happy new year, 2084!

New Year's Eve, 2084 - Stephanie Day is 24, Justin Kim is 23, Sophie Phoenix is 61.

Soundtrack: "Drown," by Smashing Pumpkins.

Plenty of people are hosting New Year's parties this year, every year, all over the world. Aunt Sophie is hosting the usual party, and Stephanie's parents will be there, but instead Stephanie is here with Justin's parents. Because Justin's mom makes regular platters of food, sausage rolls in biscuits from the grocery store, nothing imported, nothing strange and gourmet like her Aunt Sophie serves. Stephanie is here because Aunt Sophie's house is always too crowded and noisy, because Corbin has a date which left Justin alone. She considered that they could spend New Year's in the quiet of her empty house, but she decided against it. Alone has grown on her, grown into her bones. But not tonight. She knows Justin doesn't like that much quiet.

Stephanie wonders how they're celebrating on base, or if they're even celebrating at all. Out there, tonight is just another date, a point on a calendar that's only significant to us because we make it so. Outside the Earth's spinning clock, a year means nothing. Out there, their ships whiz through the blackness and time is irrelevant except to their little electronic clocks, keeping home time like nostalgia.

Justin's mother brushes past her. "Can I get you anything, sweetie?"

"No, this is good," Stephanie says. The wine is tart and has made her head light. She starts to smile, still a little embarrassed sometimes to be holding a glass of wine in front of a real grown up.

"We can make some more snacks," Cindy says. "Just let me know if you want anything."

The girls are asleep upstairs. They didn't make it to midnight; they didn't even make it to ten. This time of night, the streets are quiet. People have finally arrived to the parties they'll be at for the night.

"I'm glad you came," Justin says.

"Me, too," she says.

Stephanie doesn't know where she should be. Here, but there too with her parents, back home in her empty house, out in space with Jeremiah, everywhere at once. She could be a supernova, explode like a star, send pieces of herself to all corners of the universe.

She laughs at the idea. She was born Stephanie Nova. "Stephanie Nova, get it?"

But this isn't news to Justin. He shrugs. "I only teased you about that since we were eight."

His parents talk in the kitchen, their voices soft among clinking dishes and running water. She remembers what it used to be like, before all of this. She remembers staying over for dinner at his house in high school, how his parents would clear the dinner table so he could pretend to teach her trigonometry, when really he hardly knew it himself. Did he remember freshman year at LCU? Palmolive in the courtyard fountain? Dancing at Club Lulu and that stupid techno sphere that always spilled her out on her face on the floor? Does he remember that things weren't always so somber as they are right now?

She promised her dad she'd stop over at her Aunt Sophie's party before the night was over.

"Are you coming back for midnight?" Justin asks. "How much time is there?"

"Forty-five minutes," she says. "I'll come back."

She'd only go for a minute. Just to show her face. Just to check in. Justin leans heavy on the table. "Do you ever feel mad at him for going?"

"Mad? No, not really." Stephanie watches him for a response, but he doesn't give any. "But it wasn't really a choice on his part. Do you, get mad?"

He doesn't look at her. He doesn't answer the question either. He looks mad.

Before she gets her coat, Stephanie tiptoes upstairs to look at the girls, the two of them sharing Lily's crib, still and peaceful in the dark. Stephanie watches their chests rise and fall.

And then footsteps behind her. Justin's mom.

"I was just going to see my dad for a minute," Stephanie says.

"You've been drinking?"

"It's okay, I'll walk," she says. "It's only a few houses down."

"Leave her sleep here," Cindy says. "It's fine."

Fine, everything is fine. There's a lightness in her head, not to the point of swirling, not even to the point of being tipsy. That everything is fine, for the first time in forever, there's no objection in her head that it's a lie.

"Don't worry about it," Cindy says. "She's an angel."

Stephanie wonders sometimes if it's wrong that she likes Justin's mom better than her own? Maybe it even makes sense, because Willow must love anyone's mom better than her own. Maybe it runs in the family. Can you mess up a kid? Can you do it so wrong that no matter how much you change direction, it might be too late?

Stephanie goes, only because she promised she would. The night is cold and quiet by now. The snow had been light, only an inch on the ground and already stopped falling, the clouds dispersed leaving the sky clear. Aunt Sophie's front kitchen windows have fogged up from all the warm bodies inside. Stephanie stops there, seeing the room lit up, the whole family with their banter. They're an overwhelming bunch. Somehow she can't manage the will to actually approach the door.

***

Sophie received a phone call from the middle school one afternoon while Hayden was working. Ryanne had been caught making out with a boy in a utility closet. "Making out is the kinder version of the story," the school secretary had told her, with a tone that brought a blush to Sophie's cheeks. "Let's just say, Mrs. Phoenix, there may be a reason your granddaughter favors knee socks."

Another boy? The same boy? A different one? The boys all bleed one into the next by now. Sophie won't pretend she was never thirteen years old, but this girl and her big sister are as different as they come.

"How come Summer doesn't have to be here?"

