Europa

Prologue

"Do you miss Mom?" the girl asked, as she looked up at the night sky. It was one of those perfect nights for stargazing where there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. She waited a few moments for a response, but when her father did not respond to her m she turned her gaze towards him. "Well?"

"Of course I do Maria," he responded. His eyes darted back and forth as he searched the sky above them. The stars seemed brighter than they usually did, so much so that he was having trouble looking for the one he was trying to find.

It was quiet. The only sounds out in the field that night was their breath, the wind blowing the grass, and the occasional chirps of the crickets. After a few minutes, the girl broke the silence and said "I don't."

"Don't what?" her father said, half paying attention as he continued to survey the sky. The fact he hadn't found what he was looking for yet was clearly beginning to frustrate him.

The girl sat up. "I don't really miss Mom," she said. "I loved Mom, I know I did" she added after her father's gaze shifted toward her. "Or at least I think I did. I don't really remember that much without the pictures."

Her father sat up and put his arm around her. At first, the words out of his daughter's mouth hit him hard, but they made a lot of sense. The poor little girl was barely four years old when it happened. She was in his arms looking up when her mother's rocket burst as it left the atmosphere, and yet she had no clue what was happening. In that moment she cried not because her mother was gone but because the crowd had gotten loud. Breaking the news of her mother's passing proved to be difficult as at that point the girl had not yet developed the understanding of death. She'd ask when Mommy was coming home for a few weeks until the subject slowly faded from her memory entirely.

"Are you mad at me?" the girl asked her father. "I didn't mean to make you mad."

He brushed her hair back and raised an eyebrow "Mad? Do I ever get mad?"

The girl giggled. "Yes," she responded. "You get mad all the time. Like the time Max chewed up the couch, or when I made art on the door, or that time I left my book at school and we had to drive all the way back." She crossed her arms over her chest, proud that she'd made her point.

Her father sighed. "Okay you got me, I can work on the temper a little," he said "I'm not mad at you because of this though. I just wish you could remember your mother better," he said lying back on the grass to look upon the stars once more.

"Me too," she responded, following his lead and laying back down. She squirmed a bit as the grass tickled her arm. "Are you mad at Mom for leaving?"

He did not answer right away. On one hand, he wanted to give her the truth. She was brave and asked difficult questions about a subject she almost always avoided and she deserved to know the truth. On the other hand, she was only eleven years old. After a bit of deliberation, he decided to be honest. "You know, I used to hate her for it. Of course, I still loved your Mother, and I always will, but I couldn't understand why she would risk everything we have to go in that rocket. On the day of the launch when I first saw her ship erupt into that ball of fire the first thing I felt was pure terror, and the second thing I felt was anger. I wish looking back that feeling was sadness, but that's the thing about feelings, you can't always control them."

She looked over at him and scrunched her nose. "If you can't control them then why did you always tell me to stop being so scared of the monsters in my closet when I was younger?"

"First of all, there was no monster in your closet, we checked every night, remember," he said, rolling his eyes. "Second of all, we might not always be able to control how we feel, but we can control how we act on those feelings. Like how even on the worst days I made sure to only tell you good things about your mother so you could grow up to have good memories of her."

The little girl smirked. "What were some of the bad things about Mom?"

"There was nothing bad about her," her father responded. "She had her quirks, but no one's perfect. They wouldn't be interesting to be around if they were."

"Like what?" she asked.

"You're not going to drop the subject are you?" he responded. She shook her head. "Well, for one thing, she was very stubborn just like a little someone I know. She'd sometimes come home super late from work because she was so focussed on her career and not able to help out around the house. Even when she did her cooking was... well let us just say you're lucky you don't remember it." He chuckled.

The girl snickered. "Worse than yours?"

"Hey, I'll do my best. It's not so easy having to make food for such a picky eater," he said, giving her a little nudge.

Squinting at the night sky he exclaimed "There it is," pointing up at the sky. "Big dipper. The night before the launch we all lay out here together as she pointed out all the constellations. That's the only one I remembered how to find. Can you see it?"

She looked at where he was pointing and tried to face in the direction where he was pointing.

"Do you see it?" he asked.

She nodded.

He glanced over at her before looking back up at the sky. "Do you really see it," he asked.

"Nope," she responded.

He pointed a little lower. "You see that Star down there. It's called the North Star."

She nodded. "The real bright one?"

"Yeah," now if you follow my finger up a bit, that's the first star of the Big Dipper constellation. He traced the constellation with his finger. "You see, they make a picture when you put them together."

"It's like a frying pan!" she exclaimed.

He nodded, reaching down and holding his daughter's hand. "You know, when you were little me and your mother would take you out here every night to look at the stars."

"I think I remember that," the girl said. "Mommy loved space, didn't she."

Her father laughed. "Loved it? It was all she ever talked about! I could never imagine going up in that rocket and risking everything we have here to travel across the stars, but to her, it was a dream she'd had since she was a little girl like you. When I think of it that way it's hard to stay mad at your mother for leaving. How can you be mad at someone for following their dreams?"

"I can see why Mom liked space so much, it's really cool," the girl exclaimed. She thought for a moment and looked over at her father. "Would you be mad at me if I ever chose to go to space like Mom did?"

He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. On one hand, he couldn't bear to imagine losing his daughter, the one part of his wife he still had left. On the other hand, who was he to tell his little girl that she couldn't be whatever she wanted to be? "Maria, no matter what you do, I'll always be proud of you."

He wouldn't say it, but deep down he was hoping that passion would be teaching or becoming a doctor. Still, if being an astronaut was her calling he'd just have to find a way to support that.

She smiled, tracing the Big Dipper constellation with her eyes as she wondered what it looked like up close. One day she would find out she told herself. That's what Mom would have wanted.