God is an Astronaut Read Free Page B

stickers. (I can’t look at those gaudy little spaceships without feeling queasy.) Every day I force myself to accomplish one thing on that list, even if it’s nothing more than running outside after dusk and scooping up a few armfuls of that brush I chain-saw-massacred back on the day of the accident, stuffing it into a Hefty, and lugging it down to the bottom of the hill so the trash guys can come haul it away.
     
    For a while there, Arthur, I didn’t even need a flashlight. The news vans out on the street had set up these floodlamps at night, and they would emanate this unearthly light through the trees, like a space station straight out of one of Jack’s sci-fi books. Thank God that’s over. (They did have this certain eerie allure, but the ambient lighting was starting to wreak circadian havoc. I was forced to buy blackout curtains for Jack, whose room faces the street, the heavy-duty kind they market to truckers and ER doctors.) What with that and all the traffic, we’re probably on some sort of neighborhood hit list.
     
    I guess the point of this is to say, I’m working hard to get back in the habit of keeping promises to myself. I just had no idea it was going to be this difficult to get back on the wagon.
     
    Quitting now,
    Jess
    From: Jessica Frobisher
    Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 2:49 pm
    To: Arthur Danielson
    Cc:
    Bcc:
    Subject: Speaking of Sasquatch
     
     
    Liam’s not a fan of the greenhouse. I was pretty sure you knew that already. The plans I drew up were, yes, a little extravagant, and my husband isn’t crazy about extravagant ideas unless they’re his, in which case he’s all for them. Back when I pitched the greenhouse to him, when I cornered him in the bathroom while he brushed his teeth and told him that I wanted to pull a few grand from our IRA to build it, he listened patiently to all my selling points and their exclamation points (fresh lettuce in December! heirloom tomatoes all year round! a space to breed my own orchids!) and then let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, Jess,” he said. “It’s not such a great time to take on that kind of big project, is it? Don’t we have a lot of things going on right now?”
     
    “If by ‘a lot of things’ you’re referring to my second job as a minivan chauffeur,” I said, “the answer is yes.”
     
    “I’m talking about your work. Your science .” Liam leaned over and spat matter-of-factly into the sink. “It’s just not the most practical thing. That’s all I’m saying. Not to mention that the seals around all those glass panes are going to hemorrhage heat in the winter. Even with the best insulating you can find, I can’t imagine what it will do to our energy bills. We’ll have a Sasquatch-size carbon footprint. I thought you loved the environment.”
     
    “Never mind,” I said, turning around to leave.
     
    “Jess,” he said. “ Jess .” He was saying my name in that way I hate, that tone of voice that makes it sound like a call to reason, so I just waved my hand and kept walking.
     
    “I’m not saying no,” he called after me. “For the record.”
     
    For the record, I have to go. Go forth and give those trees some tough love.
     
    Jess
    From: Jessica Frobisher
    Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:01 pm
    To: Arthur Danielson
    Cc:
    Bcc:
    Subject: Bad fences
     
     
    But you have to admit that he has a point about the carbon footprint. I haven’t figured out a way around that problem. I don’t think there is one. This issue takes us back to our good old discussion about selfish gratification versus hypothetical greater good—that one where we were pretending to have a debate about the climate change problem while we were actually talking about something else. I’m tired of that conversation. We’re not going to agree. We’re not even going to be able to agree to disagree. Can we please talk about something