The Search
John Sheirer
“Is your mom some kind of genius?” Sally asked Dylan.
The teenaged neighbors dangled their feet into the cool swimming pool, a relief from the early evening sun, previewing the summer ahead on this toasty day in mid-May. Geometric sections of the water’s surface reflected the endless sky above. The modest body of water was barely five feet at its deepest, shallow enough that Sally and Dylan could distinguish the texture of the bumpy, blue, bottom surface.
“I heard Mrs. Detmer talking about her when I walked by the teachers’ lounge yesterday,” Sally continued. “She said your mom is a genius who works for NASA looking in the sky for aliens.”
Dylan gazed into that sky. He couldn’t see any evidence of aliens, but when dusk settled in an hour, stars would twinkle into view. Viewed from that sky far above, Dylan and Sally’s houses must have looked like nothing more than featureless black rectangles. Between them lay a slightly smaller, tan, concrete rectangle that surrounded the aqua oval of the pool. From space, the houses would seem to be nothing special, but to these two teenagers, they were all the home they’d ever known.
“How did Mrs. Detmer say it?” Dylan asked about their sixth-grade science teacher’s comment.
His voice was flat. He’d heard his mother called a genius enough times to know that sometimes it was a compliment and sometimes it was an insult. When your mom has a Ph.D. after her name and works for NASA, people make assumptions. But when that name is Ramla Al-Katib and you live in Texas, those assumptions aren’t always friendly.
Dylan didn’t invite many friends to his house, but he’d known Sally since they both were infants. Coming home as newborns to their next-door houses exactly three weeks apart, they’d barely ever gone a week without seeing each other. As their families’ only children, they were as close as siblings without the rivalry of fighting for parental attention, the last cookie, or access to the bathroom.
“Like, was she saying it as a compliment,” Dylan continued, “or was she being mean?”
Sally answered quickly: “Oh, she was being nice. Definitely. She thought your mom was somebody important. Not mean. I could tell.”
“That’s good,” Dylan replied, sighing, relieved that a teacher he liked saw his mother for who she really was.
“Yeah,” he said in slightly mystified pride. “Some people think she’s a little out in space herself, but to me, she just seems like a mom. But I know she’s really smart about a lot of things.”
“Your mom’s cool,” Sally said.
Sally had been quiet most of the afternoon, so Dylan was glad that she was talking now. She was hanging out at his house because her parents, Melissa and Javier, were visiting the doctor. Dylan didn’t know all the details, but he’d heard the word “cancer” and had seen Javier coming home from work early since the new year, looking skinnier than usual, his tall frame slumping, He seemed older and tired, his usually bronze skin gone pale. A few weeks ago, he stopped going to work altogether and spent much of the day wrapped in a blanket, leaning back in a lounge chair in their next-door backyard, reading a book, napping, or just staring off into space like he was looking for something that might not be there.
That morning, Sally had overheard her parents talking about how important today’s check-up was. She’d heard the words “prognosis,” “remission,” and “recurrence” and looked up each one online. She was overwhelmed by what she read. Spending the day with her best friend instead of following her parents to the doctor was a relief. The wait until her parents returned gnawed at her mind but wasn’t nearly as bad as waiting in the hospital. She wanted to talk about something else to keep from dwelling on her father’s condition.
“What does your mom do there?” Sally asked. “You know, at NASA?”
“I’m not really sure,” Dylan said. “Something to do with telescopes and other planets.”
“Aliens?” Sally asked, eyebrows arched.
“Maybe,” Dylan said, shrugging. “I’ve heard her talking on Zoom sometimes.” He circled a toe in the water. “They mention intelligent life, civilization, atmosphere, technology, nuclear stuff. I just catch bits and pieces.”
“Sounds like aliens to me,” Sally said.
“Maybe,” Dylan repeated.
~ ~ ~
Dylan’s mother Ramla emerged through the sliding doors at the back of their three-bedroom ranch house. The people who thought Texas featured only “McMansions” had never visited this neighborhood where professional families saved for their kids’ college education instead of blocking out the sky with homes far bigger than they needed. The small pool was as close to an extravagance as anyone would find here.
