"Eight Minutes of Darkness"

My father says that the sun's rays take eight minutes to reach the earth.

I look up at the sun and blink. "Eight minutes? Thought it'd be longer than that… Ms. Van Horn says that the sun's a really long way away."

"Ninety-three million miles, actually," my father affirmed, then looks at me and smiles. "Stella, people go blind that way."

"Oh… sorry!" I quickly avert my eyes from the sun, rubbing them hard to try to get rid of the huge purple splotch in front of them. "I forgot…"

"Don't apologize, but if you damage your eyesight, don't expect me to pay your medical bills, either." I look up at him, but he's still smiling. "I'm kidding," he adds. I weakly smile back. My father makes jokes about the weirdest things sometimes, especially where money is concerned. I'm not sure why, though, his job is supposed to be really good. We moved all the way from Nashville to Amsterdam just so he could work here.

He smiles a little wider and ruffles my hair. "Here… try these. But be careful with them, and keep in mind, you're still not supposed to stare directly at the sun." He pulls the Gucci sunglasses off the top of his head and puts them on me.

I push them up the bridge of my nose, beaming at him, and look back up at the sky. "…eight minutes." I think about it for a moment. "So does that mean when the earth was first made, there was eight minutes of just darkness?"

He looks confused by my question for a moment. "Well… we can't be sure, can we?"

I tilt my head to one side, nearly losing my father's sunglasses in the process. "Why not?"

"Well," he says, striving for a simple way to put it, "it was a long time ago, Stella." He glances at me again. "But you're probably right," he says. "It's a very logical conclusion."

I pout. "You're a really bad liar, Daddy…"

"…okay, so it's unlikely. Or maybe it's not… we just can't be sure. No one can." He shrugs again. My father hates not knowing things; it always seems to make him irritated. I don't like seeing him annoyed, so I change the subject.

"Ninety-three million miles in eight minutes… that's really fast!" It works; his expression immediately becomes pleasant again.

"Well, of course," he says, smiling at me again as my eyes widen behind the oversized sunglasses. "Nothing travels faster than light, after all. In fact, if the sun were to explode, we'd see it happen quite a while before we'd feel it."

"…the sun's going to blow up?!" I squeak, tears rising to my eyes.

"No, no, no!" He pats my shoulder, and laughs. I calm down a bit; he rarely ever laughs. "I was just using that as an example, I doubt the sun will blow up for a very long time. No need to worry yourself over it."

"Oh… good." Tentatively, I walk over to him and fasten my arms around his waist, half-expecting him to step away: he doesn't seem to like being hugged very much, even by my mother. My Aunt Katherine says he's "not a very tactile person."

But he doesn't. He just awkwardly pets my hair, saying "Why don't you go inside and help your mother with Austin? I'll take these…" He pulls the sunglasses off my head, half-smiling at my disappointed look. "They look cute on you, though. I'll buy you some on the way home tomorrow, is that okay?"

I tighten my hug, squealing. "I can have some just like yours? Thank you, Daddy!" With one last inquisitive glance at the sun, I let go of him and bounce inside.

---

Seven years later, I'm leaning against the window of a plane en route to Nashville, Tennessee, half-asleep. The flight attendants have stopped fussing, finally; tired passengers on a red-eye flight are nothing new, but my ashen complexion and wet clothes seem to have roused their motherly instincts. It was raining back in Amsterdam, but I walked the seven blocks to the nearest bus stop anyway.

Opening one eye, I figure we're somewhere over the ocean. I tried to keep up with the time-zone changes for a while, but I decided to adjust my watch when the plane lands.

The sun shines through the window, and I shut my eyes tightly with a groan. Grabbing the shade, I pull down on it hard, but it seems to be stuck. After a measure of hesitation, my eyes fall on my hastily packed bags, and the object poking out of one of the side pockets… and I reach forward and pull out the sunglasses, and gripping them tightly, slide them over the bridge of my nose.