Beautiful, Fragile by Michelle Montebello

Author:Michelle Montebello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: medical, london, sydney, australia, memories, family, wedding, ebook, children, love, contemporary, romance, women
Publisher: Michelle Montebello
Published: 2019-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Will found me in the bedroom the next day examining the telescope he’d bought me for my last birthday. I was cross-legged on the floor, inspecting the focal length and diameter, space books and the telescope manual spread out around me.

‘The aperture on this is impressive,’ I said.

He walked across the room to stand beside me. ‘What’s an aperture again?’

‘It refers to the diameter of the lens or mirror. The bigger the aperture, the more light it lets in, so the clearer and brighter your image will be. This one has a fifteen-inch aperture. It’s quite powerful for a household telescope. It has manual tracking too, which I’ve always preferred.’

‘So I did good?’

‘You did great,’ I said. ‘I bet I used it all the time.’

‘Only once or twice,’ he said. ‘You’d just had Ollie. It probably wasn’t a good time to give it to you.’

I nodded with understanding. ‘I’d like to set it up tonight. If my calculations are right, Saturn and Jupiter will be in the sky between four pm and three am, so we could catch them both around nine when the sun is completely down.’

‘Okay.’

‘And it will be a full moon too. The kids will love it.’

‘It’s Friday, so they can stay up late. It can be a special treat.’

I clapped my hands excitedly and Will laughed.

We ate dinner, cleared the plates away quickly and carried the telescope downstairs. While Will was bathing the children, I set up a picnic blanket in the backyard and laid out pillows and blankets as the sun languished behind the willows on the opposite bank of the Thames.

By eight-thirty, it had disappeared altogether and the sky turned indigo as the first stars of the night began to shine. I made a pitcher of orange squash and filled bowls with popcorn and crisps, carrying them outside to lay on the blanket. I lit tea candles to light the children’s way down the path, for the rest of the backyard was to remain black; the darker the better for stargazing.

They were watching Minions in the lounge room with Will when I went to find them.

‘The sun is down and the moon is out,’ I said.

Jack and Matilda launched themselves off the lounge and dashed for the backyard.

‘Careful,’ I called. ‘It’s dark out there.’

Will carried Ollie and we caught up with the children at the beginning of the path. There were squeals of delight as we walked past the tea candles to the picnic blanket.

‘This is great.’ Will had a huge smile on his face as he set Ollie down.

Jack and Matilda munched on the popcorn and crisps. I poured them a plastic cup each of squash and handed Will a warm bottle of milk for Ollie.

‘I fixed him this. We might be able to keep him in the one spot.’

‘Very organised,’ he said.

While the rest of the family settled on the blanket, I prepared the telescope. I turned the fan on at the base and reached for a six-millimetre eyepiece, screwing the moon filter onto the end and loading it into the cylinder.

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