Mirror in the Sky (29 page)

She made it just in time. The entire sky was a luminescent orange that evening, one of those hazy and brilliant sunsets you sometimes get in New England.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I followed her in my father's Honda, parking it on a small bluff overlooking the Long Island Sound. I got out and stood about ten feet away from her. We were the only two people there.

She turned to look at me right away. She was out of breath, and she put her hand to her hips in a way that I remember Halle sometimes used to do.

“My daughter loved sunsets on the Sound,” she said.

I smiled at her, nodded.

“I wish she had been able to see more of them,” she added.

I often wondered if the Lightfoots looked up into the heavens with a hope that there was another Halle somewhere out there. And what if there wasn't? Would their grief be redoubled?

Symmetry is something that's always fascinated me, but lately, I find that it haunts me, keeps me up late at night. Is Halle still alive? And if she isn't, did we kill her? And if we were responsible for Halle's death, or if I was partially the reason she died, is it possible that we killed her twice? Once here on Earth,
leaving her in that house on Cape Cod, and again on Terra Nova, in some alternate sleepy town? Or is it possible that she's still alive up there, some version of her living the life she was always meant to live? Is it possible she's still alive somewhere here, that maybe one day she'll come back?

Just as the sun dipped under the ocean, Bitsy turned to me again. “I wish I had watched more sunsets with her,” she said.

Then Bitsy turned and walked away. I never saw her again.

Crisis comes in many forms, and for us, for my entire generation, I think Terra Nova was the beginning of a crisis that might have happened anyway. Maybe we wouldn't have felt it as intensely, and maybe we wouldn't have questioned things quite so deeply, but part of growing up is questioning things, even ourselves. Especially ourselves.

The launch happened in late October, exactly a year after my mother left home. It was hard to believe how much had happened in just a year. Thousands of people flew down to Orlando to see
Copernicus 1
soar into space. You could see them in the crowds, crying, praying, laughing.

“Orlando . . .” My father shook his head at the TV. “They've all forgotten what happened there last year,” he said.

And it was true. By now, people had forgotten that only a year back, Orlando was synonymous with mass suicide; they had forgotten Michiko Natori, the woman, the symbol. Most people at school had forgotten about Halle. After a while, everyone wanted to forget those patches of ugliness, that fear.

Copernicus 1
will land on Terra Nova in eighty-five years. As of now, it's still on its way. If this mission is successful, we'll turn our energies toward a second mission: transporting people to Terra Nova, communicating with any intelligent life on the planet directly, communicating with our Other selves. By now, we're fairly certain that Terra Nova is our mirror planet, albeit a distorted mirror. Their radio broadcasts continue to come in, but none of us has ever met any of them.

One day, we will. Our children and their children will perhaps meet their counterparts, a strange concept to wrap our minds around, but one day, across great distances, we will meet.

I still think about it all the time—all the other possibilities that didn't occur, all the parallel and unlived lives I'll never know about. Occasionally, I go down to Tod's Point and lie in the grass at Mr. Tod's house. The house that was torn down, the art colony, the plot of land where I was with Nick that one cold Christmas. I look out into the sky and wonder about that Other Tara. About the countless Other Taras, the countless Other Nicks and Halles and Veronicas and Alexas and Megs. I think about the millions of people on this world and on those other worlds whom I'll never meet. And then one day recently, I realized that maybe my only job here on Earth is to focus on those whom I
have
met, those whom I'll meet in the future.

Even though I still think about the Other Tara, it's not in the same way. She's not omnipotent to me anymore, and I don't think she has all the answers. I don't think she's the only person in the universe who will ever understand me. I suspect
she has frailties and vulnerabilities of her own. I'm certain that she has fears, things that keep her up late at night too. Even if I were to meet her now, I don't know that I would burden her with my questions. I would say hello. I would ask her about her life, and I would tell her about mine. Perhaps that's where I'll start here too, the next time I make a
friend.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

O
NE
of the major themes of this book is finding a place for oneself in the world, and in many ways,
Mirror in the Sky
's journey from an idea to the book that it eventually became reflects that theme.

