Mars Hill

I woke up to the thud of the landing gear touching down at the airport in Phoenix.

Despite sleeping for the three-hour flight from Chicago down to Arizona, I was still exhausted. But I smiled at the view out the plane's window. The cloudless sky was bluer than I had ever seen it. The sun was bright, the heat radiating from the runway as it baked the pavement. And all of the workers were wearing shorts and T-Shirts even though it was April and there was snow on the ground back home.

I let out a low moan as I stretched. Being six-foot-four, my knees and back were killing me from the cramped seating on the plane. It was a big relief when we finally parked at the gate and I was able to stand up and move around.

"Jeremy!" my Aunt Gillian shouted when she saw me walking down the stairs to baggage claim. She had a coffee in one hand and handed me a large tea from the other.

"Thanks Aunt G. Nice to see you. How is Aunt Sam?" I asked before gratefully taking a careful but large swallow of hot tea.

"Sam's fine. She is super excited about our new cat, Luthien. Like I always said...."

"Cats are better than kids," we said together with a laugh at the old family joke.

When Aunt Gillian first introduced us to her girlfriend and now wife Samantha, my grandmother had asked how Gillian would be able to give her more grandkids. Aunt G just smiled and said that she could have grand kitties, and that cats were better than kids anyway. Having an annoying set of twins as younger siblings, I could certainly agree with that.

"Are you working tonight?" I asked.

"Yep. Got up early to make the drive down here to pick you up."

"Hope it wasn't any trouble."

"How could I not come to pick up my favorite college student?"

Aunt Gillian was an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory. She also taught at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where I was to spend the next six months. I had been sent out here by my parents after a health crisis (Cancer) during my second year at the University of Chicago. They and my doctors had decided it would be in my best interest to take a break from school and work somewhere with good air. So Aunt G pulled a few favors and got me a job working for the Interpretive Center that the observatory ran at their Mars Hill site nearby.

Aunt G and I shot the shit on the three-hour drive up to Flagstaff. Traffic sucked until we were well clear of the city, but then eased up on the highway as we headed north. The closer we got, the more I could see summer turn back to winter with snow starting creating shadows on the ground. We mostly spent the time catching up on news and talking about girls. After we hit the exit into Flagstaff, traffic was as bad as it ever got in this small town. Nothing compared to Chicago, or even Phoenix, so when Aunt G complained about how congested it was I laughed and laughed. When we finally got to Aunt G's home, I quickly unpacked. She went to work for the night. Since Aunt Sam was also on the night shift but at the local hospital, I just relaxed at home and let their cat get to know me. A few treats later and she was lying on the couch letting me rub behind her ears while she purred.

"Be ready early," Aunt Gillian had called up at me on her way out of the door. "I'm going to drop you off at the visitor center before I go to bed in the morning."

I wasn't much into science, it had been a weak subject of mine in school due to my struggles with math, but I figured it couldn't be too bad working for the observatory. At least it wasn't a McJob, and heck I might even learn something. Still, it might have been nice to get a couple of days just to chill and acclimate before I had to start. Aunt G had suggested that, but my Mom didn't want me to leave until just before I had to start so she could spend more time making sure I had packed the right clothes and admonishing me about my expected behaviour while staying with her sister. Not that I really needed the lecture, I had always been a kind and polite person, and saw no reason why I would suddenly become a jackass in Flagstaff.

As I was getting ready for bed, I looked in the bedroom mirror over the dresser into which I had emptied my suitcase. My red hair, green eyes, and the whiskers from the beard I was trying to grow stared back at me. I looked gaunt, like I'd just been very sick. Which, of course, I had. There was a big scar down the center of my chest from multiple surgeries, and another one down my left forearm where they had gone in to get some veins for a transplant. I wanted to get a tattoo to cover it one day, not because I found it ugly or anything, I wanted the tattoo to be a mark of my surviving the cancer. Something I could look at and feel good about.

