“We have to know what happened.” It was the voice of a man, a voice I never heard before. “She’s the sole survivor of the crash.”
“I’m sorry, Officer,” said Mrs. Steele. “She can’t speak to you.”
Sole survivor?
I didn’t know it then, but sole means only. One. Alone.
A lone survivor. Only one.
But that could not be true.
Because you were in the crash too.
And if we were both in the crash…
And there was only one survivor…
And I’m alive…
No.
They made a mistake.
We are going into space together! We are going to soar past the stars, holding NASA Bear between us! We are going to vacation on Venus, to meet Martians on Mars! We are going to leave footprints on the moon!
I have arrived.
But you are gone.
And I am alone.
I drop to my knees on the side of the road. How long have I been running?
Francine and I have passed this point many times when she takes the long way home from school. Sometimes she points it out and asks how I feel. I close my eyes and push her words away from my ears.
But now, here I am.
For the first time since the accident, I look around.
There are no tire marks in the street. There is no sign of the twisted metal or the burning truck. No snow. No ice.
There is only a mound of frozen dirt on the side of the road and a white wooden cross. The cross Joanie showed me after we had pancakes at the diner.
And now I understand.
Here is where you are, Bridget.
Here is where you ended.
The point of impact.
The ocean.
Our Sea of Tranquility.
I lie down beside the cross. I rest my head on NASA Bear.
You were not there, Bridget. You broke your promise.
We were supposed to watch the Challenger launch together.
We were supposed to watch them send up the First Teacher in Space.
You were supposed to be there when I watched the Challenger lift-off.
You were supposed to be there when I watched the Challenger explode.
But you were not there. Because you are here.
I do not know why I did not understand it before. Mrs. Steele told me what happened to you. Francine and Billy told me. Joanie told me.
But you promised to come back and you always keep your promises, so I guess I thought that death is not forever. That your promise must be stronger than dying. Because you have always been stronger than me, even though I was the sole survivor.
I did not understand it, Bridget, until I saw the Challenger explode, but now I do. Now I know sometimes what we want doesn’t matter.
Sometimes people can’t keep their promises.
Sometimes even astronauts can’t reach the stars.
I did not understand it before, Bridget, but I understand it now.
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you…?
Planet Earth is blue—
And there’s nothing I can do.
* * *
—
I can feel your arms around me, Bridget.
I can hear your heartbeat in my ear.
I know that I am not alone.
It’s still you and me and NASA Bear, our space shuttle, and the moon.
You didn’t come find me.
So I’ve found you.
Francine pulled over on the side of the road. She ran from the car, followed by Miss Chambers.
“Nova?” Francine reached Nova first, curled up on her side next to the wooden cross, hands over her ears, eyes closed. Francine dropped to her knees and cradled Nova’s head against her chest.
Nova could feel a heartbeat thumping in her ear.
Bridget?
No.
Her eyes fluttered open. Her head felt heavy.
“We need to get her warm,” said Francine. “She’s been outside with no coat. She’s freezing.” She took off her own coat and wrapped Nova in it. With help from Miss Chambers, she picked Nova up and carried her to the car. Francine placed her gently in the backseat and Miss Chambers covered her with her own coat like a blanket. They got back into the car.
Francine turned her key in the ignition.
Nova closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep.
* * *
When Nova opened her eyes again, she was back in the too-big bedroom.
She could smell chicken soup and Francine’s perfume.
For a few seconds, she felt confused. Then it all came crashing back.
The conversation between Mrs. Steele and the police officer in the hospital hallway.
Being handed the box of her sister’s things.
Driving to a new foster home.
Meeting Billy and Francine.
Realizing they were the same people who’d been to visit her when she was in the hospital. When Francine read Dr. Seuss. When Billy brought brownies.
She’d been in the hospital during the funerals.
Now she was home, with Francine sitting beside her bed and Billy standing in the doorway. It was just like the day they met, except Francine was not holding a book. She stroked Nova’s hair instead.
“She’s awake,” whispered Francine.
“You gave us quite a scare,” said Billy. He held up the soup bowl. “Are you hungry?”
Nova sat up against the headboard. She was a little hungry.
“We thought this would be such a wonderful day for you,” said Francine as Billy placed the bowl on the bedside table. He sat on top of the wooden toy box.
“We know how much you’d been looking forward to the launch, Nova. We can’t tell you how sorry we are….” Francine’s voice cracked.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Nova,” said Billy. “Have some soup.”
Francine held the bowl so she could spoon some into Nova’s mouth. Just as Nova had guessed, it was chicken noodle.
Billy blew his nose into a tissue.
“We were so worried about you,” he said. “Us, Joanie, Mrs. Pierce, Miss Chambers, Mr. O’Reilly…Don’t ever, ever disappear on us like that again, Nova. Don’t ever run away. Don’t leave school without me or Francine or Mrs. Steele. Never again. Promise us.”
