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Isabella loves all her children equally, but she has to admit that her Lancito is her favorite. She couldn’t help it, she worried about him; ever since he was a baby, a little too skinny and frail after a long and arduous pregnancy, bird boned like he was destined to fly into the sky all by his lonesome. When he began to excitedly chatter about the fantastical pilots at the Galaxy Garrison-the foremost experts in space and the pioneers of interstellar travel-and he determined that was this path to the stars, she had to smile past her terror that the atmosphere would steal him away in some awful accident.
It was hard enough letting her Veronica slip through the door to make her way as an analyst, but at least she had the comfort that her career would keep her safely on the ground for the most part. But Lance? Isabella knew her baby boy too well, and persuading him to pursue a job that kept him earthbound would be tantamount to cutting off his wings. She could tell, just from the first glimpse of the thrill and excitement that poured off him in waves, that her son would never be happy unless he was chasing an adventure, wings skimming through the clouds.
So, she swallowed her fears about system failures and horrible accidents like she’d read about in the library the one time she dared to research the garrison after Veronica received her acceptance letter all those years ago, ruthlessly suppressed any thoughts of possible harm heading his way. She took his small hands in her own, squeezed them once, twice. Smiled with all the shared happiness she could muster-and supported his dreams.
If his immediate ecstatic dance at her approval didn’t reassure Isabella that she made the right decision allowing him this terrifying option, Lance’s determination in studying and training sure had. The days slipped by faster and faster, Lance begging off playing even his favorite games with his cousins in order to hit the books. Isabella caught him passed out at the table more than once, back contorted into an uncomfortable curve where he slumped over his work. The baby fat that clung to his young face squished against the open pages, and the dim lamp’s light cast a soft glow across his tousled hair.
Days turned to weeks turned to months, Lance devouring his studies and slowly but surely gaining slim muscle from his rigorous workouts. Her boy took any opportunity to strengthen either his mind or his body, taking to running the long, sandy stretches of the beach before the dawn splits warm and crimson over the horizon, returning only briefly to eat and shower before heading to the library to cram more material in his head.
Even his siblings were surprised at his dedication to improving himself, staring bleary eyed as they stumbled down the creaking stairs to spot their brother already wide awake and damp haired. They observed his new fervor somewhat wearily, worried his fanatic efforts would only be rewarded by a breakdown instead of a shining envelope from the Garrison.
Isabella knew their fears didn’t come from a place of doubt in Lance, they’d all seen her youngest son accomplish a number of tricks and impossible feats over the years-for example, somehow conning more than 14 different booths at the market to participate in a mass trade of goods that ended up with Lance and his cousins toting home a cornucopia of treats and tools from honey to deep, vividly hued cloth for Rachel’s 12th birthday. Her scream of delight had nearly broken the sound barrier.
As his mother, Isabella couldn’t claim she was unaffected either. His cheekbones seemed to sharpen by the hour despite him scarfing down his meals with his usual eagerness, but so long as he continued to radiate the satisfaction of efforts well rewarded she could ignore the shadows beneath his eyes and the wrinkles in his clothes from falling asleep in places other than his bed.
And yet, when the day had finally arrived, the crisp, white military letter slipped into their battered mailbox one hot summer afternoon, Isabella didn’t think she had ever seen her baby’s eyes so hopeful and shining. He had cut open the official looking envelope with trembling fingers, Isabella hardly daring to breathe alongside him albeit for a different, terrible reason. When their frantic eyes skimmed over the words, “Dear Mr. McClain, we are thrilled to congratulate you on your acceptance into the Galaxy Garrison’s premiere interstellar pilot program-” the pair had burst into tears, Lance laughing as Isabella clutched him tightly to her chest, the letter clamped carefully in his grasp.
By evening the news had spread throughout the whole house, a new set of cheers emerging for every reveal. Isabella kept her quiet fears to herself, Antonio clutching her hand tightly in his as she trembled. She had been so, so proud of their son, but the anxiety for his future nearly ate her alive.
Helping him pack up his things and chauffeuring him off had her heart clenching painfully in her chest, the warm embrace she wrapped him up in before pressing a kiss to his curls and ushering him off was a bleak comfort, but the months missing him afterwards were worse. He wrote often, at least once a week, and the family poured over them each delivery, avidly reading the snippets and stories he’d written down so frantically it was like they could hear him chattering excitedly or complaining right by their sides.
In one letter, Isabella’s calloused fingers gently cutting through the glue pinned envelope’s flap, Lance enclosed a picture of himself and another boy-large, a yellow bandana holding back thick, dark hair from a timidly smiling but friendly face-positively beaming in their orange garrison issued uniforms. Underneath the tiredness clear from his pale and – was she imagining that he looked thinner? She swore, they better be feeding him at that school or she was going to march down there herself and smack some sense into that rude commander of his, an Iver- something – sharp face, he was practically glowing with passion and happiness.
