my birthday,” she said. “It should be ready by then.”

“What should be ready?”

“It’s a secret, Miss Bev.”

“Your father isn’t planning to explode the subdivision, is he?”

Fancy pumped her eyebrows, but before she could answer, Karen called her over to help program the new cable box.

Bev reached over to cradle Raúl’s hand, a bloodless trellis of bone. His eyes roved the tacky walls. He touched one of the printed palm trees on the tablecloth, and his finger recoiled. Karen’s décor would have been a trial on Raúl even before the stroke. She patted his hand again, hoping he wouldn’t cuss.

Fancy was loading a heavy wedge of carrot cake onto her plate when a commotion kicked off inside the pool house. Gene yelled something at the other parents, who all had their mouths open. He kept circling, pointing at different people and chewing them out, though Bev couldn’t make out the words. Most of the other parents backed down, but finally Wendy Calhoun stepped in and said something that darkened Gene’s face. Then, with such volume that Bev could hear it, he called her a trout-faced society bitch. Some of the parents backed away from Wendy and Gene. Wendy kneeled down and placed her Tom Collins on the patio, then she stood and advanced on Gene. The punch she aimed at Gene’s chin came all the way from Georgia, and though he backpedaled far enough to dodge it, his feet couldn’t keep up with the rest of him. He tilted backwards, out of view, so that Wendy, off-balance from punching, ended up on top of him. All Bev could see of Gene was his blue-striped tennis shoes, toes pointed north. The rest of him was covered in Wendy, who cursed and angled a finger where his head would be.

Fancy stood at the sliding glass door, groaning and bringing slow forkfuls of carrot cake to her mouth. After another round of shouting, Gene came back through the door, rubbing the back of his head. He crossed the living room, sweat stippling his brow. No one, it seemed, could figure out how to react, save Raúl, who was near hysterical with laughter.

“Daddy?” Fancy said, as if she didn’t quite recognize him anymore.

Gene snatched up her hand and gave her a pat on the head that landed too roughly, like he was trying to smother flames. He’d recovered his breath enough to take a drink of juice.

“No goddamn wonder none of your daughters are geniuses,” Gene said.

“Oh, come off it now, Gene,” Karen said.

“Can your little girl work out drag coefficients without using a calculator?” Gene said.

“Can your daughter make it through a slumber party without setting off the smoke detector?” Karen said.

Bev had heard about that—the one sleepover invitation Fancy received from the Bonnar family. Apparently she’d abandoned a game of truth-or-dare with the other girls and headed for the kitchen to make matchstick rockets, one of which sailed all the way into the living room and touched down in a bowl of Karen’s tropical potpourri. The bowl ignited, releasing an incredible coconut-cinnamon stink. Travis had enough gin and tonics on his stomach to find it all very amusing, but Karen, who wasn’t drinking that night, sent Fancy home immediately.

Gene licked his teeth. He turned to Raúl, who hadn’t stopped laughing.

“He’s still the smartest one in the bunch,” Gene said. Then he nodded at Bev. “Goat cheese was a nice touch, ma’am.”

Gene headed for the door, dragging Fancy along. The little girl turned back to fix Bev with that same pitiful expression she’d used on Independence Day. Bev couldn’t help thinking of the way a dog in a parked car might watch as you pass, unwilling to wag its tail too hard, because no matter how friendly you were, its place was still the backseat.

After the Hurds left, neighbors clamored in from the patio to tell conflicting versions of the Gene incident. Wendy argued that Gene had arrived drunk (she could smell it on him), whereas Karen insisted that his vegetable juice was unadulterated, and he was simply an asshole, plus a misogynist. Mitch countered that while Gene probably was a little drunk, he’d remained civil until Amy Reynolds suggested that he take Fancy to her salon for a makeover, since she was coming of age, and didn’t live up to her moniker wearing that frumpy NASA shirt.

“I didn’t mean it to sound bad,” Amy said.

Bev couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Gene. Lousy father, sure, but at least he was proud of Fancy. At least he’d taken an interest in her, even if it was a selfish one. No doubt their days firing kitty litter rockets together were numbered, and that made Gene seem pitiful, like a hobby buddy who Fancy was outgrowing. Bev knew what it felt like to be made obsolete. For the past three Christmases, her son Manny had bought her the same set of ugly glass frog figurines from a mail order catalog. Bev had never cared for frogs, and Manny knew it. Meanwhile, Steph usually just sent Bev and Raúl regifted appliances. In some cases, she’d already tried them out. Once, a juicer, its insides furry with dried carrot.