Having grown up in Ontario as the child of Egyptian immigrants, Ramla had mixed feelings about the Texas heat. Egypt, which she had visited with her parents only twice as a teenager, seemed to her incomprehensibly hot. Texas was only marginally better. She sought shade every chance she could and sometimes wondered how people survived this place in the summer without a pool. Canada was her true climate home. She missed the snow and wished these late spring days in Texas lasted longer. Once summer hit full blast, she would spend less time by the pool and more time wherever she could find air conditioning, whether at work or home. Fifteen summers in Houston, one spent pregnant and extra sweaty with Dylan, still hadn’t acclimated her to the heat and humidity.
Ramla’s parents were a doctor and dentist living on a tree-lined street in suburban Toronto, taking daily neighborhood walks in their favorite heavy wool sweaters. They were thrilled when Ramla earned degrees from McGill and Harvard, but, like most parents across the globe, they wished their only child lived closer to home. Even as Ramla approached forty, her parents still thought of her, in part, as their little girl, always curious about the stars from the time she was in pigtails and lace-collared dresses, returning from school now and then in tears after being called a nasty name by a classmate. Texas remained as mysterious as outer space to Ramla’s parents. They never knew quite what to wear when they visited and usually settled for slacks and light cotton sweaters, standing beside each other at the window air conditioner as much as they could.
Ramla moved toward the kids as they sat poolside. She carried a black bowl decorated with stars and heaped with red grapes, each orb pulled from the stems, rinsed, and patted dry. “Dylan, Sally,” she called out. “Snacks.”
Sally hopped to her feet. “Thank you, Mrs. A!” Her pale shoulders were beginning to pink in the late Saturday afternoon sunshine, despite several applications of sunblock. She had her mother’s sandy hair and freckled skin. Dylan rose more slowly. Brown as a berry! Ramla liked to say about her son’s early season tan, but she was still a shade darker year round.
“Thanks, Mom,” Dylan said. He noticed that he had caught up with Sally’s growth spurt. She was the tallest girl in their class, and only a couple of the boys were taller. Sally may not have inherited Javier’s dark complexion, but she has her father’s long limbs. Ramla was barely five feet in the jogging shoes she wore to work, but Dylan’s dad, Jesse, almost had to duck as he stepped out of the house with a plate of meat for the grill.
~ ~ ~
Jesse Clinton, Dylan’s dad, was what local people called “Texas-sized.” He came by his cowboy first name naturally, being raised on a small farm an hour north of Houston. Instead of cattle or horses, the farm specialized in vegetables. The parents and four sons scratched a living from the dry Texas earth. Jesse and his brothers operated rakes and hoes by age five and small tractors by ten. Despite years of diligent scrubbing, Jesse estimated that he still had microscopic dirt fragments under his fingernails from the first Bush administration.
The farm had been in the Clinton family for six generations before Jesse’s oldest brother sold it to a big agricorp less than a month after their parents died a month apart, barely sixty, of lung cancer brought on by a combination of smoking and inhaling pesticides. After settling the debts, there wasn’t much to go around between the four brothers.
Jesse sometimes joked that he apprenticed as a roofer to work as far away from the dirt as he could. He started at eighteen, learning the trade from the ground up, so to speak, and eventually knew how every nail and shingle fit every eave and soffit. By thirty-two, he used his small inheritance as a down payment to buy the company from his aging and grateful boss. He changed the name from American Pride Roofing (because every third business in the state was called “American Pride” something or other) to Jesse Clinton Roofing.
Jesse doused the grill’s charcoal briquettes with lighter fluid, his “farmer’s tan” evident on the thick arms that poked through his sleeveless t-shirt with “Jesse Clinton Roofing” emblazoned across his broad back.
That name, “Jesse Clinton,” could generate as many Texas sideways glances as Ramla’s. Sometimes, just for fun, Jesse would answer his business phone, “Chelsea Clinton Roofing!” After the inevitable few seconds of silence, he’d pronounce very clearly, “This is Jesse, owner of Jesse Clinton Roofing. How may I help you?” No one ever got the joke except him, and because everyone knew his company did the best work in the greater Houston metropolitan area, he never lost a customer.
Jesse took good care of his seven-person roofing crew: five men, two women, all tough as the spikes in their nail guns. He made sure their immigration status was legal and up to date, which wasn’t as hard as people thought. And he paid above minimum wage with longevity raises to keep turnover to a minimum. He could have hired undocumented workers, as most of his competitors did, and paid them less so that he could live in a bigger house or drive a fancier car. But that made about as much sense to him as overfilling his small swimming pool and flopping around in the water spilling over the sides.