Scrawled below the photo in her son’s familiar, blocky writing was a small message proclaiming, “This is my roommate, Hunk! He’s from Hawaii and I think we’re gonna be best friends. He’s the best engineer in the program, Mama, and he cooks almost as good as you! He’s got nothing on you though, I miss your ropa vieja and the conchas we would make the night before market day. I love you, xoxo Lance”. Isabella didn’t know it, but that would be one of the last letters she would receive from her boy for over 7 years.
The day that awful man with the sharp eyes dully reported her son’s disappearance and that of two of his classmates including his roommate and their newly added navigator, Pidge, and heavily alluded to his death, her first instinct was denial.
How could he be gone? Her beautiful little boy with her abuelo’s cheeky grin and her own mama’s sparkling eyes? Her precious son who was a whirling force of nature, too wild to be contained within a life of calm, steady farm work, day in and day out? The same child who climbed trees to their towering tops, and fearlessly dove off staggeringly tall cliffs, and raced home from days spent swimming in the vigorous ocean with his hoard of cousins, pink cheeked and laughing? Who was so full of life?
No. Isabella refused to believe the scantly rounded story they were trying to pass off as the truth. He may have come into this world fragile as a baby bird, but he had grown to be a hardy, albeit lanky, creature, headstrong and determined and capable.
Ever since then, she’s heard the whispers, useless gossip full of pity the McClain family tried to live their lives after being robbed of one of their own with no explanation. Insipid rumors passed around from loose lips to keen ears all over their small town, neighbors who watched Lance grow from a babbling toddler to a whip smart teenager suddenly claiming all sorts of absurd theories.
“I heard the poor boy died! Horrible training accident.”
“Well, I heard he stole a plane and crashed it!”
“No, really? But he seemed like such a gentle child, wild as an imp but always kind-”
“You know how puberty is, that fancy shmancy space school filled his head up with impossible fantasies. He left all his sense here in Varadero. Look at what he’s done to his poor family!”
They all fall silent when Isabella walks past their huddled figures during market days, head held high as she stares down the gaggle of scathing fools down. They may whisper and shoot judging looks all they’d like, she knew her son would come back to her.
Still, she couldn't say the doubts and accusations against her son didn’t hurt, couldn't pretend that it didn't drain her everyday to continue quietly wishing for his return.
The empty chair at the table, a crooked “L” crudely drawn on the left back leg by a two-year-old Lance, seemed to scream during meals, bereft of its beloved owner during a time that should be filled with his imaginative stories of the day and his millions of questions about their own. Even Isabella couldn’t withstand the yawning absence of his presence all the time, and the worst of it usually caught up to her when the night pulled its blanket of darkness and stars across the sky above them like it was lulling the world to rest.
She didn’t let it be known, dutifully shepherding her remaining children to sleep, blankets pulled up to their chins and motherly kisses pressed to their young, trusting faces. She tried not to see pieces of Lance within her brood, but it was impossible to not double take every dimpled grin or wave of erratic movement in the corner of her eye.
It was even worse when his twin, Rachel, finally slipped into unconsciousness, her thick eyelashes doing nothing to hide the fact that with her lids closed and hiding her warm, dark irises and her wavy hair braided smoothly around her head, she was a carbon copy of Lance, down to the placement of their freckles and thin eyebrows (a funny accident involving the twins trying to copy the look of Veronica’s sharply plucked and maintained eyebrows).
Isabella’s hand shook as she gently tucked a lock of loose hair behind her daughter’s round ear, pressing one last kiss to her forehead before backing away and heading to where her husband lay waiting in their own bed.
The McClain matriarch sighed heavily as she changed into her nightdress and braided her own thick curls, gratefully settling into the sheets Antonio pulled back for her. Her husband, a man of few words but deeply intuitive, rubbed her arms briefly and pressed a dry kiss to her shoulder.
“Lancito, mi amor?” he murmured questioningly, calmly catching her exhausted gaze.
Isabella’s face crumpled for a moment before she firmed her quivering lip, breathing unsteadily. Antonio nodded, his own expression grave but comforting.
“He’ll come home, Isa, I know he will. Our boy is strong.” he said soothingly, voice a low rumble in his broad chest. Isabella smiled at the old nickname, coined when Antonio was first pursuing her in their teens, patting the hand rubbing her shoulder with her own.
“I know, Toño, I know he will. Today was just, long.” The couple was quiet for a long moment, Antonio’s breath deepening as he was slowly but surely dragged into the land of dreams. Isabella’s lips parted softly, a whisper she barely heard escaping as though the quiet would snatch them up as surely as the universe had ferreted away her son.
“Rachel looks just like him. And I can’t help but see him in her face and wonder what he might look like now. It's been five years, he’s a young man now.”
Antonio hummed noncommittally, too far asleep to really reply beyond that. Isabella looked over, the moonlight throwing his age lines and worn face into sharp relief. Working on the farm was a rough occupation, filled with scorching days and back breaking work, but nothing had aged the two of them like Lance’s disappearance. He may not say much on the subject, but Isabella could see the grief inside him every day.
