It’s the end of the world and you’re sitting with your ma waiting for the sun to explode.
You all got cryogenically frozen, or something. You don’t remember the actual process all too well. Too much time spent in the freezer will do that, they said — but you and Ma knew what you wanted to see. You’d done everything on Earth already. You wanted to see it die. So you’re sitting on the floor of a quiet deck of the station floating thousands of miles above Earth, staring at the sun through special filters in the massive windows, watching the red gasses pop and glow and melt.
“Tristan,” Ma says, and then says it again, “Tristan — do you remember?”
It’s June and she’s punched the bastard in the teeth on the front porch while you sit in the car with your suitcase in the back, terrified, because your father is a good foot and a half taller than your ma and twice as broad. He holds his mouth, blood streaming down his face, as your ma hisses and shakes her hand out. “If you ever call our son that again I’ll slit your throat in your goddamned sleep,” she says, and your father crowds in on her, 6’3” of Good American Country Boy. “I don’t have a fucking son,” he barks, and moves as if to hit her back. She does not flinch and he does not know what to do about that, when his only real reason for doing anything is to keep you two scared shitless, so his hand lowers, and your ma runs to the car and slams the door shut. The car pulls out of the gravel driveway with the headlights on. Your father’s already gone back inside, but you can see him at the window staring out. “Tristan,” she says, “God help me but I feel like I broke my hand on the bastard’s teeth.” So you hold her hand in your lap as she pulls onto the freeway and pretend you don’t feel her shaking with you.
The thing about the end of the world is that it takes a while. Ma is surprised by this. She says she doesn’t want to wait around for the shithole to burn. So you tell her how it works, from the astronomy course you took in the one semester of college you had before you dropped out because the two of you couldn’t pay for it anymore. You all got sent to space the next year, anyway, and what’s a better hands-on learning opportunity than that? “The sun’s gotta turn into a red giant, Ma,” you explain. “It’ll get real big and then all those layers will puff away and it’ll get real hot but real small. And then it’ll keep dying until we can’t see it anymore. A big hunk of diamond.”
“Okay,” she says, “But what about down there? How long till that’s gone?” and points down and out the big viewing window to where you think the Earth might be. You’re so high up you can’t even see it: a speck of dust that’s slowly boiling below you.
“I dunno,” you say. “Years and years and years. I guess till we feel like we’re done watching it.”
You do not mention the one fact you both know: that the Earth is empty now anyways, and she won’t get any real vindication from watching it die. That’s not what this is about.
When you, terrified, tell your parents you want to change your name and dress like a boy — a few months before you leave that house, a few years before they announce everyone’s got to leave Earth — it only half works. Your father stills, in the same way he does when you bring home anything less than a perfect grade on a test or when he’s decided you’ve not done a good enough job of your chores, and stares at you. You almost get tunnel vision, waiting for the moment that always happens where the silence bubbles over and he lashes out. And then your ma steps in front of him — carefully, delicately, not turning around — and looks you straight in the eye so you’re focused on her instead. “Okay, baby,” she says. “What should we call you?”
In the background your father storms out the front door; through the ringing in your ears you can hear the screen slam shut. “Tristan,” you say.
“Tristan,” she repeats, and then pulls you up from the chair at the kitchen table into a hug so tight you almost can’t breathe.
You love the way she says your name. When you chose it you hadn’t thought much about the sound of it, having not had a chance to practice it much yourself, only scrawled on paper with your last name to see how it looks. She says it right, all sharp consonants that still somehow feel as soft and smooth as honey coming out of her mouth.
Your ma doesn’t know what to do about the fact that they treat you right up here on the station. You feel it deep and heavy and happy in your bones: it’s a far step from your father, who calls you the wrong name and insists you’re his daughter. Ma, though — she’s used to setting herself on fire for you and doesn’t know what to do without any gasoline to keep the flame going. Wednesday afternoons you go in for your shot, and she spends the whole 20 minutes fluttering anxiously around your rooms or the viewing deck. Sometimes she comes with you and flutters around the doctor’s office until it’s time for the injection, when she stands stock still and holds your hand like you’re ten again, getting your double-digits shots back on Earth and crying about it. On days she doesn’t come with you she interrogates you as soon as you get back. “Were they good to you?” she demands the second you step in the door, boots half off even though there isn’t any mud to track in in space. “Did they get your name right?”
“Yes, Ma,” you say, knowing full well she knows this too, knows the doctors and nurses don’t say a thing wrong from all the times she’s come with you.
“Good,” she says, “Good — because if they didn’t, I’d — I’d —” She sits down hard on the bed and stares at her hands. You can tell she’s thinking about blood and teeth and the I-81 at night.
“I know, Ma,” you say, and kiss the top of her head and hold her hands so she quits looking at them.
About a month or so into watching the world end your ma lays back against the sparkly-clean station floor with a thud, buffeted by her hands behind her head. She sighs at the ceiling. “It doesn’t feel any better,” she says. “It doesn’t feel any damn different.”
You keep watching the sun, fingers fidgeting across the frayed edge of your hoodie. “I don’t know that it’s supposed to,” you say.
“It is,” she insists, “it is. I wanted it to feel different. I wanted it to feel good.”
“You wanted it to feel good, watching the Earth die?”
“Yes,” she says. “How many people down there hurt you, baby? How many times did I want to do what the sun’s doing right now and burn them up until they couldn’t call you names anymore?”
“A lot,” you say, wryly. The injustice is exhausting to you in a way that she does not experience, and you gladly accept her furious, relentless protection.
She sits back up and stares at the sun again, eyes a little unfocused. “Not a lot,” she says. “All the time. Always.”
The day you finally see an article that all the microorganisms on Earth — the only things left, at this point — are probably finally dead you’re not even out on the deck watching. You’re in your place in the lower decks of the station, making tea for the both of you with the fancy kettle in the fancy kitchen while your ma sits on the couch and reads a book. You bring the tea out and tell her the news, and she freezes a little bit and then stares at the pages. “Hmm,” she says, and then, a bit helplessly, “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “We can keep watching. The sun’s going to keep dying. I kind of want to see if we can watch it become a black dwarf.”
“Ain’t that the one where you can’t see it anymore? When it finally cools off?”
“Yeah. We didn’t know about any when we were on Earth. Universe wasn’t old enough yet. But we’ll know it’s there, even if we can’t see it. We still know where the sun is.”
That seems to unhook her a little, and she turns back to her book like, for the first time, she’s determined to finish it. “Okay, Tristan,” she says. “We’ll keep watching. We can still do that.”
You smile a little, and sit next to her, putting the warm mug into her hands. All the while the Earth continues to burn below.