Light Delay · Episode 10
Grace
In 2042, Theo's mother is diagnosed with cancer, and her message to the ship will take three and a half years to arrive. In 2088, Theo guesses a word he was never meant to know.
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A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo In March, twenty forty-two, my mother found a lump. She told me on a Thursday, the thirteenth, at the kitchen table, with both her hands flat on it, like she was keeping it from floating away.
Theo She was thirty-seven. I was ten. She said the word "cancer" once, very clearly, so I'd hear it, and then she never said it again in front of me.
Theo That night, she wrote to my father. I heard her through the wall. She did it three times before she sent it.
Theo The ship was going away at three-quarters of the speed of light by then. Her message had to chase it. It didn't catch him for three and a half years. And his answer came back to us in the summer of twenty forty-nine. I was seventeen. She'd been well for six years.
Theo So for three and a half years, every single message my father sent her was to a woman who wasn't sick yet.
Theo Message fifty-nine. Ship date the twenty-third of November, twenty forty-one. It got to us two weeks into her chemo.
A soft playback chime.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael Happy Thanksgiving! It's Thanksgiving here. Well, it's Sunday here. Anika moved Thanksgiving to Sunday, because the commander can do that. She says on a ship, Thanksgiving is whenever the commander says it is.
Michael We had chicken from a pouch that said "turkey style". Tomas said grace in Hungarian. It was very long. We think he was listing the things he misses.
Michael So here's what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful for your mother. And I'm thankful that your mother doesn't have to cook a turkey this year, because she hates it, and she pretends she doesn't. Tell her she's off the hook. I'll do it next year. And the year after. I'll do the turkey for the rest of my life.
Michael Give her a hug from me. A long one. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
The series theme, with the title card over it.
Announcer Light Delay, presented by the VoiceFrequency Network. Episode ten: Grace.
A quiet apartment in the afternoon, a clock ticking, traffic far off.
Theo I took my mother her groceries on Tuesday. She was at the window, watching the bird feeder, in a cardigan in July.
Grace The woman asked about me.
Theo Dana?
Grace She asked the front desk how I was keeping. Very kindly. Just in passing. The front desk told me, because the front desk is a woman called Rosa, and Rosa tells me everything.
Theo Mom.
Grace I'm keeping very well, thank you. I'm eighty-three, and my blood pressure is better than hers will ever be.
Theo Where are you up to? In your head. I'm on fifty-nine.
Grace Thanksgiving. The turkey. "I'll do the turkey for the rest of my life."
Theo You remember them all.
Grace I remember that one. It came the week my hair started coming out. I sat in the bath and played it twice and laughed until I was sick, and I couldn't tell which kind of sick it was.
Theo You never told me that.
Grace You were ten. You'd shaved your head. You'd done enough.
Theo I looked like a cue ball.
Grace You looked like your father.
A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Mikey Sixty, sixty-one. Easter. The rocks. Lena's found a rock from Earth with a fossil in it that she didn't know was there.
Theo She was so pleased with that fossil.
A soft playback chime.
A short low tone, like a locked door.
Mikey Sixty-two. It's locked. For Grace.
Theo It came the day before Mother's Day. He'd recorded it in December, so it would land on time. He always landed things on time, after the birthday one.
Mikey Skip it.
Theo Yes.
Mikey Dad. You're not skipping it.
Theo It wants a word. One word, that she chose before he left. Her passphrase.
Mikey You don't know her word.
Theo I don't know her word. But I know the only word she'd ever have chosen for him. I heard it on Sunday, in the yard.
Mikey Dad, don't.
Theo Half joking. That's what I told myself. I'll just see. It won't work. And then I'll know it won't work, and I'll stop wondering.
A pencil tapping, then four soft key presses.
Theo Blue.
A soft playback chime.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael Gracie. I know what we agreed, and I know it's harder on you than it is on me, because you're the one who has to look at him every day.
A click as the message is stopped.
Back in the kitchen.
Mikey Dad.
Theo I stopped it.
Mikey What did we just...
Theo I stopped it. That's all. That's all of it. One sentence.
Mikey "What we agreed."
Theo I know.
Mikey What did they agree?
Theo I don't know.
Mikey "Harder on you, because you have to look at him." Him is you. Dad. Him is you.
Theo I know who him is, Mikey.
Mikey Are you going to tell her?
Theo Not tonight.
Mikey You have to tell her.
Theo I'll tell her. Not tonight.
Footsteps going up a wooden staircase.
A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo When I was ten, my mother lost her hair, and my father didn't know. He sent her a Thanksgiving message about turkeys. He sent her a Mother's Day message, on time. And in the first sentence of it, he asked her to keep doing something hard. Something they'd agreed. Something about me.
Theo She kept doing it. Every day. For forty-seven years. Looking at me.
Theo I put the player face down on the table. I've never done that before. I didn't want to see the word "blue" on the screen.
Theo Message sixty-three, tomorrow.
The closing theme, the piano under the announcer.
Announcer You've been listening to episode ten of Light Delay, on the VoiceFrequency Network.
Announcer In our next episode: Theo asks his mother the question he's been avoiding since he was fifteen. And this time, he hears what his father didn't say.