"Moon"
requested by Hossgal
by feldman
"It's okay to be scared son, the important thing is that you don't let it stop you. Tell you what."
He remembers being small enough that leaning back against his Dad, sighting along the man's strong arm out to the moon in the sky, felt safe as being home, being tucked in at night.
"All you have to do is come out on the porch here and look up, that's where I'll be. Okay?"
He'd nodded, but there was enough fear left to make him burrow back into the man's embrace, grinding his dirty sneaker soles into the concrete step.
"I'll wave to you when I get there. Will you wave back to me, son?"
He shrugs out of the hug, stands eye to eye with the man sitting on the steps above him. He's not a baby like his little sister. "You can't wave all the time."
"Smart kid." The smile is better than the hug anyway. "I guess I'll have to figure out something else."
~*~
He's careful with the photograph, brittle with age and cold. Don't snap it, don't lose it. On his way back to the pod, he surveys the mess of tracks he's paced all over the famous footprints.
He doesn't see his father waving
from the porch.