Light Delay · Episode 6
A Day
The delay passes a day, then a week, and Michael makes his nine-year-old son a promise about a ballgame in 2094. In 2088, Theo finally works out the trip home, and makes himself read the line under message 412.
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A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo Messages twenty to twenty-three are the cast weeks. They're mostly jokes. One of them is my father reading the ship's dinner menu in a French accent for four minutes. I'd forgotten that one. Mikey made me play it twice, which is against the rules.
Theo Message twenty-four. Friday, the fifth of April, twenty forty-one. Noon.
A soft playback chime.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael As of about five minutes ago, the delay is one day.
Michael One whole day. Twenty-four hours for my voice to get to you. So this isn't Friday anymore. By the time you hear it, it's Saturday. Which means I'm talking to tomorrow. Hello, tomorrow. How's tomorrow? Is it nice?
Michael Now. Tomorrow is a very important day, and you know why. It's your mother's birthday. I've sent her one of her own. It's got the little lock on it, because it's hers. Make sure she plays it. Make sure she plays it in the morning, before the pancakes, and then make her the pancakes yourself. With one good arm. I believe in you.
Michael This is the first time I've ever had to send a birthday a day early. I don't like it. It feels like cheating. But that's how it goes now. From here on, if I want to be on time, I have to be early. 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 six: A Day.
A quiet apartment in the afternoon, a clock ticking, traffic far off.
Theo My mother lives in a one-bedroom apartment at Maple Court in Worthington, with a view of the parking lot and a bird feeder that she says belongs to the squirrels. I took her groceries on Friday afternoon. Neither of us mentioned Wednesday night.
Grace Where are you up to?
Theo Twenty-four. Your birthday. The day-early one.
Grace The pancakes. You burned every one of them.
Theo I had one arm.
Grace You had one arm and a great deal of confidence. I ate all of them.
Theo Did the woman come back?
Grace Twice. Tuesday and Thursday. She's very patient. Patience is what they hire for.
Theo What does she want, Mom?
Grace The same thing she wants from you. She just asks for it more politely.
Grace Theo. When you get to the one about the ballgame...
Theo The ballgame?
Grace Never mind. Call me after the ballgame one.
A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Mikey She said "the ballgame"?
Theo She said, "Call me after the ballgame one." And then she asked me to fix the bird feeder.
Mikey Do you know which one she means?
Theo No. I thought I would. I don't.
A soft playback chime.
Theo Message twenty-nine. Sunday, the fifth of May. Four and a half days.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael Hey. It's Sunday here, and I'm guessing it's about Friday where you are. I'm guessing your cast is off. I'm guessing you've got one skinny white arm and one normal one, and that the skinny one smells terrible. Your mom will have said it smells terrible. She's right. Wash it.
Michael Tomas and I were talking about baseball this morning. He's never been to a game. Thirty-nine years old, and he's flown to the edge of the solar system, and he has never once eaten a hot dog in the sun and complained about the umpire. So I told him about the Clippers, and the seats on the first-base side, and the guy who sells peanuts by throwing them at people. He didn't believe me about the peanuts.
Michael So here's the deal. When I get back, you'll be sixty-two, and I'll be sixty-four, and we'll be two old men. And you're taking me to a ballgame. First-base side. And you're paying, because you'll have a job, and I'll have been out of work for a very long time.
Michael Write it on the calendar. Not this year's. A really big one. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
Back in the kitchen.
Mikey Sixty-two.
Theo Sixty-two.
Mikey That's the ballgame one.
Theo That's the ballgame one.
Mikey You're fifty-six.
Theo I know how old I am, Mikey.
Mikey Did you write it on a calendar?
Theo I made one. A calendar, for twenty ninety-four. I drew it myself on a big piece of card. I put a baseball on the seventh of January, because that's my birthday, and I figured he'd want to be on time. It was on my bedroom wall until I was fifteen.
Mikey What happened when you were fifteen?
Theo I took it down.
A phone rings once and is answered.
Grace You heard it.
Theo Sixty-two.
Grace Yes.
Theo You knew that one was coming.
Grace I've known that one was coming for forty-seven years.
Theo Mom. Did he mean it?
A long silence on the line.
Grace He meant it when he said it.
Theo That's not the same thing.
Grace No. It isn't. Goodnight, Theo. Play the next one.
The call ends.
A soft playback chime.
Theo Message thirty-one. Monday, the twentieth of May. A week.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael The delay is a week. It went past a week yesterday morning, about seven, while I was asleep. I wanted to be awake for it. I wasn't.
Michael So this is a letter now, really. This gets to you next Monday. That's Memorial Day. You'll be at Grandpa Joe's, probably, and he'll be burning something on the grill. Tell him I said to turn it down.
Michael I want to tell you what a week means, from up here. It means when you tell me something, I'm reading about a boy from last week. And when I tell you something, you're hearing a dad from last week. We're never going to be in the same week again. Not for a long time. So we've each got to keep a picture of the other one, and update it, like a map. You keep a picture of me. I'll keep one of you.
Michael In mine, you've got two normal arms now, and you're a little bit taller, and you're about to go outside. Go on. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
Back in the kitchen.
A pencil writing on paper.
Theo Mikey went up at eleven. I didn't. I got a pencil and did the one sum I'd never let myself do. The return.
Theo The plan was simple. Get there. Look around for two years. Come home. It's twenty-five years each way, by our clocks. Twelve by his.
Theo He'd have got there in the summer of twenty sixty-six. Left in the summer of twenty sixty-eight. And home, in the winter of twenty ninety-four. I'd be sixty-two. He'd be sixty-four.
Theo He wasn't lying about the numbers. The numbers were right. I checked them three times.
Theo And here's the thing about a ship that fast. It's only a little slower than its own news. If he'd started home on time, the message saying so would get here in twenty ninety. Two years from now. And four years after that, he'd be on the porch.
Theo Two years from now, there'd be a message. If there was a message.
Theo I picked up the player and scrolled down to four-twelve, and I made myself read the line underneath it. I'd seen it on Sunday morning. I hadn't let myself read it.
Theo "Family channel: closed by sender."
Theo He closed it. He's the only one who could. Four-twelve is the last message because my father decided it would be.
Theo Mikey would say, maybe he's coming home and he wanted to surprise me. My father never surprised anybody in his life. He told you everything three times, and then he wrote it on the calendar.
Theo We took the weekend off, after that. Mikey said I needed it.
Theo Message thirty-two, Monday.
The closing theme, the piano under the announcer.
Announcer You've been listening to episode six of Light Delay, on the VoiceFrequency Network.
Announcer In our next episode: four people on a ship, and the first argument they can't walk away from. And Mikey finds out the Hales aren't the only family with a sealed message.