“Ah, son of a bitch,” Raúl said. Bev had nearly forgotten about her husband. His face was turning red again, and he was staring at his lap as the fabric darkened from the inside. So much for Raúl’s perfect record. Bev got him to his feet and tried to excuse them, but Raúl was less than sure-footed as he maneuvered around the table and its chairs, which meant that everyone had a chance to see his stained crotch. Bev stopped at the front door to wave goodbye and apologize, but all eyes were on Karen, who bent with a rag to blot the honey-colored trail Raúl had left on the hardwood.

Bev didn’t stop crying until long after Raúl had fallen asleep.



After the barbecue, Gene and his daughter could only be seen in the early mornings, which they spent out on his lawn, adding struts to a complex metal structure that reminded Bev of a miniature radio tower. One morning, Bev sat on the porch and saw a drone spin up from her driveway and disappear over Gene’s roof. Gene, rumor went, had not been right since his tumble on the patio. A few astronauts shy of a full mission, was how Wendy Calhoun put it.

Though few believed he was brilliant, many of the neighbors figured Gene at least knew enough about ballistics to level the neighborhood, if not the greater Huntsville area. Bev couldn’t help noticing that lately, his trashcans bulged with empty drums of cat litter and powdered sugar.

None of the neighborhood children or their parents were invited to Fancy’s birthday party, but Bev and Raúl were able to watch from the porch. The event itself was an eyesore, and she figured that was by design. Gene had more or less scalped his wooly lawn to better accommodate a bean-bag toss, a giant inflatable flamingo that kids could bounce around inside of, and—God help Gene—a teensy ferris wheel that a party supply company must have trucked in. Calliope notes looped in joyless crescendos, loud enough to rattle glass. Bev drank her Arnold Palmers from big quart jars so she wouldn’t have to keep going back to the kitchen for more. She didn’t want to miss a thing.

“Farglus,” Raúl kept saying. Bev had gotten the stain out of his lizard shirt with some white wine vinegar, and he looked tan and boyish sitting there beside her on the porch, wearing the shirt and the gold watch like nothing was wrong, like they were back on vacation.

She could see the gloomy faces of neighborhood children pressed against the windows of their houses. The children who were attending the party wore the uncertain look of newly-hired help, and Bev wondered if maybe they were the sons and daughters of Gene’s AMCOM chums, if he had any. The kids behaved like strangers, toeing Gene’s lawn or bouncing sullenly inside the flamingo. Even Fancy looked a little confused as she stood by herself, lobbing bean bags.

Later in the afternoon, Gene began carting heavy-looking components out onto the lawn and connecting them to the rails of the tower. Bev didn’t know much about aeronautics, but she was pretty sure that one of the things he was installing at the bottom of the tower was a rocket motor—a big one, meant to move something heftier than fireworks. Gene set up a fiberglass stepladder and continued building in stages. What began taking form out there by the tower looked something like an eight-foot black crayon with stabilizer fins at the bottom and a clear bubble at the top. Bev hoped like hell that the bubble was meant to stow cameras, or maybe a crew of lab rats. Sloppy white stars decorated the body of the missile, which tilted at a slight westward slant. The aircraft, or missile, or whatever it was, looked ready to fly halfway to the moon and then swing back to earth to blast the stuffing out of Wendy Calhoun’s house, if that was Gene’s intention. When Gene had the enormous crayon more or less in place, he stood back and sipped on a celebratory V8.

Neighbors in bathrobes began gathering along the narrow stripe of asphalt to witness the terminal phase of Gene’s craziness. They had all been cracking their blinds just enough to follow the tower’s progress, and Bev knew several of them had either filed complaints to the homeowner’s association or considered doing so.

Fancy marched outside wearing a metallic suit and a complicated helmet. Then the calliope music pitched down and there was only the thin squeak of the ferris wheel’s tired bearings. Fancy tapped away at a computer tablet. A drone lifted up from the grass and whirred skyward, where it became mosquito-faint.

“No doubt you’ve all been wondering what we’re up to,” Gene said. Neighbors wiggled their slippered toes, arms crossed. “My daughter’s about to be the first child in this crap-box of a neighborhood to pilot her own rocket.” He demonstrated a remote control, which he pointed to the tower and the aerodynamic hearse that it supported. “Got high-def cameras all over the fuselage, and a drone to film from three hundred feet up. Putting it all on Youtube. Those MIT jerks will be selling their hind teeth just to offer her a scholarship.”

