Light Years By Brendan McDonnell
“Daddy,” she said, “my eyes are watering.” Scott placed his hand on his daughter’s head. “It’s okay to blink, Honey,” he said. “I promise, I won’t let you miss it.” Yawning, she eased her head back onto her father’s chest with her eyes trained on the night sky. The lawn chair rattled beneath them as she settled in. Stretched out, she did not yet run the length of his torso. “When’ll it happen?” He repeated the explanation he had read in the newspaper: they were about to witness an event that happened a long time ago, miles and miles from here, that they would only experience now. He didn’t know how to explain this to a child. He wasn’t sure he understood it himself. “Soon,” he said. “Will Mommy see it?” When his ex- dropped Chelsea off at his doorstep, he had asked her to take a moment to watch the comet. (He was careful not to ask where she might be, or whom she might be with.) An educational event, he’d called it, that she could discuss with their daughter. He said he wanted to plan more of this sort of thing, that he hoped that they, as mother and father, could work together to share ideas and experiences with Chelsea as she split time between them. “We can do it,” he said. “It’s not too late.”