An Astronaut's Life by Sonja Dechian

Author:Sonja Dechian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2015-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Gina didn’t have to start work until 9pm so we made stir-fry and ate with the blinds down. We sat in silence for a while, each carrying out our own process of trying to think or not think about what had happened.

‘You know what we saw? There were people in the park with metal detectors,’ Gina said.

‘What’s that?’

‘The one near Lucas’s school. Three or four of them going around. He thought they were vacuuming.’

‘Metal detectors?’

‘Looking for jewellery or coins. Maybe for drug money—they looked pretty rough.’

‘Well it’s better than robbing houses.’

‘I know. Entrepreneurial, actually.’

‘What a neighbourhood,’ I said. I nearly said something more, a joke combining the idea of enterprising drug users and dead bodies in garden beds, but it wasn’t true. Ours was a standard middle-class neighbourhood and had been for a long time.

‘It’s funny, I keep thinking of our housewarming,’ Gina said. ‘Remember how we put up all the lanterns?’ She gestured to where we’d hung little solar-powered lights in the trees.

‘It looked great. Did I tell you my sister asked about those lights?’

I’d opened a longneck for us and I topped up my glass. I raised my eyebrows to ask if she wanted more.

‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘But all that’s ruined now, in retrospect. Knowing they were out there. We were celebrating on children’s graves.’

She screwed up her eyes to hold in tears. I knew she was being melodramatic, testing the effect it might have if she let herself imagine the worst—and that was legitimate. I felt it too. She kept her eyes closed and went on chewing as if none of this was playing out.

‘It’s not like that,’ I tried. ‘Maybe something bad happened, sure, but there’s no reason that changes anything. We’re happy, we have made this a happier place by us being here.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘It does to us.’

‘No one’s going to buy it, anyway.’

‘But we’re not going to sell. We love this house. Whatever happened here, it’s all going to be put to rest and we’ll start over. The place can get a new beginning with us, can’t it?’

Gina looked at the blind in silence, as though she could see through. Then she reached over and poured more beer into her glass after all.

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