Nova looked from his face to Francine’s. They both looked like they’d been crying. Francine set the spoon back in the bowl.
Why were they crying?
“Please promise us you won’t run away like that ever again,” said Francine softly.
“Ah,” said Nova. She nodded. “Mm.”
For some reason, this made Francine cry more.
“It’s nice to hear you talk,” explained Billy. If it was nice, why was Francine crying?
“We were going to tell you tonight. Well, ask you, really,” said Francine. “After dinner, during dessert. Billy already made cheesecake.”
Nova wrinkled up her eyebrows. Ask what?
“We think you’ve been moved around too much, Nova.” Billy was smiling now, but Francine was still sniffling. “You’ve had eleven homes in seven years. That’s not right.”
“We’d been thinking about becoming foster parents for a while.” Francine wiped her eyes and reached for the bowl again. She fed Nova like she was a baby, but Nova didn’t mind.
“Our kids are adults and we’re grandparents now,” said Billy. “But we felt like we could still be parents too. So we decided to become foster parents.”
“That’s right,” said Francine. “Then, when we read about Bridget in the paper…when we read about you…We thought it seemed like f
ate.”
There was that word again. Fate. Nova wished she could talk so she could ask what it meant. She guided Francine’s hands, which were holding the bowl, toward the bedside table. She wasn’t hungry anymore.
“You survived,” Billy said. “And you needed a family.”
“We want to be that family,” said Francine. “That’s what we were going to ask you after dinner.”
“Forever,” clarified Billy.
Francine moved from the chair to the edge of Nova’s bed. “Right. Not for just a little while, not as foster parents, but forever. We want to adopt you, Nova.”
“Today was supposed to be such a happy day.” Billy took Francine’s place in the chair. He reached for Nova’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “We had a whole speech about reaching for the stars, following dreams—”
Francine cut him off. “We’ve loved you since the first day we sat with you in the hospital, reading while you slept. We wanted to start the adoption process then, but…”
“But Mrs. Steele said we needed to foster you for a while first. I know it hasn’t been that long, but I think we’re doing fine.”
Nova smiled. She liked how Billy and Francine were always finishing each other’s sentences.
“Our sons can’t wait to meet you,” said Billy. “Joanie’s told them a lot about you. She loves having a little sister. And our grandsons, they’re so excited. I know they’re going to love you as much as we do.”
Francine leaned closer, stroking Nova’s hair again. “Would you like that? I know you can understand me. I can tell. If you could…if you could nod, or say ‘okay,’ if you want…if you want us to adopt you…if you want to be part of our family…if that would be…if that would make you happy…could you tell us?”
Nova moved Francine’s hand away, then pulled her other hand away from Billy. She sat up as much as possible, propped on her elbows. She thought it over.
“Ah.”
She was finally going to have a forever family. For real.
She wondered what Bridget would think.
“Ah?” asked Francine. “Does that mean…”
“We can adopt you?” asked Billy. “It’s okay?”
Nova carefully made eye contact, first with Francine’s Midnight Blue eyes, next with Billy’s Raw Umber ones. Then she looked away because she did not like looking into people’s eyes.
But in her clearest voice, she said, “Oh-kay.”
FEB 1, 1986
Dear Bridget,
It has been four days since the Challenger disaster. Since I understood that you are not coming back. Since the Wests asked to adopt me. I have not gone back to school. I’ve been here at home with my future forever family and NASA Bear, thinking.
And talking.
Sometimes I talk out loud, like I used to talk to you, and Billy and Francine try to understand but it’s hard. So for the last three days, Francine has been writing words and drawing pictures for me. She keeps them all in a special spiral notebook with a Crayola Goldenrod sun on the front cover. She made a page for food, a page for books, a page for family, a page for friends, a page for places, a page for space, and two pages just for school. (NASA Bear is on the space page, not the family page, but that’s okay.) Francine says Mrs. Pierce is going to work with me on communication a lot when I go back, and Miss Chambers will too, but it’s hard to talk without you.
It’s hard knowing I will never talk to you again.
Yesterday, Billy and Francine took me back to the white cross on the side of the road. We painted your name on it together, with Francine’s hand over my hand holding the brush. Then Billy helped me bury a tin box full of the letters I have written you in the last two weeks, except for this one. This one I will keep with me. We also put the stolen Little People astronaut in there and a newspaper clipping about the Challenger disaster.
I am keeping the tape you made, the one with “Space Oddity.”
I will still be an astronaut, Bridget. I know it has only been four days since the explosion and Billy says we can’t know what’s next for the space program, but I believe they will send astronauts up again. I’ll be with them, someday. Maybe not on a vacation trip to the moon, like how people go to Disneyland and Myrtle Beach, because space is serious business. But maybe I will be the First Autistic Girl in Space.