“Don’t stuff yourself with grapes,” Jesse called out to the kids. “I’m about to put the burgers and dogs on the grill.”
The fumes from the lighter fluid ignited in a whoosh that made Sally and Dylan’s stomachs growl loudly enough that they both heard each other. They shared a chuckle and popped a few more grapes into their suddenly hungry mouths.
~ ~ ~
Sally’s mother had driven her father to his appointment at a downtown medical center late that morning. Given the slow turning of the great American medical wheel, Melissa and Javier probably wouldn’t be back until well into the evening. They were grateful that Sally could spend the day with her lifelong alero and the most responsible parents they knew.
Once Jesse finished with his grill work, they all sat at the picnic table in the shade of an oversized umbrella. The kids had emptied the grape bowl quickly, and Jesse placed a serving plate with hot dogs and hamburgers next to various jars of mustard, ketchup, and relish. Jesse was already halfway through his first burger as Ramla tonged a small pile of salad onto each plate.
“I promised your mother you’d eat veggies,” she said to Sally.
Jesse licked the ketchup from his fingers and flipped open a fresh bun. He used his hands to move the salad from his plate onto the bun and then added two burger patties. Sally and Dylan imitated Jesse but only added one burger each, along with generous amounts of ketchup. Ramla stared for a moment and then shrugged. She lined her hotdog bun with leafy greens, sprinkled a few drops of balsamic vinaigrette, and then inserted a hot dog. Jesse stared.
“I learned that in Toronto,” Ramla said.
“Oh, Canada,” Jesse mumbled as he bit into his double-decker.
~ ~ ~
Jesse and Ramla met when he did some roofing at the small office building on the NASA campus where she was first assigned. She arrived at dawn one morning to find Jesse climbing a ladder to the roof and admired his bravery. Her own mild fear of heights usually kept her away from the second-story windows, but she inched close and watched as he descended that ladder. When Jesse glanced in to see her staring out at him, the two broke into simultaneous shy smiles. They met at the lobby vending machines for Pepsi and peanut butter cracker lunches the next three days and then had their first actual date for a real dinner, Ramla’s introduction to authentic brisket, that weekend. The wedding was six months later, a civil ceremony that each family accepted as better than the lifetime of singlehood they had assumed was inevitable for their stubborn, independent-minded offspring. A year later, they bought their cute little house with its cute little pool just in time for Dylan’s arrival.
Their different ethnic backgrounds resolved quickly within their families. Ramla was about as Muslim as Jesse was Christian, meaning neither were explicitly religious and last attended mosque or church during a major holiday while still in high school. Ramla’s parents had mostly secularized long ago, but they taught her that the Quran promoted human dignity, optimism, and care for Allah’s creation. Jesse’s father had no discernable faith, but his mother taught him Christian empathy, compassion, and charity between bouts of foul language directed at the government. Ramla, like many Muslims in mixed marriages, enjoyed Christmas even more than some Christians because the holiday brought no family baggage for her. And Jesse liked spoiling Ramla and Dylan on Eid. Ramla rolled her eyes when he referred to the holiday as “roving springtime Christmas” for its tendency to move around the calendar.
Outside their home, some early tension rumbled briefly. Jesse had a stern talk with his oldest brother, the one who sold the family farm, after he mumbled a bit too loudly that Ramla looked like “a Mexican alien.” After Jesse’s “talk,” which included the younger but much bigger brother using his looming height to punctuate his message, the brother had nothing else to say on the subject and was consistently kind to Ramla. Ramla’s parents were reserved at first, worried that Jesse was not just an American but a Texan-American. They soon accepted their hulking son-in-law, however, when they saw his good manners and respect for Ramla, as well as the fact that he only drove his pick-up for work and scrunched into a Prius for everyday driving.
~ ~ ~
Sally studied her burger for a moment and then spoke: “Ramla? Are you really looking for aliens?”
Ramla chuckled and finished chewing her bite of hot dog. “That’s kind of a funny way to put it,” she replied. “But, yes, I’m part of a team that’s looking for intelligent life beyond the Earth.”
Sally’s eyes were wide. “How do you do that?”
“Well,” Ramla said, “we’ve been listening to radio signals coming from space for decades.”
Dylan spoke up. “Like songs that aliens might play on the radio? Don’t they have Spotify and Pandora?”
“Not exactly,” Ramla said, “although it would be interesting to hear music from an alien civilization. But they might be so different from us that we wouldn’t even recognize it as music. It might sound like noise to us.”
