At bedtime, Daddy smells like cigarettes. He smokes one out in the garage every night after supper. Mommy calls it his filthy habit. He doesn’t let me go out there with him. He tells me to never, ever smoke. If I start smoking, it’ll never let me go. That’s what Daddy says. Mommy smells like bubbles. She does the dishes after we eat, while Daddy is smoking his cigarette. That what she smells like: the soap from the dishes...

My next door neighbor used to greet the sun every morning. On summer mornings, I’d see him out on the front lawn of his house, doing this thing with his arms where he looked like he was embracing the sunlight and pulling the sun’s energy into his own body. He’s a sun worshipper. He’s told me this. He’s older than me, but not by much, and more fit. Long floppy gray hair, thin as a rail-post, all the energy in the world, in...

ESA only sent married couples into space for these kinds of missions. Something about for better or for worse. Something about ‘til death do us part. We held the fate of the Earth in our hands. Our vow was not only to each other but to humankind as well. Paz and I traveled 91 million miles to get here, so far from Earth that it took eight minutes for a radio signal to reach there. We were suspended a ridiculous 315 miles...