Interstellar

But he could sweep the porch. That much his aging body was still capable of doing. He could beat back the dust, although each assault was a temporary victory at best.

He straightened up and surveyed his work, then loosened the kerchief that stood between the grime and his lungs as he turned and swung open the farmhouse door.

So much for the porch, he thought. It was time to fix breakfast. He made his way to the kitchen, running his fingers through what little bit of thin hair remained on his balding head, feeling the grit matted in it.

Inside, he went to the table, where bowls lay upside down, covered in a thin film of dust, and turned their clean insides up. Then he turned his attention to the stove.

For Donald, the kitchen was probably the most comforting room in the house. His wife had once stood in front of the sturdy enameled ivory oven and stovetop, and in time his daughter had joined her, at first straining on her tiptoes to stir the pot. Then later, as a strong young woman with both feet firmly planted, feeding a family of her own. Both women now gone, but both still here, somehow.

He put the grits on and stirred them as they came to a boil, then turned down the heat so they would simmer, remembering times when breakfast had been a bit more… varied. Oatmeal, waffles, pancakes. Fruit.

Now, mostly grits. And without a lot of the things that made grits worthwhile—the butter, sorghum molasses, bacon for Chrissake. But there wasn’t much point in bawling about the things that were gone, was there? And there was plenty good that remained. Time was, a bowl of plain grits was more than most people could hope for in a day. Those days were past, too, and he didn’t miss them in the slightest.

Count your blessings, old man. He could almost hear the old woman saying it. No sense moaning ’bout what you can’t have. And by the time the grits were done, counting the better end of his blessings was easy enough—they were all right there in front of him.

There was his grandson Tom, of course. Donald’s grandson was always there when food hit the table. His fifteen-year-old body seemed to travel on two hollow legs. The boy was always hungry—and so he should be, because he was a hard worker, too. He didn’t complain about the lack of diversity in breakfast.

Grits were fine with Tom.

His ten-year-old granddaughter Murph was a bit slower to arrive. Her coppery hair was wet, and she still had a towel around her neck from the shower. At times he thought her the spitting image of her mother, but then she would turn in such a way, or say a particular thing, and he could see her father there. Like now. She was fiddling with the pieces of something or other as she sat down. Which she oughtn’t to be.

“Not at the table, Murph,” he admonished, without any heat in his voice.

But Murph more or less ignored him and looked instead to her father, who had been there all along—before either of his kids—getting his coffee. Cooper was Donald’s son-in-law.

He was a good man. He was a decent farmer, too, very much the guy you wanted when you needed a twenty-year-old combine put back in working condition with a handful of wires and an old toaster. Or wanted your solar array to pull in another fifteen percent. He was a whiz with machines. And his daughter had loved him. If he couldn’t have his daughter, Cooper was the next best thing, he figured. The man she loved, the children she made.

“Dad, can you fix this?” Murph asked Cooper.

Cooper came over to the table and reached for the pieces of plastic she had pinched between her fingertips, a frown presenting on his lean face. Donald saw now what it was—the broken model of an Apollo lunar lander.

“What’d you do to my lander?” Cooper asked.

“Wasn’t me,” Murph said.

“Lemme guess,” Tom sneered, through a mouthful of grits. “Your ghost?”

Murph appeared not to hear Tom. She had lately seemed to discover that ignoring him irritated him far more than any rejoinder she might come up with.

“It knocked it off my shelf,” she said to her father, quite matter-of-factly. “It keeps knocking books off.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, dumb-ass,” Tom said.

“Hey!” Cooper said, sending him a hard look. Tom just shrugged and looked unrepentant.

But Murph wouldn’t let go.

“I looked it up,” she said. “It’s called a poltergeist.”

“Dad, tell her,” Tom pleaded.

“Murph,” Cooper said, “you know that’s not scientific.” But his daughter stared at him stubbornly.

“You say science is about admitting what we don’t know,” she said.

“She’s got you there,” Donald said.

Cooper handed Murph back the pieces.

“Start looking after our stuff,” he said.

Donald caught Cooper’s eye.

“Coop,” he admonished.

Cooper shrugged. Donald was right. Murph was smart, but she needed a little guidance.

“Fine,” he said. “Murph, you wanna talk science, don’t just tell me you’re scared of some ghost. Record the facts, analyze—present your conclusions.”