Looking back in the mirror, I was glad to see one thing that had not changed: the decently-sized bulge in my boxers. While impressive—if I did say so myself—I sighed. I had barely grown into a man before the cancer had robbed me of my social life and any chance I had to lose my virginity. And now that I was here where nobody knew me I felt my chances of losing it now we're even slimmer.

With another sigh, I crawled into bed and waited to fall asleep.

I couldn't fall asleep. I tossed and turned a few times before I just lay on by back and stared at the ceiling and thought of home, and how I got here.

I had just graduated from High-School when I felt the first lump. It was under my arm, and it was small but noticible. At first I didn't think anything of it, but then I found a lump under the other arm. By Halloween I went to the doctor. They did tests. And Scans. And more tests. But by Christmas they told me for sure that I had cancer. Lymphoma.

Mom of course wanted me to move back home.

"Jeremy I really think you should come home so we can look after you."

"Mum! I just moved out a few months ago!" As part of the 'growing up experience' Dad had suggested and Mom eventually agreed that I should move into residence at the university, since I couldn't get an apartment yet because I was still 17. Dad thought it would do me good to be on my own away from home, but close enough that I could come home if something happened. Mom reckoned that Cancer counted as something having happened.

"Still Jeremy..."

"Look, I'm only what 45 minutes away from home by train. And, that's at rush hour."

"Still Jeremy, Cancer is a big deal. You have no idea."

I sighed.

"Look," I said trying to keep my voice steady. "I appreciate that you want to look after me. But really the Doctors say some chemo and some radiation and I will be OK. They say I will barely have to miss any school." And I don't want to give up my freedom after having just discovered it, I made sure I didn't say.

It's not that I didn't love my mom. I did. And she was really good and usually right, but she could also be a bit much to deal with, especially if something didn't go according to plan.

Well like I said, she was right. I had to stop going to classes by spring break. My professors luckily were understanding. Most of them sent copies of their lectures and homework and I was able to limp through the rest of the semester till the summer. Once my lease was up I did end up moving home, where I spent the summer alternating between lying in my childhood bed, lying on a hospital bed and lying on the couch. I had hoped that I would meet a girl during first year and have something happen. I had been shy through Highschool and had taken the change to University to re invent myself, and I had been more outgoing until the Cancer. I mean yeah I wanted to lose my virginity like most guys my age, but deep down more than that I really wanted to feel in love.

I kept not getting better. Mom didn't want me to continue with school until I was better. I really wanted to keep going. My dad, ever the peace maker brokered a compromise. I would do online courses. My program manager was understanding and waved some of the mandatory courses that I needed to take in second year to third year so I could take all my electives in second year instead. It was just enough credits so I didn't lose the year.

The Twins grew tired of me hogging the couch and getting all the attention. I told them they could fuck off and die with my cancer if they wanted. That shut them up. And got me in a serious load of shit with my parents.

"Jeremy just because you are sick doesn't give you permission to swear in my house, especially at your sisters," Mom had raged.

Dad was a bit more laid back. More disappointed than angry. "Jeremy, when you lash out like that at your sisters, instead of helping them to understand how they can help you get through your illness, you are instead teaching them that yelling and swearing are acceptable. You are their big brother, they look up to you, and I expect you to be a better role model," he had said quietly.

"Their girls are too young to really understand what is happening to you. They only know that you are back in their space, and controlling many things that this family does. They don't see how your medical treatment forces these things to happen, they just see you getting all this special attention."

That's my dad for you. I tried to keep my mood in check, and I lost it more times than I am proud of. Dying of Cancer, and of the drugs used to try to stop it from killing you quickly by killing slowly will do that to you. I tried therapy and support groups for the mental side of cancer treatment and they helped me to control my emotions better.

I looked like a skeleton with no hair, skinny as all get out and sunken eyes and cheeks. I began to seriously wonder if I was going to die. The doctors had told me that the cancer was curable but I seemed to be the big exception. Chemo usually works as a cure. Except for me. Radiation will shrink the tumours, except on me. Finally the doctors said they needed to do something more radical. Surgery to remove the tumours followed by intense chemo and radiation therapy was decided upon by my doctors and parents, and even though I was 18 by then I felt I had very little to do with the health decisions made for me. Force of habit I guess.

