One Day the Wind Changed Read Online Free

to the wind on the plains, reading to each other (adventure tales, ancient myths) when they couldn’t fall asleep, and two loving parents who served as their compass points. Viewed from the bedroom window, the stars were our steadiest companions, because, asthmatic, we couldn’t play outdoors without losing our breath to the dust in the air.
    I remember, one morning, walking to church with Mother and our grandmother. The sky was red with dirt from the roads. Marty and I had to stop to use our inhalers. Our grandmother was temperamentally unhappy, her frown never greater than when she praised the joys of the Lord. Watching us struggle, she said to our mother, “How did you manage to raise two such damaged kids?” Immediately she apologized for the remark—miserable old woman—but Mother was in no mood to accept her regret. We didn’t make it to church that day.
    That evening, Mother stood with Marty and me at our bedroom window. Marty fought me for space. “Get back, you little creep!” he hissed. Mother made peace between us. She taught us a funny saying, to recall the names of the planets: “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles. Remember those first letters, okay, and you’ll know your way around.” She told us the sky was a wondrous bazaar, full of goods we could buy if we saved enough coins.
    â€œHow much does the moon cost?” I asked.
    â€œAnd the sun?” Marty said.
    â€œFive cents apiece,” Mother answered. She pointed at a cold red star in the south sky. “A ruby ring. And that yellow one? Saffron, to spice up our food.” The Milky Way was a fan of peacock feathers, she said. It was hard to take my eyes off it. Behind us, my bedside radio played a quiet tune. The horizon was flat in all directions. “You are the very best boys,” Mother whispered, her voice as pretty as the music. She kissed us each on the ear. “Don’t listen to your grandma, okay? Sometimes life isn’t fair. But you know what?”
    â€œWhat?” Marty said.
    â€œYou’ve got each other, right?” Sometimes she sounded as corny to me as the song lyrics on my radio, but that didn’t matter. I loved her and KOMA-“Stay right where you are! You’ve got the Voice of Oklahoma City!’
    â€œAnd you know what else?”
    â€œWhat else?” I said.
    â€œYou can have anything you want. Just wish for it.” We scanned the sky until our father came into the room to tell us a bedtime story.
    My story today, tailored especially for the children, touches on distance and time. I’m ready to draw the curtain and start the music (what would stir the teacher, I wonder—piano solos, a rousing march?) when Frank, always punctual, walks in the door. He motions to me. “Excuse me,” I tell the kids. “Back in a flash. In the meantime, why don’t you try to locate yourselves using the directional markers at the base of the dome-north, south, east, west. That way, you’ll be oriented when the sun sets.” They stare at me as though I’ve greeted them in Chinese.
    In the hall, Frank shakes my hand. He’s a wiry man, mid-fifties, still fit but a little worn: pencil-line wrinkles below the bushy ears, thinning eyebrows, a hairline hard to find precisely. He’s a real estate lawyer in Dallas. As a boy he was a stargazer-his happiest memories, he says. His mantra, since becoming chair of the board, is “State-of-the-art. State-of-the-art. We need to become a state-of the-art institution.” And be fiscally strict.
    Frank plants his feet in front of the interstellar shots on the walls, just to the left of the handwritten letters. He rubs his chin. “Scratch Pluto,” he says.
    â€œFrank—”
    â€œKick it out. It’s a piker. An imposter.”
    â€œAll their lives, people have been taught that Pluto is a planet,” I argue.
    â€œWell, it’s