To Bev’s surprise, none of the neighbors voiced any immediate objections to the idea of Fancy climbing atop several hundred pounds of homemade TNT and then letting Gene light the fuse. Her blood ran so hot that her vision swam, Gene and the rocket smearing together, merging. A big part of her missed the more wholesome days, when children risked their lives in less dramatic ways, like racing soapbox cars, stealing cigarettes from convenience stores, or taking part in the occasional fistfight.

“MIT?” Karen said. “She’ll come back talking like those kids from Good Will Hunting.”

“That’s right,” Mitch said. “I mean, what in the hell’s wrong with UAH?”

“We’re bigger than Huntsville,” Gene said. “Aren’t we, honey?”

He motioned to Fancy, who nodded and picked at her backside as if the flashy suit was riding up on her.

“We all know,” Wendy said, “that you’re not about to send her up in that crazy thing. I’ll call the law if you even think about it.”

“Do Huntsville cops have a space program?” Gene said. He leaned back against the tower, tiny hands spread. “Didn’t think so.”

“How does she get down?” Mitch said.

“Picked up a military surplus parachute on eBay,” Gene said.

“I packed it myself,” Fancy said. Gene’s hand dropped to Fancy’s head, nesting there like a pale spider.

Raúl started clapping.

As far as Bev was concerned, Gene had probably indulged in boozy V8s during all phases of construction. She could feel the blood ticking in the veins of her neck now, she was so furious. Here it came. Fancy would launch, and then what? She’d come down—if she came down at all—a minor celebrity, too haughty to waste her time eating candy with Bev and Raúl. Bev finished off the rest of her drink and banged the glass down with such force that Raúl flinched in his chair.

“Why not tell us the truth, Gene?” Bev said, getting to her feet.

“The what?” Gene said, lowering the remote.

Bev stepped down from the porch and edged closer to Gene’s side of the street, careful to mind the stairs. “Deep down you wish it was you going up,” Bev said, “but you’re just a pencil-pusher who never had the nerve. All theory, no practice. Always the bridesmaid, never the—”

“I take your crummy point,” Gene said, taking a swallow of juice. “The old vanity play. Convince noted asshole Gene Hurd to fire himself into the wild blue yonder because you can’t bear to see Fancy leave the ground. Am I right?”

“Unless you’re afraid,” Bev said, crossing the street.

“The point you old crabs seem to be missing,” Gene said, pointing the remote like he could zap her out of existence, “is that Fancy’s rocket is safe. Only thing you’d be protecting her from is a successful career. You’d rather she grew up to be a grocery bagger?”

“Maybe so,” Bev said, feeling Gene’s barbered lawn crunch under her feet. She was unsure what to do next, and found it sort of touching that he did at least want Fancy to have all the glory for herself.

“Listen,” Gene said, lowering his voice, “my gripe’s not with you. You’re sweet for letting Fancy tear up your flowers and all, but please, you’ve got to get the hell off my lawn.”

Gene lifted his bottle for another drink, just high enough that Bev was able to snatch it right out of his hand. She tilted back a good mouthful, careful not to swallow. The first thing she tasted was the salt and the multi-layered tang of chemically perfected tomatoes. Tabasco flared on the back end, but floating the entire medley of flavors was a volatile fuel with more bite than the bland vodka notes she had expected. Tequila. The son of a bitch drank them Bloody Maria-style.

Gene’s lips braided like old rope, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted his drink back now that Bev had put her mouth on it. “You’re out of your goat-cheesed mind,” he said.

Bev winked, cheeks burning as she swished the cocktail. Then she parted her lips just enough to spray Gene right in the eye. Immediately, he dropped the remote and started rubbing. Bev snatched up the remote. He’d marked each of the switches with his labeling gun. The big one in the middle said Ignition.

Fancy’s mouth quivered. Bev wanted to explain that the reason why she’d just temporarily blinded her father was that she loved Fancy in a way he never could. Hers was love from a distance, the kind where she never had to see the worst of Fancy—the unmade bed, the untended chores, the teenage meltdowns. The kind of love that didn’t have to get too close, didn’t have to intrude. Love and proximity were not the same thing. Bev had surveyed the depths of her husband’s ruined brain, and if anything, the experience only made him more unknowable.

Bev wanted to lead Fancy far away from the launch area, but the little girl was already bending over to help her dad, who would soon clear the caustic juice from his eyes. After that, Bev would be unable to stop him from stuffing Fancy into her rocket and sending her up and up. She’d weave a wild stitch through space’s black belly and die alone in the endless crush of it. Or, worse yet, she’d come down a child prodigy. The three of them were just a few yards from the rocket’s business end, and there was no time. Bev remembered Independence Day, those tailless rockets that seemed to throw no sparks.