“Like hip-hop,” Jesse said.
“Or country,” Dylan countered.
“Touché!” Jesse replied, high-fiving his son.
“We use math,” Ramla said, ignoring the father-and-son antics. “Music has patterns that are a lot like math, whether it’s hip-hop or country or Beethoven. So we listen for numerical sequences that would be more than just the random background radiation that comes from everywhere in space. These kinds of patterns might be music, but we think it would be more likely that they would be a message sent by an alien civilization hoping to contact us. Sort of like a hand waving to say ‘hello’ in case anyone is looking in their direction.”
“Have you found anything?” Dylan asked. He hadn’t really thought much about what his mother did after she dropped him off at school and drove to the NASA campus.
“Unfortunately, no,” Ramla said. “But space is really big, and we can only listen to a tiny area at any given time. If you imagine that all of space is the size of the ocean, then we’ve only examined an area the size of our swimming pool.”
All four of them turned their attention to the pool. It was a simple, pleasant pool that helped them keep cool in the humid Texas summer. They were happy to have it. Dylan didn’t mind skimming the grass and leaves and bugs off the surface every day, one of his regular chores. Jesse was glad that he made enough to maintain it and didn’t mind that it looked like it would be at home in a 1950s backyard.
And they all knew that this pool was, as the saying goes, just a drop in the ocean.
“If looking for radio signals doesn’t work, then what else can you do?” Sally asked.
“We think the best signs of intelligence would be evidence of technology,” Ramla said.
“Now we’re talking,” Jesse said, rubbing his hands together. “What sort of tech do you have in mind? Like big space computers?”
“Maybe,” Ramla said. “But our computers have gotten smaller as they’ve evolved. That’s probably true of alien computers as well. So they would be very hard to detect from far away.”
Dylan perked up. “We learned about the Webb telescope in school. Will that help?”
“Ramla broke into a wide smile. “Yes!” she said. “Everyone at work is pretty darned excited about the Webb. The Kepler Space Telescope malfunctioned a decade ago and ran out of fuel a few years later. But Kepler was still amazing. We found more than two thousand planets orbiting half a million stars, and we think that barely scratches the surface. Once Webb is completely operational, we should be able to find a lot more and detect technology in space way better than anything we could do before.” She nodded toward Jesse. “We probably still won’t be able to see space computers, but there are other signs of civilization.”
“Like what?” Sally asked.
Ramla continued. “A civilization probably produces lots of energy, and we’ll be looking for signs of that energy production. For example, we’ll look for heat. If a planet seems hotter than it might naturally be, that’s a sign that there might be a civilization producing energy.”
“Like climate change?” Dylan asked.
“Shhhhh!” Jesse said, winking. “It’s probably illegal to say those words in Texas!”
Ramla ignored her husband’s comment. “And we’ll try to see if a far-off planet shows signs of pollution in its atmosphere, toxic clouds possibly made by burning fossil fuels.”
“Yuck,” Sally said.
“Or we could look for evidence of chloroflourohydrocarbons,” Ramla said.
“What’s that?” Dylan asked.
“That’s a chemical byproduct of some forms of technology,” Ramla said. “We have them here on earth from making refrigeration and different kinds of fuels and solvents”
“Wait,” Sally said. “I remember that from science class last year. They talked about how we almost destroyed the Ozone in the sky.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dylan continued. “But we were able to fix it by getting rid of some kinds of spray cans.”
“That’s right,” Ramla said. “We were able to stop the destruction of the Ozone layer in our atmosphere and reverse the damage. But if we see an alien planet with damage similar to that Ozone problem, then we can use that evidence to guess that a civilization on that planet has some kind of advanced technology, which means they have an intelligent civilization.”
“Messing up their air with pollution doesn’t sound very ‘civilized,’” Sally said.
“Or ‘intelligent,’” Dylan added.
“That’s a good point,” Ramla answered. “Here’s something even worse. We might be able to use the Webb telescope to see if a planet shows evidence of something called ‘tritium,’ a rare form of hydrogen that can be a signature of nuclear explosions.”
“Woah,” Jesse said. “Does that mean aliens would be able to see that we’ve set off some pretty big bombs?”
“It’s possible,” Ramla said. “Some scientists believe that we’ll find aliens only because they’ll find us first. And one of the best ways for them to know that we’re here is that they might have detected the atomic bombs used in World War II or all of the testing of nuclear weapons that human beings are still doing.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best way to invite aliens to visit,” Dylan mumbled. “Bombs.”
