Astronaut.

Jupiter sat silently at the end of the bed, hands pressed together between her knees. The bedroom window was cracked enough to let a small breeze in through the blanket of ivy hiding the setting moon. There was a jagged pattern of moonlight dancing on her bare legs and the sheets around her.

Noah was fast asleep, lying next to her. He didn’t snore, which was a relief to Jupiter. It had always been so. Mama had snored like there was a toad sitting in her throat. Not only had her younger days been spent taking care of Lora Joan and making sure they both had the living they needed, but her nights had been restless and long. Sleeping in the same bed as Noah had been a breath of fresh air.

They had come up to the bedroom with the intention of making up for four years of separation. It hurt her deeply to know that he had had sex with women aside from her in that time. The tattoos weren’t as much indication as his sudden increase in confidence. Before, he had almost been afraid to hurt her, or frighten her away. Now, he seemed to know exactly what to do to make her… well, to please her. That, ironically, frightened her to the point of declining him.

“Not tonight,” she had murmured, pushing on his dark shoulder. “It’s too soon.”

Noah had nodded and moved away at once. There wasn’t a trace of disappointment in his shining eyes as he kissed her and rolled over to fall asleep. No doubt, Jupiter felt, he was exhausted from the flight, the travels, the sex with other women.

Jupiter stood and turned to look at him, sleeping on his side with those eerily beautiful tattoos glistening on his skin in the faint moonlight. She felt something like anger boiling in her stomach. He had come home expecting her to accept him with open arms. He had gotten tattoos to remember another woman. It wasn’t just a little heart – like the one he claimed reminded him of Jupiter – but a full name. On a heart.

She swiped a fast hand over her eyes, blotting the angry tears forming there. He was fast asleep, and she was determined not to disturb him. She picked up her discarded shirt and pulled it over her arms. Only the top few buttons seemed worthy of fastening. She tied the ends in a small knot at her center, so that her stomach and the small of her back were exposed. One of her long fingers – with a long, neat nail at its end – poked her belly button. She smiled and straightened her drawers before leaving the room.

When she reached the attic’s ladder at the end of the hall, she stopped. There was a very scant supply of light. She took either side of the ladder in her hands and lifted herself to the first step. When she reached the top, she crawled to the side and felt the floor until she found a small box. She pulled a match from inside and lit it, then lifted it and glanced around to find the long wax candle she kept handy. After she lit it, she waved out the match and leaned her shoulder on the wooden pillar nearby.

She was battling with herself; she loved him so much that she was prepared to instantly take him back, but at the same time she knew that what he had done was wrong and that she should be angry; and she was angry. Angry for all the nights she had spent alone, angry for all the possible suitors whom she had turned away in his very memory, angry for all the pleasures in life that she had been denied because of his mere absence.

Jupiter could still hear the words he had whispered to her when he thought she wasn’t looking.



Jupiter sat silently at the end of the bed, hands pressed together between her knees. The bedroom window was cracked enough to let a small breeze in through the blanket of ivy hiding the setting moon. There was a jagged pattern of moonlight dancing on her bare legs and the sheets around her.

Her husband was fast asleep next to her. He snored horribly; she never got any sleep because of it.

It had been nearly a week since she had met the man with the religious name. What was it, Moses?

Jupiter stood and pulled on her red robe. She had made it from the leftover cloth of Lora Joan’s Halloween costume from the year before. When she stepped out of the room, she felt the air become colder. If her husband was good for nothing else, he was good for keeping a room warm. She rolled her eyes and went downstairs into the kitchen to get a glass of water. The midnight thirst had always haunted her, ever since Lora Joan had been brought into the family. She would wake up at the most horrid hour andneed a drink of water. Although, now it was digressing into a midnight glass of whiskey.

After she had downed the water, she walked around aimlessly. It was so cold inside, especially since autumn was at their doorstep. There was a nice breeze trickling in through the crack under the front door. She could feel it touching her toes when she stood still.

It wasn’t too early to sit on the porch, was it? Jupiter had never been quite sure what time was suitable to be spent outside. The neighbors would come out to drive to work and would waste minutes at a time staring at her, most likely wondering if her brain had been replaced with rose petals. Not that she minded. It was nice out, who was there to stop her from sitting? And so she sat.

And she sat.

She continued to sit, her head cocked to the noises of the neighborhood and her eyes half-closed in the loving moonlight. She sat, in fact, until she heard a small sound that was too sudden and above all other sounds in volume to belong. Her eyes opened, her neck straightened itself, and she sat forward to look – without moving – for the source of the noise. As she was moving off of the small swinging bench, it happened again. It was a little tap… like a pebble dropping. Or perhaps striking glass.

Jupiter stepped off of the porch and walked quickly – but quietly – to the cause of the problem. If they didn’t stop that, her husband would wake up and demand to know what she was doing outside. He wasn’t the “women’s rights” type. When she reached the front corner of the house, she stepped into the darkness of the ivy and listened. There was another sound. It was almost like the echo of a faucet dripping into a full sink of water. Drip. Drip. Tap.

She peered through the curtain of leaves that hung from the corner of the building. She could just barely make out a form, sitting in the grass as quiet as a shadow. Her eyes widened as they adjusted to the darkness, and she saw a flicker of moonlight pass over his features. There was a jaunt curve of the jaw, a short, button nose, the dark shadow across his cheeks – a sure sign that he hadn’t shaved in at least a day – and the splash of vivid gold which was his gaze, turned in her direction.

