And nobody was luckier—nobody had brighter, warmer, more glowing North Stars of their very own—than me.

“I’m going to miss you,” I said.

“Desperately ditto,” Nonny said. “We’ll video chat all the time.”

Cecilia’s wails started again and I bounced her up and down. I put a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Can I … can I help right now?”

Nonny’s shoulders slumped, tired. “Yes, please,” she said. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Okay, one second.”

I laid baby Cecilia on the bed and as her wails ramped up, dashed out to the front room and grabbed a book. When I came back, Nonny was lying next to the baby, stroking her head like she was trying to smooth Cecilia with calm.

I lay down next to them and blew raspberries on Cecilia’s belly, which distracted her enough that her wailing volumed down to occasional meeps. Then I held the book over Cecilia’s face. She liked the bright cover.

I opened to the first page.

“‘This little piggy went to market,’” I read.

I took Cecilia’s tiny fingers in mine. “Hmm,” I said, “yours actually aren’t very piglike yet, are they? Especially for a baby. Your piggies are still small. They’re actually called phalanges. And the part right here below your knuckles are your metacarpals.”

When I looked at her face, she was staring at me. Those big, brown, gold-flecked eyes were wide. The doctors had said she was doing well, but it was those gold flecks that really told me she was going to be okay. Girls with gold in their eyes were here to do important things.

She wrapped her hand around my finger. I read a few more pages of our book. Then baby Cecilia yawned, and then I yawned. Nonny’s eyes were already closed, and she was breathing deep. When I finished the book baby Cecilia’s eyes were closed, too. I watched her stomach rise slowly, and fall. Rise and fall. I laid my head next to hers and closed my eyes.

What You Do with History

Even though it wasn’t my birthday or anything, on the day of my Cecilia Payne presentation, Mom made me chocolate Malt-O-Meal for breakfast. Dad put a doodle in my lunch bag, a sketch of me and Cecilia Payne swinging from the two long arms of a star.

I knew my PowerPoint rocked. I had worked and worked on it until it was worthy of its subject. I was ready.

“She was born in 1900 on May tenth,” I told my class. I showed them pictures of Cecilia with her flapper curls and dresses. She was smart and stylish. Dustin didn’t even have anything to make fun of.

“She studied astronomy. She was the first female department chair at Harvard. She figured out that stars are made up mostly of hydrogen. So essentially, yes, Pumbaa in The Lion King was right, stars are big balls of gas.”

I heard giggles, which made me happy.

I told them about how Cecilia studied the structure of the Milky Way. I told them about how she was the first person to earn a doctorate degree from Radcliffe College.