Page 97 of It Must Be Fate

For her eighth birthday last weekend, we rented out the Royal Observatory and had two astronauts attend in full costume. She’d watched and listened to them with wide-eyed astonishment, barely moving from her spot for the two hours they were there.

Later that night, she came to our room and announced that she was going to be the first woman to walk on the Moon.

As a present, Phoenix had this tent custom made for her. It’s your classic rigid structure with a few notable upgrades; namely,built-in heating to ward off the cold and a translucent ceiling for optimal stargazing.

The day after her party, Phoenix had to leave on a business trip with my dad. He’ll only be back tonight, so he had a specialized team come over this afternoon to set the tent up for our first night outside.

I’m not sure who was most blown away when we first set foot in the tent, me or Astra. Phoenix went above and beyond in setting up the coziest sleepover possible, featuring hundreds of individual star nightlights, a massive fluffy mattress with an overabundance of pillows and throw blankets, a mountain of snacks, and even a telescope.

“When is Daddy coming home?”

I look down at my watch. “Soon. He should have landed already.”

“I hope I’m still awake,” she says dreamily.

“Don’t worry,chérie, he’ll wake you up if you’re asleep.”

Astra has her dad wrapped around her little finger. He’s more protective of her than he is of me, if that’s even possible, and it’s only getting more pronounced as she starts to approach the age Astor was when he died.

She looks a lot like him.

While Phoenix and Astor were twins, they were also complete opposites in coloring. The former is dark haired with equally black eyes whereas the latter was fair haired with blue eyes.

Astra inherited Astor’s exact hair, a deep golden color that shines brightly in the sun with red undertones she got from me. Her face has his same shape and the dimples she flashes at anyone who’s earned her smile are the ghost of his.

She’s as beautiful as he was.

There are times I’ve had to do a double take when glancing at her because she looks so much like Astor, so I can’t imaginewhat it must be like for Phoenix. Sometimes I catch him staring at her while she’s playing in the back fields of our country house and I know he’s seeing his brother running through those same footsteps.

The only major difference in her features from Astor’s are her eyes. I like to believe they couldn’t decide which brothers’ color to go with so they decided to split and represent them both. Her right eye is black, as obsidian as her father’s, while her left eye is light blue.

The heterochromia is at once stunning and startling, making most people do a double take when they look at her. She’s gotten used to it over the years but I fear it’ll get more pronounced as she grows older and starts to attract attention of a different kind.

I swallow a choked laugh at the thought of her bringing a boyfriend home. Her father is going to have a coronary the second she mentions a boy’s name.

“Look!” She points excitedly at the sky. “A shooting star. Did you see it Mummy?”

I turn my head away from my examination of her face and towards the sky just in time to catch the tail end of the shooting star as it burns out.

“I did. You know those are signs of good luck, right? You have to make a wish now.”

Astra scrunches up her face in concentration, her eyes moving frantically behind her eyelids as she thinks of something to wish for.

“Quickly!”

Her eyes burst open, wide with ebullient excitement.

“I got it!”

“Good. Keep it close to your heart. You can’t tell anyone else, otherwise it won’t come true.”

“I won’t,” she vows.

Lifting a brow at her, I add, “You can’t even tell your Dad.”

Her face falls. “But what if he asks?”

I laugh softly. “You have to keep this one secret from him.”

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