Jupiter's Fairy

Dear Iris,

You made the news again.

I saw the story while I was sitting in the laundromat last week. Mom asked me to help out more, so I've been washing our clothes there to get out of the house. It's the same one she used to take you, me, and Leo to, on the edge of town, where we'd dash around the pine trees in the field behind the building and beg her for spare quarters to buy caramel popcorn from the vending machine. Looking back, it's a wonder we didn't have more cavities as kids.

According to the story, NASA launched some sort of probe they call Juno, which basically looks like a cyberpunk windmill, to go scout out the north and south poles of Jupiter. They want to skim the surface, learn how the planet was shaped and how its magnetic fields have flipped this way and that over time, and how its eternal storms keep raging. But what they didn't expect were the sprites. The scientist on the news program said that they detected flashes of light that phosphoresce over the sky, visible for a split second even from space. These flashes are so sun-bright and brilliant, but transient, gone as quick as they come. So the scientists have started calling them "Jupiter's fairies." Jupiter's fairies. I liked that. It made me think of you.

You know, right before you left, I had been applying to colleges and was about to start my first job. I had that science scholarship, but it wouldn't cover all the costs of living at the dorms, so I'd have to work as well. When I saw the story about Jupiter's fairies, I almost had half a mind to go back to school for astronomy. I knew you would have loved that. Maybe I could convince the foundation to make an exception, waive the age limit and reward me the scholarship again. Then maybe I could get that degree. Do you remember how Dad used to always tell us we'd own the world? I know you would have.

When I logged onto my computer to look up the foundation, I found myself watching, again, the clips from the first time you made the news, after I found you floating in the pool under a slate sky, red ferns feathering across your skin. But when I watched the clips this time, it dawned on me that had I been more decisive—put my foot down when you said you wanted to try swimming in the rain, how Mom and Dad were with Grandma Jean and weren't there to stop you, and how Alison from school once did and she said it was so much fun—had I been more decisive, you'd still be here, and it wouldn't have mattered that the rain gave way to lightning. And I thought about how all I've ever been since then is paralyzed.

I guess that's what spurred me to write this note. For the first time in my life, I'm being decisive.

I hope the storms on Jupiter are kinder to us than the ones here have been.

See you soon,

Your brother, Felix