Francine says I can do anything. She says I am smart and brave.
She also says you can still see me, so I should try to make you proud.
I like to think you are already in space, waiting for me. When I am old and I die, I’ll join you on our secret planet, like the Little Prince, where together we will rake out our active volcanoes.
Last night, Francine looked up nova in the book from my astronomy class. It turns out a nova is not an explosion at the end of a star’s life, like a supernova. A nova is an explosion on a white dwarf that makes a dull star get brighter and brighter all of a sudden until it is the brightest thing in the sky after the sun and moon, but then it fades back to normal. A supernova kills a star, but not a nova. In a nova, the star survives the explosion.
That’s me, Bridget.
I survived.
You are gone.
But I’ll go on.
I miss you.
Love,
Nova
The Challenger launch was not originally scheduled to be Tuesday, January 28, as it is in the book. In reality, the launch date was postponed several times. The morning of the launch, some of those working on the mission believed it was too cold to proceed, but since there had already been multiple delays, NASA decided to go on despite the warnings. NBC (airing live from Los Angeles) reported that icicles had formed on the shuttle but were presumed to have broken off upon lift-off. Just before the explosion, the news announcer said the astronauts would “check on (the icicle situation) later.”
A few crew members working on the launch weren’t sure Challenger would even take off. They rejoiced when the shuttle “made it,” but 73 seconds after takeoff, the craft broke apart. Though announcers and TV viewers thought it had exploded, people watching from the ground heard not a boom but silence as the engines stopped running. The shuttle’s fuel tank tore apart, which is what caused the huge fireball and smoke. The cause of the disaster was found primarily to be the failure of two rubber O-rings that had been used to separate sections of the rocket booster. Both O-rings failed due to cold, which means the accident was not only preventable, but something NASA experts had worried about prior to launch.
The tragedy aired on live television and was seen by children in many school classrooms like Nova’s.
* * *
“Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall short, but we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain….We can find consolation only in faith, for we know in our heart that you who flew so high, and so proud, will make your home beyond the stars.”
—PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN AT THE CHALLENGER MEMORIAL SERVICE, FEBRUARY 1, 1986
The loss of the space shuttle Challenger halted the US space program for over two years, but in 2007, Barbara Morgan, who had been runner-up to Christa McAuliffe in the Educator Astronaut contest, became the first teacher in space. Morgan studied for nearly a decade after Challenger to become an astronaut. She was a standard Mission Specialist and licensed amateur radio operator. Three weeks after returning from her successful first trip into space, she told a group of students at Walt Disney World, “Reach for your dreams…the sky is no limit.” Those words are now etched into a plaque on a wall of Mission: Space beside McAuliffe’s quote, which begins, “Space is for everybody.”
“Everybody” includes kids like Nova, who are autistic and nonverbal. Many autistic people are nonverbal and therefore use other methods of communication. Unfortunately, for a long time, the options for nonverbal people were lim
ited. Nowadays, a broader understanding of autism and much better technology have made it possible for someone like Nova to carry around a tablet or speech device that can help her speak to others by touching buttons, using pre-programmed words or pictures, or typing the words out. Many of these devices and programs feature small images called PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) that can be used individually or to create sentences. American Sign Language or Signed Exact English are other possible communication methods for nonverbal people. These methods are great not only for nonverbal autistic children, but for people who struggle to communicate verbally for any reason, including those who have had strokes and those with Apraxia of Speech.
One misconception is that people who are nonverbal are also unable to understand what is being said to them, which is why a lot of adults in Nova’s life have addressed her in loud voices with short, basic sentences. It is important to her that Bridget has never done that, nor does Francine. It is also important to Nova that people read novels to her, instead of the books with few words that she’s used to getting from teachers. There are a lot of autistic middle schoolers who prefer chapter books to picture books, including kids like Nova who can’t read them independently yet—not that there’s anything wrong with loving picture books!
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969, he said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” On the recording, the “a” is hard to hear, and as a result, his famous words are among the most misquoted of all time. I decided to have Bridget keep the “a” because she and Nova know how frustrating it is to be misunderstood.
Since the word “autism” was first used as a diagnosis over a century ago, the definition and criteria have changed considerably. When Nova was in school, much less was understood about autism, which had only been added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as an independent disorder in 1980. Some of what people believed at that time is now known to be incorrect. In 1991, the federal government made autism a Special Education category, which has helped more kids on the spectrum to be given a diagnosis and get the personalized education and assistive technology they need. When Nova was twelve, around one in 1,000 children in America were diagnosed with autism. As of 2018, thanks to an expanded criteria and better understanding, that number is around one in 45.
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