"Summer's in college," Sophie says.

Ryanne stomps off into the living room and Sophie reaches back to knead the ache at her neck. "Is she like this with you?" She doesn't look at Hayden, but both he and Piper turn their heads anyway. "I never had so much trouble with Summer," Sophie says. "Summer got straight A's. Summer dated the same boy for six years."

There's nothing to say. Sophie never expected any answers from anyone. She knows the answer already. Summer had a mother still at that age.

Sophie makes another snack tray, imported cheeses, some soft spreads, some firm and potent. "Not for the baby," she tells her son, Jack. "The Roquefort is unpasteurized."

None of them would eat the cheese anyway, but you couldn't say she didn't try. They come in and out of the room, taking soda from the fridge and snacking on the potato chips instead.

"Well don't just stand there, eat something," she says.

Jack just stands there. It's Nessa and Aaron he's looking at, sitting on the floor together. She rarely lets go of him these days. Sophie grabs another plate for Jack herself.

Her son, a grown man now, looks up at her with the caution he had as a teenager. He finally speaks, "What she's worried about, is that she won't be able to get pregnant again."

Sophie sighs. "Let her worry about what she wants to worry about."

"It's not the biggest thing to worry about," he says.

"We know that," Sophie whispers, hushing him with a soft pat on his arm. Nessa is headed into the room with Aaron on her hip.

"He's up so late," Nessa says. She laughs, short but hopeful. "He's gonna be a bear tomorrow, let me tell you. It'll be his first New Year awake."

Jack nods then, confirming the fact. Nessa coos near the boy's cheek. "It's good luck, huh? It's gonna be a better year."

She holds the child close to her cheek. "It's gonna be the best year we ever had."

***

Stephanie doesn't go inside, but instead crosses the street to her own house, closed up and empty. Willow isn't there. Justin and Lily aren't there. She walks the length of her soccer pitch, the netting still up through the winter. She's surprised it hadn't already started to rust.

Right now, it's the darkest time of the year. Fifteen hours of darkness. Again Stephanie finds herself looking up to the sky, vivid dark blue, so empty, as if she could stare straight out into space, as if she might see one of their ships whizzing past. She hasn't seen one yet. Some people say they have, but they're likely only seeing shooting stars.

She wonders where Jeremiah is right now, what he's doing, if he's safe, if he ever feels this alone? But Stephanie isn't mad. September was the last time she spoke to him, before they shipped out from the lunar complex to where he'd be stationed near Jupiter. He told her it would be a while. He told her it wouldn't mean anything was wrong. It would be him and a couple other guys, in a ship, for the next few months. That close of quarters and he's probably begging to be alone by now.

It's quiet out here, he had said, You wouldn't believe how quiet.

Where he is, the only sounds come from the ship, and when they power down to conserve energy, when they coast, there's nothing but their own voices, their own heartbeats in their ears. The space around them is void of sound, and when they rest, when they sleep, there's only deafening quiet, and lightyears worth of black space in all directions.

And she gets it.

Midnight. Happy voices count down the seconds, muffled by glass, a muted chorus. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six-

Her phone rings. It's Justin. "Happy New Year, Steph," he says. "Are you there?"

Is she here? She sees herself, her own feet in the snow as if they weren't part of her body and she didn't know how she ended up here. Lighted windows dot the neighborhood like stars dot the black sky, so many voices in that light, so much celebration. And in her ear, Justin still breathes through the phone static as if he were standing right next to her. "Steph, you there?"

"I can still hear you," she whispers, the phone hanging loose from her ear. "I'm sorry, I missed midnight."

"It's okay. Are you coming back?"

Over the marina, the first large explosion of light fills the sky. Green, then pink, then blue, lighting the town in color, no place untouched. Loud, so very loud, the boom steals breath out of her chest.

Willow. Her baby. She might be scared. "I'm coming back."

She starts to run, her feet kicking up a dusting of snow behind her, her legs carrying her faster. She sprints the last few houses back to where they are.

Justin is already outside, standing on the sidewalk, his cell phone in one hand and the baby monitor in another. Stephanie comes to a stop, panting. "She wasn't scared?"

"No," he says. "They didn't even wake up."

Stephanie wants to be there next to her, to touch her hair, to see the flutter behind her eyelids as she dreams. She starts for the front door.

"Stay here," he says.

She stops, turns back to him.

"For a minute," he says.

The girls are sleeping, the breathing of two babies on the monitor, in unison, a song she's never been more glad to hear. But Justin looks like he could explode, like a supernova. It does her good to feel like someone else needs more help than she does for once, so she stays. "Okay," she says and settles in beside him.

They both turn their faces to the sky, bright lights filling the night. Out there, looking down from above, it must all seem so small, dots of pink flashing over the planet like wildflowers.


And so begins another crazy year in Lakeside Heights. Happy New Year, 2084!

*******

(footnotes: Steph and Justin // what's wrong with Nessa?)

notes: outtakes and assorted chatter for this post are here.