She lifted the key guard on the big switch, watching as Fancy’s eyes inflated in her head. Gene managed to pry apart the lids of his spat-upon eye, revealing a sliver of blood-red yolk.

“Now wait a damn minute,” Gene said.

“Please, Miss Bev,” Fancy said. “I want this.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Bev said. One day Fancy would thank her, and, maybe, when Gene finally sobered up, he’d grow to appreciate what she was about to do.



Bev squeezed the juice of a lemon wedge into her glass and clapped a hand over Raúl’s knee. The sun was setting, and all but one of the moving trucks had left the Hurd house. Neighbors claimed that Gene was considering a new career out west, in Alamogordo. He’d lost his AMCOM job, and the FAA was in the process of levying some serious fines against him. The cameras weren’t running when Bev touched the ignition, so there had been no Youtube publicity, other than some grainy news footage taken by campers up on Monte Sano. Fancy was going to Pensacola to live with her mother and the Blue Angels pilot, at least until Gene stabilized.

“Malka-mar,” Raúl said, gesturing with his hands.

“You can say that again,” Bev said.

“Shit.” He tugged at the band of his watch.

More than the launch itself, what had struck Bev so sharply that afternoon was how alert Raúl looked as she walked back to the porch, the skin of her face taut with rocket heat, though the pain was little worse than a sunburn. For a moment, Raúl’s eyes had held a fierce light, and he looked like he actually had something to say. No miracle, though. Just more gibberish.

Though the launch had taken place just three days ago, the event already felt surreal to Bev. Had Fancy really been whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner” as they all stood there on the torched grass, working aloe into the skin of their foreheads and bald eyebrows?

The rocket itself had been recovered—she’d seen it on the news. The FAA had tracked its course to a goat ranch in northern Mississippi, where prevailing winds carried it to a soft landing that Fancy would have survived.

“Gluster,” Raúl said. “In kilkendrass.” He pointed at the Hurd house and then waved his hand at the sky, as if to paint a scene for her in broad swipes.

“Say it, babe,” Bev said. “You’ve almost got it.”

The front door of the Hurd house dragged open, revealing Gene and Fancy, who locked the door behind her. Gene started for the moving truck, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Bev and Raúl. He carried no juice today, so one hand was sunk in his pocket. Fancy gripped his other hand, urging him toward Bev’s house. The two of them crossed the street slowly, both watching their feet. Gene ventured no farther than the curb, but Fancy climbed up onto the porch and sat at their feet. She didn’t have a flower to tear, so instead she used her thumbnail to scale paint flecks from the decking.

“Daddy says when I’m an unwed teenage mother and MIT won’t return my calls, then I’ll know who to thank,” Fancy said.

“That’s goddamn right,” Gene said, crossing his arms. His face shined pink with rocket-burn. The lack of eyebrows made him look youthful, innocent.

“But I know you were just worried about me,” Fancy said, her eyes finding Bev’s and then returning to the deck. Bev felt the familiar gut-prick of truth, its silver-tipped thorns. Sure, she’d been worried about Fancy’s safety, but that was only one of several layers. Another layer was her, Bev—her selfishness in wanting to keep Fancy grounded.

“I’m really going to miss you,” Bev said.

“That’ll do, Fancy,” Gene said. “Tell Miss Bev she can spare us the waterworks.”

“Prang-prang,” Raúl said to no one in particular, slapping his thigh.

Fancy stood and stepped closer to Raúl, her eyes fixed on his shirt’s golden lizard. She leaned forward, but there was so much space between her and Raúl that she had to keep bending, as if she was trying to whisper something across an invisible moat. She kissed his cheek, lightly, and backed away when he flinched.

As Fancy turned for the porch steps, she left Bev with that mysterious look of hers, and now Bev thought she might understand. Something close to pity, but the pity wasn’t for Bev, or for Fancy, or for Gene. Fancy’s pity belonged to a greater tapestry. Pity for the way that best intentions had to sour. Pity for the way rockets had to leave Earth without her, and the way households had to be shaken apart by hasty marriages, or shoddy blood vessels, or Blue Angels pilots. Pity for all that Bev would’ve liked to protect her from.

Moments later, the truck swallowed father and daughter and hustled them from the neighborhood. No more love from a distance. Bev felt like she should cry, but somehow the occasion seemed wrong. Anyway, she didn’t want to worry Raúl. They watched as the sun made a puddle of the sky, the soft colors leaving Raúl subdued. Only his lips moved, as if he was trying to memorize a passage of Lord Byron, or solve for X.

“Skies,” he said now, pointing at the sun. “Sky’s-a-fire.”

At least that was how Bev heard it.