“Yeah,” Sally added. “And I don’t really want to go visit aliens who are bombing their own planet.”
Ramla nodded. “There’s a theory called the ‘Great Filter’ that states the civilizations that produce the most technological evidence of their own existence have probably already destroyed themselves.”
“That’s kind of a depressing thought,” Jesse said, pausing between bites of his burger.
“It is,” Ramla agreed. “But many of us are hoping for something different, like finding evidence that shows a civilization without extreme pollution or extinction-level bombing. We’re not sure what that evidence might look like, and it’s probably hard to find. But maybe we can discover that they didn’t use their technology to build bombs. Maybe they used it to make sure everyone on their planet was safe and happy and had enough food and water instead of making weapons. Maybe they made medicine to keep everyone healthy.”
“That’s not what we did,” Dylan said.
“Maybe we did some of that,” Sally replied. “Like my dad’s radiation treatment. That’s a good use of technology. But we still have bombs that can ‘filter’ everyone right off the planet. Sometimes that really scares me.”
The four grew quiet for a moment, staring at their unfinished plates of food.
Jesse broke the silence. “You know what I think would be a great sign of intelligent life?”
“Yes, I do,” Ramla answered, regaining her smile. “You’ve mentioned this to me a few times before.”
“It’s a roof,” Jesse continued, ignoring Ramla’s playful dig. “A roof protects us, lets us grow, lets us thrive. Without a roof, all you have are walls and fences. That’s two-dimensional thinking.” He tapped his index finger on his temple. “Intelligence is three-dimensional. You can’t have civilization living with just walls. Civilization needs a roof.”
“You know,” Ramla said, “I forgot to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” Jesse asked.
“We started looking for reflections in the Webb data,” Ramla said, slipping into a combination of her curious and professorial voices. “There are reflections from cloud cover and bodies of water, of course. Even some land masses with smooth surfaces are somewhat reflective. But those are generally large. When you have many small reflections grouped together, that can be a sign of a town or even a city. Those kinds of groupings are a sign of collective action. Of intelligence. There’s even a set of planets called Trappist-1 where all the planets are very similar in how they line up and orbit the sun. They move in the same way, which seems unlikely for naturally occurring objects in space. Once the Webb is working at full capacity, we might be able to see them more clearly to find out if they’re really something like a set of solar panels, kind of a roof built by an alien race around small planets, or even big space stations to generate power.”
Dylan smiled. “I’d rather find solar panels than nuclear bombs.”
“Me too!” Ramla agreed.
“Like I was saying: a roof,” Jesse said with a chuckle. “I love that it has solar panels, but don’t tell the oil companies.” He gave a contemplative nod to his wife. “You can’t have civilization without a roof. A roof can make energy, sure, and that’s a nice bonus. But a roof makes survival possible. Safety from the elements. It makes rest possible. A place to eat and sleep. It makes complex thinking possible. Conversation. Connection. A place for family.”
Ramla reached across the table and took his big hand in hers. “You’re building civilization one shingle at a time, my love.”
“And you’re going to find civilization, my darling,” Jesse replied. “And when you do, those aliens will be lucky to be half as smart as you.” They shared a long, meaningful look.
“Umm, gross,” Dylan murmured. He and Sally rolled their eyes.
“We’re outside now,” Sally said. “We’re not under a roof but we’re eating and thinking and being together.”
Jesse pointed up. “This umbrella is kind of a roof. And if it started raining right now, we’d take this party under a real roof lickity-split.”
“Good point, Sally,” Ramla said. “The fact that we have a roof on our home gives us the freedom to choose when we want to be outside and when we want to be inside. Choice about where we live our lives helps with individual brain development and overall advancement in civilization.” Sally nodded.
“I should paint that on the side of my truck,” Jesse said.
“You’d need a bigger truck, Dad,” Dylan said, taking a second hot dog before his father could claim it.
Just then, Ramla’s cell phone burst into muffled music. When she quickly extracted it from her pocket, the theme from Star Trek filled the air at full volume.
“Is that …?” Jesse asked.
