The Far Horizon

Chapter 1

Cory ran, clutching the flapping sides of his uncomfortable jacket. The flower pinned to his breast pocket hung askew. Up the stairs between the townhouses, across the road to the park.

How could his father be so silly to leave the wedding rings on the kitchen table?

Panting, he stopped at the security checkpoint. Many people already waited, seated in rows on the slope between the road and the lake. Part of the lawn had been fenced off with posts and white ribbon. Small signs saying Private Function flapped in the breeze.

A security guard passed a metal detector over Cory's back and sides. He patted the jacket's pocket. 'Excuse me, you have a metal object in here?'

Cory took out the box. 'Just the rings.'

The guard's face cleared. 'Ah, you're John Wilson's son.' He stepped aside.

Cory padded down the red carpet, which felt kind of springy because the grass on this side of the lake was really thick.

Wow, he didn't know his father knew so many people. There was the director of the Space Training facility. In the second row from the back sat their doctor, and there was Mr Symonds, Cory's teacher—

'Pssst—Cory!'

Garreth waved at him from between his parents. Cory wished he could sit next to his friend, but his father waited in the front row of seats. 'Got the rings, son?'

Cory held up the box.

His father gave a sheepish grin, making the skin around his eyes crinkle. He put an arm around Cory's shoulder. 'I'm lucky to have you. I'll be lucky to have both of you. I love you, Cory.'

Cory didn't meet his father's eyes.

His father's left hand was bare; he had taken off his other wedding ring, the one that had his mother's name inside.

In the past two weeks she had barely left his thoughts. His mother sitting in the garden, a blanket over her knees. His mother in the kitchen, seated on her high stool, cutting vegetables. His mother, hollow-cheeked and giving a weak smile, in her hospital bed. Somewhere in the room behind him, a nurse was lighting the eight candles on Cory's birthday cake. He remembered the smell of the burning match. He remembered staring at his mother's bone-thin hands while the nurses sang Happy Birthday. Those hands were holding a present, but trembled too much to give it to him. Those hands he had touched for the last time three weeks later, the skin cold.

That was only two years ago.

Driving home from the funeral, his father had allowed Cory to sit in the front seat for the first time. He had said, 'You're a man now, and life will be about the two of us.'

Two weeks ago, his father had told him that he would marry Erith before they were to leave for Midway Space Station. As if his father had already forgotten his mother, forgotten the words he had spoken during that drive.

The hum of an electric motor drifted over the crowd.

'Ah, there she is.' His father sprang to his feet. Cory rubbed the warm spot his father's hand had left on his shoulder.

Security guards swarmed around a black car that had stopped on the road. Both doors opened.

Harvey McIntosh scrambled from the front passenger seat. Even though he was their neighbour, and his father's friend, Cory had never seen him in a black suit, with a flower at his breast, his wild mop of blond hair flattened down.

A pair of feet emerged from the back seat, clad in high-heeled sandals, and with toes so long they carried several silver rings. The frills of a silvery dress swished around long legs, the skin slightly grey.