Gasping quietly, she ducked behind the corner and held her breath. She could feel her heart beating like a drum in her ears, but she heard nothing from the man she had seen. He was like a criminal, sitting in the darkness and awaiting the approach of a fair damsel. He was like a dragon perched upon a dark tower, breath flickering like gold from his maw.

Jupiter giggled despite herself and listened. There was no sound other than that of her breathing and the soft night breeze. Perhaps he hadn’t seen her. Just to make sure, she leaned out until just a third of her face was peering through the curtain of leaves. She saw him, sitting with his head thrown back so that his mop of black hair shimmered in the late light. Her throat threatened to close as she continued to gaze at him from her hiding place. After a moment, he turned his head. But it wasn’t to her, now was it? His chin was down; he was looking at something on the ground beside him. What he picked up was too small for her to make out as anything harmful. She knew what it was a second later when he raised his head to the side of the building, lifted his arm, and jerked his hand forward in a classic “throwing pebbles” swoop. The telltaleclick sounded a moment later.

Feeling very much like a sly cat, Jupiter inched away from the corner and decided it would be better if she simply went back to bed. But who was to say she wouldn’t open the window and look down to see him? That would be something romantic, wouldn’t it?No, no, no! She hissed at herself and beat her forehead with her palm. How could she be so stupid? She wasmarried, for Peter’s sake! She couldn’t be thinking about someone else like that. Particularly not someone who played guitar like a god and tossed pebbles at a window that was very obviously hers.

Blushing fiercely, livid with frustration at herself, the young woman trotted back to the front door and sat down beside it. She huffed angrily and crossed her arms tightly over her petite chest, legs splayed like stilts before her. Her habit of wearing a shirt that was far too large for her had settled into her core since she was very small and had to borrow one of Mama’s shirts for a gown. She squinted so as to be able to see the dark fabric beneath her robe, pooling on either side of her silver legs. One of her long fingers traced its pattern across the wood beneath, her head tilted to the side and her mouth set in deadly concentration. She had always wanted to paint, to be an artist, “free of the frame” as Mama would say; she also lacked all talent whatsoever.

Blowing out a breath of dismay, she leaned her head back on the white wall. She took satisfaction in knowing that the tapping had stopped, though it never occurred to her that he might have noticed her sitting there around the corner. Before long, she had drifted off into a comfortably outside-slumber. She loved seeing the stars as she lost consciousness; to her, it meant that there were things bigger than all of them out there, and they were so beautiful that they justhad to shine in the sky. Each pinprick of light was the dream of a child, the wish of an ill person, the hope of a parent. It took her breath away, yet gave her life.

She never once wondered why Moses – or whatever his name was – had been tossing stones at her window in the middle of the night. She wondered why she hadn’t heard it when she was in bed, of course, but it never crossed her mind that he might have an interest in her.

And an interest in her (as she would find out only minutes later when she heard him whisper “Your hair looks so beautiful in the moonlight,” opened her eyes, and saw him sitting before her with the most unreadable expression on his face) was exactly what he had.



Jupiter felt tears welling in her eyes. She could remember the excitement she felt when she had seen those golden eyes. She could still taste the bittersweet flavor of infatuation on her tongue. The idea that she had loved someone so fully, so unconditionally, and then lost him in less than a week, struck her so hard that she felt like sobbing until she could do so no more. It didn’t matter that he still loved her. It didn’t matter if he had found himself or not. All that truly mattered was the fact that he had left her here, to bear the burden of her sister’s life alone.

Sniffling quietly, the woman (five years older than the age she had fallen in love) looked around the dusty attic and decided it was time to confront her fear. Noah was a sweet soul who loved her dearly, but that was no excuse for him to hurt her so terribly.

The ladder was dark beneath her. She had grown accustomed to the lack of light, though, and so her steps were sure in descent. When she reached the halfway mark, she stopped and lifted her head to stare down the hallway. There was the silhouette of her lover, standing in the doorway with his golden eyes boring straight into her soul. She never could read that book.

“Noah,” she whispered, as if afraid to break the seal of silence placed upon her heart. So long she had waited for him, so many she had turned away because of him. She had ached inside for four whole years. She had watched her sister waste away to nothing, right before her eyes. She had been helpless to fix the dam which released all the terrible things in her life she had only feared as a child.

“Jupiter?” he queried, concern furrowing his brow. He took a step towards her, drowsy from sudden wakefulness and clumsy in his curiosity. To see her face again was like a message sent from God above, a dove with an olive branch resting on its beak. He had, for four years, woken up at random times in the nights and called out for her, only to be drawn back to bed by the snake-like fingers of Madeline. Madeline, the woman he had foolishly followed through the sunset. His freedom had been put on hold by her leash.

And they stared at each other, preparing in their own ways for the storm they both felt growing between them. Jupiter stood tall on the ladder, one hand clasping the rail and the other dangling like an unused surrender flag at her hip. Noah was swiftly gaining his wit. This was a battle he didn’t want to fight, but had been anticipating since the moment he walked out of their front door.

There was some explaining to do; there was no doubt about that.