She shifted restlessly as Antonio’s quiet snores filled the still air around them, body heavy with exhaustion but too worried about her baby boy to sleep. She tried not to dwell on where he could be, or how he got there, or how he was doing, but the questions invaded her mind nonetheless.
Was he sleeping well? Without his favorite pillow that was currently laying defeatedly on his blue mattress? Was he eating enough? Training at the garrison had already begun to turn him frightfully skinny after 4 months, the orange uniform clinging to his shoulders but hanging loose on his hips. Veronica had taken to calling him a churro much to his faux outrage. Was he frightened? Alone without any of his family, surrounded by strangers? She supposes two other students also went missing but after all this time, as much as it smarts painfully to even contemplate, it would be a miracle if the kids were together let alone still alive.
Around and around her mind whirled, the worst scenarios gnawing at her desperate hope of seeing her son again. Tonight, for whatever reason, the ache of missing Lance was particularly adamant. Her heart cried within her chest, arms feeling too empty and the house too still, too somber without her living, breathing sunshine.
After a fitful couple hours of her mind warring between her beliefs and everything else the world was determined to convince her of, she huffed a sigh. Tossing a glance at her husband, out cold beside her, she pulled back the sheets, climbing out of bed and slipping on her house shoes-fluffy and decorated with peacocks, a gift from Lance on her 37th birthday.
Pulling on her matching bathrobe, she leaned on the windowsill, gazing out the square glass panes and staring at the stars, remembering telling Lance she loved him to the moon and back before she sent him into the Galaxy Garrison’s front doors, crinkly eyed and gap-tooth smile wide as he waved and walked away, head held high.
Isabella traced his favorite constellations in the sky, keen eyes picking out familiar shining points of light dotted across the night. They had spent hours on the roof once, bundled under blankets as they spotted and called out their names. By the time they climbed inside, Lance was a shivering huddle of curls and a brilliant smile, stuttering through his thanks as Isabella handed him a mug of hot cocoa.
That night, the moon was full and bright, but tonight it was a thin sliver of gleaming light, the dark expanse a blot of emptiness amidst the brilliant stars, gaping and empty like it was silently weeping for the sun to shine upon it once more. The comparison throbbed in her chest, a keen likeness plucking at her heart.
Do you long for the sun’s light like I yearn for my boy to return to my side? Does the ardent presence of the stars do little to comfort you in the face of your loss? How do you return night after night to empty skies and nothing but the sound of a restless wind without feeling unmoored?
Even unaware as she was that Lance was millions of light years away from the view of these particular stars, indeed, that he was gazing upon completely alien constellations in galaxies who had never even heard of the Milky Way system let alone Earth, fighting a war at 18 when he should be warm and safe in his bedroom just down the hall from hers, she missed him with an intensity that bordered on eviscerating.
Eyes prickling with heat, Isabella shakily started to hum, the melodic song pouring from her full lips in the same tenor as it did when her children stood barely at her knees.
Little one, where are you? You're extraordinarily late
You know the clock is ticking and your father hates to wait
Bet you're dancing in the stardust, in the velvet folds of space
But I cannot wait to see your face
The song flowed out into the quiet, a small breeze from the cracked open shutters gently lifting a stray chunk of hair escaping her braid, brushing it against her bare collarbone in a tickling wave.
Little one, where are you? Are you gazing at the moon?
You might miss this party if you don't come see us soon
I understand you might have reservations 'bout this place
But I cannot wait to see your face
Cool tears dripped from her eyelashes, clumping them together in stark bunches and gliding down from her sun pocked cheek to her quivering chin. Humming the last beats of the second chorus as her throat clenched tight with an ache she can’t give in to or she’ll spend hours breaking down again, (time she has precious little of considering there are chores to do when the sun breaks over the same horizon she lost her baby to all those years ago), she took a deep breath before softly singing the end of the song. She tried not to imagine Lance as the sparkling eyed teenager he was the last time he was safe within her arms.
Little one, where are you? You don't have to be afraid
We will keep you safе and warm, we'll show you the way
I know you know I love you, but I'll tеll you just in case
That I cannot wait to see your face
No, I cannot wait to see your face-
Voice cracking and chest seizing up tight, Isabella bowed over, glass cool against her tortured face as she tried to pull herself together, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Swallowing what felt like shards of sharpened glass roughly, she shot one last blurry eyed glance at the night’s wonders before turning away from the window and padding back to bed, heart heavy and arms cold.
Sliding underneath the covers and nestling into her husband’s strong embrace, his sleepy hug soothed the ragged edges of her pain. Leaning into the half awake kiss pressed to her forehead, Isabella fell asleep somewhere between heartbreak and gratitude that she's been able to keep the rest of her family safe and happy within the four walls she made a life and raised her children within. Closed her swollen eyes, breathed.
Tried not to internally weep at the perhaps forever loss of her singing, chattering, precious, always, always precious, baby boy.
Failed, the wind carrying on her lullaby in a haunting mimicry, like the moon was carrying on her desperate song.
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh
No, I cannot wait to see your face