The operation didn't go well either. They said I died twice on the table. When they were removing the tumours I guess the spleen ruptured and they had to take that out. While they did that somehow the blood supply to my liver and pancreas got ruptured. They pulled more veins out of my arms to re build the blood supply to my liver and pancreas and I guess that is where my luck turned around. With most of the cancer gone suddenly the Chemo worked and by spring break of my second year at university I first showed up as No evidence of cancer on my pet scan. They did another one three weeks later. Same result.

I finished my second year through some miracle given that I had missed assignments. Again thank goodness for understanding professors and departments.

Mom got it into her head that I should take the summer off and out of the city. She browbeat the doctors into agreeing that it would be best for me to get some sun and take things easy for the summer. I could still enrol in the first semester of school for third year if I wanted, but I could take a semester off. Mom had even arranged for me to go live with her younger sister.

I was angry that all this had been arranged without me knowing, but secretly I was releaved. I had pushed myself too hard for second year, even only taking online courses. It was too much. I wanted a break. Don't get me wrong I still wanted to and planned to take third year as scheduled. I loved my program and I loved school. When most people my age would have used any excuse to not have to go to school so they could sit and play video games all day, I was once again the big exception.

The twins were ecstatic that I was going away, and they would finally get the attention they had been craving for the last year and a half.

And now I was here, lying in a strange bed half way across the country, too tired to sleep.

After a few more minutes I sighed and opened my backpack and pulled out a vial of melatonin supplements that I sometimes used to help me to fall asleep. About 5 minutes after taking it I drifted off.

I woke with a start to the alarm on my phone blaring. I groggily opened my eyes to see that it was six in the morning. With a groan, I stumbled to the shower, shaved, and put on some clothes. I had just finished breakfast when Aunt Gillian pulled into the driveway.

"Well, look at you," she said with a smile. "Awake and everything. Almost like a responsible adult instead of a nineteen-year-old who should—by rights—still not have gone to bed yet."

"Not everyone is a night owl like you were, GillyBean," my Aunt Sam said, following in through the door. Aunt G turned and smiled at her wife, before leaning in for a quick peck on the lips.

The smile on both of their faces as they kissed showed how deeply in love they were. Of course as a teenager, I was expected to be grossed-out by love, so I played the part and made retching sounds. My aunts looked over at me and laughed.

"So unconvincing," Sam snorted while she laughed.

"I could totally have done it better," Aunt G replied. "Ready to go, Kiddo?"

"I'm not a kid," I muttered. "You're barely ten years older than me, anyway."

"More like fifteen, but I got my doctorate, and now I'm a 'responsible adult'," she replied, making air-quotes while saying the last two words. "All right, get in the car before I get too tired to drive."

"A first, A woman who doesn't want to pretend to be younger than she is." Aunt Sam chimed in as she climbed the stairs after dropping her bag on the stand by the door.

"Yeah Yeah, Call the newspaper" Aunt G called back at her, a smile across her face. She turned to me "Alright lets get out of here."

The ride up Mars Hill was winding and disorienting in the dark. I didn't know why the streetlights out here were so dim, but I was too tired to ask. I yawned repeatedly as we drove.

"I hope you like the people you're going to be working with. Beth runs the place. Kind of like a middle-aged grandmother, she wants everyone to be happy. But she also has an eye for detail and will be quick to let you know if you are out of line. Don't cross her, and you will be okay. Hmm let's see. Her family has been out here basically forever. They are mostly out on the reservation up to the north. I think they own some land up there.

"Who else should you know? There is Rebecca. She is one of my grad students, but she works at the visitor center as a tour guide when she doesn't have telescope time. She is very smart, and writes papers well. She just has to finish a bit more research to complete her Thesis, but her drafts so far are really promising. Rachel is another grad student, but she's not mine, so I don't know much about what she is working on. I only take one student a year so I can work on my own research. Publish or perish after all. Let's see who else do you need to know? There is Richard. He does a lot of the maintenance and has been there for ages, must be in his 70's now, but sure doesn't act it. Nancy, his wife, runs the gift shop. Retirement job for her, she used to be the librarian at the University."

