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not expecting to see anything better than what we had already seen, but wanting that magical moment, when it felt like I was important to Ariel, to last.
    “Yes,” she answered simply, and I could hear the fumbling of the flashlight as she slid it into the pocket of her coat and the brush of fabric against fabric as she crossed her arms against the chill.
    “Do you know what I think?” Ariel’s voice came softly out of the night, like a trick of the wind, some moments later.
    “What?” I was dying to know what she thought. I had been dying to know for weeks what went on inside Ariel’s head. I was so tired of not knowing.
    “I think one day people will reach the stars.” She stated it plainly, as if she wasn’t saying something utterly absurd.
    “Do you really?” I questioned.
    “They’ve already had rockets reach up there,” she said. “Eventually, it will be people.”
    “Do you think anyone will waste money on that?” I couldn’t help but question. It seemed so far-fetched to me that such a thing would ever come to pass when there were financial markets in ruin and a war destroying cities across the ocean. “What would be the use? Wouldn’t it be silly?”
    “I don’t think so,” Ariel returned softly. “When this war ends, there will be something else that comes. If the years go on like this, they will be so long and so exhausting, everyone will give up. Humanity can’t go on like that forever. Without hope, Elizabeth...” I could hear the change in Ariel’s voice as she looked toward me, and I wondered if she could see me any better than I could see her. “...we die.”
    In that instant, I realized Ariel had been paying attention to me, maybe more attention than anyone else. Tears pressing against my eyes, I reached out for her, like I had wanted to every day for weeks, my hand finding the crook of her arm. Warmer as I pressed against her side, I let her think my eyes were still on the sky as I tried to make out her face in the darkness, far more in awe of Ariel than of the universe.

 
    Chapter Three
    A riel believed in the power of the sun to heal all things, and, as spring started to pop up for a day here and there, she would take Nan out in her wheelchair to sit for some time in the afternoons.
    Mama always fussed that sick people shouldn’t be outside in all the germs and unknown, but Ariel would tell her sunlight was good for all measures of darkness, with a glance my way, and take Nan out anyway. I knew Ariel must be right, because Nan looked so much better once winter came to a close and she could meet the rays of the spring sun for a few hours each week, I started to think she might actually get well.
    When they would go, Ariel always asked me to come with them, and, though Mama would tsk and tell me I was going to ruin my complexion, and no man would want a dark-skinned girl who didn’t have dark skin himself, I was happy to follow Ariel to the garden, where even the flower buds making their early appearances seemed to brighten in her presence.
    Once outside, away from the prying ears and the commandment that made me honor my mother and father, there was no one to tell me how to keep myself or to behave. Nan and Ariel talked about all sorts of things ladies didn’t dare talk about - politics and the war and religion – and had disagreements all the time.
    Oddly enough, though, when Ariel had questions about the Christian way, Nan didn’t get mad or tell her to go read her Bible like she did most people. She listened, and then, when Ariel was done, she told Ariel what she thought right back, and they would come to a sort of crossroads where Nan seemed to accept Ariel’s questions made sense and Ariel seemed less convinced of her own disbelief.
    It wasn’t exactly an impasse. They never got angry, locked horns, or sharpened their words. It was more like a meeting place they had discovered together, where they realized they liked talking to each other so much, they didn’t