Through a serendipitous and almost magical movement of invisible hands, the manuscript for
Mirror in the Sky
landed on the desk of my amazing and brilliant editor, Jessica Almon. For this, I will always be eternally grateful for cosmic forces beyond my understanding. Without Jessica's encouragement, support, friendship, and inspiration, this book would never have become
this
book.

In my wildest dreams, I couldn't have wished for a better home for
Mirror in the Sky
than Razorbill, and I am grateful and indebted to the entire team there, particularly Ben Schrank, Anna Jarzab, and Lauren Donovan.

Thank you to my fabulous agent, the indomitable Jenny Bent, who believed in this book from the very beginning and understood it in ways that a first-time author can only dream of, and the entire team at the Bent Agency, particularly Victoria Lowes, who provided crucial support at various junctures throughout the book's publication.

While working on the manuscript for
Mirror in the Sky
, Katie Robbins, Daniel Berson, Adam Chanzit, Nell Rutledge-Leverenz, and Anna Carey joined me on an unforgettable writing retreat in Palm Springs filled with laughter, long elaborate dinners, and pie-in-the-face, and I will forever be indebted to
them for their friendship and excellent notes, but especially for their love and their time in the writing trenches with me.

Here, I must also offer thanks to Matthew Biancaniello for teaching me how to make the cocktails that we drank on that writing retreat.

I am extraordinarily lucky to have found an extended family in my brilliant, kind, and endlessly supportive friends. In no particular order, thanks to Jolene Pinder for always being there and being the most gracious host whenever I visit her in NOLA, Dee Montealvo for some of the most memorable dinners and conversations of my life, Payal Aggarwal-Scott for her steadfast friendship and love, Nathalie Huot, who always encourages me to keep dreaming bigger, Dan Lopez, whose steep aesthetic standards have over the years become my own, and Sam and Jen Sparks for their unyielding kindness.

Thanks to Linda Sivertsen for her excellent notes, but especially for her constant words of wisdom and her belief in me.

For their endless enthusiasm and kindness, thanks also to Veronica Ho, Jenny Rosenbluth, Julie Fulton, Meredith Hight, Kirsten Markson, Jaime Reichner, Julia Ruchman, Susanna Fogel, Stephanie Watanabe, Shelley Marks, Lizzie Prestel, Rahool Pathak, Rebecca Fishman, Krupa Desai, Priya Nambiar, Melissa Brough, and Ernesto Lechner.

Thank you most of all to my parents, Shashi and Satish Khorana, for always encouraging my love of writing and for being the most supportive and loving parents in the world. This book, and for that matter, everything I've ever done in my life, would not be possible without you.

Thank you to the ladies from my Can It! class, who kept me sane and fed me homemade harissa and bread and cheese, among other things: Tabby Nanyonga, Trina Calderon, and Mary Baldwin.

For finding me a room of my own when I most needed it, thank you to Bridget Jurgens, whom I think of almost every day when I sit down to write.

Thanks to Nancy Cannon and Paulette Johnson—two unforgettable teachers who encouraged my love of books at an early age.

Rains Paden first introduced me to Cheryl Strayed's ghost ship column, which eventually became a seed for
Mirror in the Sky
, so thank you for that, Rains. Here, I should also thank Cheryl Strayed for writing the column that inspired this book.

I don't know him personally, but Neil deGrasse Tyson's
Cosmos
allowed me to contemplate a universe that's far more expansive and mysterious than any one of us could ever imagine, and for that I am grateful.

Thanks to Mark Thayer, James Garay, and Isaac Cabrera, who kept me afloat with coffee and great conversation during writing sessions at LAMILL.

Thanks to Percy, who made my life easier with the care she put into her work.

Lastly, this book is already dedicated to my grandparents, but that will never be enough. I've never felt their love and guidance more strongly than when I was working on the manuscript for this book, and wherever they are, I hope they know how grateful I am for every moment we spent
together.

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