"Who will I be working with, Aunt G?"

"Mostly Rebecca and Richard I expect. They want you to take over tour duties when she gets back on the telescope in a couple of months, and you can give Richard a hand with some maintenance work."

"Why does she get time during the summer? Isn't that when the telescope would be most popular? I mean, that's gotta be the best season to be in Flagstaff, so people would want to come here then, no?"

"Actually the summer can be the worst. The nights get so short you can really only see for a few hours before the sun starts to come up and it gets to be too bright. That's when the grad students get the time. No one else wants it. It's a busy time for them because it's also tourist season and most grad students work hospitality jobs."

"Hmm, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Still though, at least it's warm out."

"You know we work in a heated control room right?" my aunt said with a laugh, pulling into the parking lot at the summit of Mars Hill.

She wished me a good night, from her point of view anyway, and said that someone should come by and start opening up in the next half hour. I was glad I had brought my book to read while I sat on the steps and waited. I could smell the pine trees through the breeze that made the branches shake ever so slightly. The moon was just starting to rise over the top of the tallest tree, and below it the glow of the sun was following its path, starting to light up the sky.

I was just starting to get cold when I heard a car driving through the trees. Soon, headlights pierced the dawn, and a maroon SUV pulled up into the staff parking section. A portly Native American woman in her late 40s or early 50s jumped out of the car with more energy and fluidity than her size would have let on. She bounded up the stairs and gave me a huge grin.

"Jeremy!" she almost shouted. "I've been so looking forward to meeting you. I'm Beth. Your aunts and I are good friends. I've heard so much about you! Come in, come in!"

Before I even put my book in my backpack, she already had the door unlocked and held it open with a smile. Beth wasted no time in showing me around from the exhibit halls, to the cinema, to the gift shop, and to the cleaning closet. The interpretive centre was very small, the main attractions, the grounds and telescopes were through another door straight across from the entrance.

"You're the junior male on the staff, so you're in charge of cleaning the men's room," she explained, finishing the tour of the facility. "But your first priority will be to take over the tours so that Rebecca can have time to work on her thesis. She said she would be here early today to give you a quick overview of the grounds on the Mars Hill campus before you shadow her for the public tours," She gestured through the door out toward the top of the hill. "Oh, and I almost forgot, these are for you."

I took the red fleece she handed me as well as a red windbreaker embossed with the Lowell Observatory logo and my name, stitched underneath. I quickly changed in the washroom and stepped out in time to see another woman enter the lobby. She maybe came up to my shoulder. Brown hair tied back in a pony tail. Milk chocolate eyes. Pale complexion, but with rosy cheeks, and a pixie-like body. My heart skipped a beat. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I knew right then that my life had changed forever.

"Rebecca! How was your weekend?" Beth asked.

"Good, Beth. Got a bit of sleep, but I've been working so much I barely know what a day off feels like. Who are you?" she asked, suddenly looking at me. She had a faint accent that I recognized but couldn't place and a voice that sounded like wind chimes. Rich, melodious, and fleeting.

"I'm... uh..."

"Rebecca, this is Jeremy," Beth answered for me. "He is Gillian's nephew."

Rebecca extended her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah... Yeah.. You, too," I said, reaching out as well.

When the skin of our hands touched for the first time, there were physical sparks.

"Ow!" she said pulling her hand away quickly, laughing. "You shocked me!"

Beth shook her head. "It must be the fleece."

"I am so sorry, Rebecca." I was mortified. Her skin had been so soft. Her handshake firm and steady. Confident.

"Don't worry about it," Rebecca shrugged. "The air is dry here, so you will find you build up more static than normal. So, you're the infamous nephew from Chicago, huh?"

"Well, I don't know about infamous. I mean, I'm a nice guy. But I haven't really done anything... I guess that's me, though," I stammered, mortified at my seeming lack of any ability to be coherent in front of Rebecca.