Ramla met his gaze. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, my god.” She stared at the phone momentarily, then almost dropped it as she fumbled to slide a finger across the screen. Everyone at the table stared at her as she spoke. “This is Dr. Al-Katib.” She nodded. “Yes. I see. What’s the GalRS? Oh? Okay. And the ICRS? Oh, yes, that does sound significant. What did Dr. Abraham say about the probability? Oh, my! Very significant! I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
She lowered the phone. “They think they found something,” she said to her husband. Jesse’s eyes widened.
“Mom!” Dylan said, not hiding his excitement. “Do you mean aliens!”
Ramla nodded to her son and broke into a nervous giggle.
“I’ll take care of things here,” Jesse said. “You go. It’s okay.”
Ramla rose, blinked, picked up her hot dog, and then set it back on the plate. “I’m going,” she said, not moving.
Sally stood as well, distracted, and looked out beyond the pool. “Mom and Dad,” she said. “They’re home.”
From across the small fence separating their backyards, they heard car doors closing and saw lights coming on through the back windows of Sally’s house.
“Sally?” Sally’s mother called out as she came through the back door of her house.
“We’re over here, by the pool,” Jesse called. He looked at Ramla.
”We have news about Javier,” Melissa said, as Javier’s tall frame emerged behind his wife. Their expressions were tired but, beyond that, unreadable.
Ramla and Jesse exchanged glances. So did Sally and Dylan.
“Is it okay if we come over?” Melissa asked.
“Of course,” Jesse said. “We have food. It’s still warm.”
Ramla tapped her phone and lifted it to her ear. “Yes,” she said. “Dr. Al-Katib. Make it an hour. Yes,” she said firmly. “One hour. Something important came up. Yes, more important. One hour. They’re not going anywhere.” She squeezed Sally’s arm.
Jesse walked around the pool and opened the gate between the two homes. Melissa and Javier walked into their neighbors’ yard. Sally rose from her chair, strode to her parents, and the three locked in a tight embrace. Melissa spoke softly. Dylan stared for a moment, then looked away when he heard what could have been laughter mixed with tears.
~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, millions of light years away, using technology that even Ramla couldn’t have comprehended, beings very different from ourselves--but also very much like us--observed this human scene as the last hint of the afternoon sunlight gently glanced off the shimmering pool.
John Sheirer
“Is your mom some kind of genius?” Sally asked Dylan.
The teenaged neighbors dangled their feet into the cool swimming pool, a relief from the early evening sun, previewing the summer ahead on this toasty day in mid-May. Geometric sections of the water’s surface reflected the endless sky above. The modest body of water was barely five feet at its deepest, shallow enough that Sally and Dylan could distinguish the texture of the bumpy, blue, bottom surface.
“I heard Mrs. Detmer talking about her when I walked by the teachers’ lounge yesterday,” Sally continued. “She said your mom is a genius who works for NASA looking in the sky for aliens.”
Dylan gazed into that sky. He couldn’t see any evidence of aliens, but when dusk settled in an hour, stars would twinkle into view. Viewed from that sky far above, Dylan and Sally’s houses must have looked like nothing more than featureless black rectangles. Between them lay a slightly smaller, tan, concrete rectangle that surrounded the aqua oval of the pool. From space, the houses would seem to be nothing special, but to these two teenagers, they were all the home they’d ever known.
“How did Mrs. Detmer say it?” Dylan asked about their sixth-grade science teacher’s comment.
His voice was flat. He’d heard his mother called a genius enough times to know that sometimes it was a compliment and sometimes it was an insult. When your mom has a Ph.D. after her name and works for NASA, people make assumptions. But when that name is Ramla Al-Katib and you live in Texas, those assumptions aren’t always friendly.
Dylan didn’t invite many friends to his house, but he’d known Sally since they both were infants. Coming home as newborns to their next-door houses exactly three weeks apart, they’d barely ever gone a week without seeing each other. As their families’ only children, they were as close as siblings without the rivalry of fighting for parental attention, the last cookie, or access to the bathroom.
“Like, was she saying it as a compliment,” Dylan continued, “or was she being mean?”
Sally answered quickly: “Oh, she was being nice. Definitely. She thought your mom was somebody important. Not mean. I could tell.”
“That’s good,” Dylan replied, sighing, relieved that a teacher he liked saw his mother for who she really was.
“Yeah,” he said in slightly mystified pride. “Some people think she’s a little out in space herself, but to me, she just seems like a mom. But I know she’s really smart about a lot of things.”
“Your mom’s cool,” Sally said.
Sally had been quiet most of the afternoon, so Dylan was glad that she was talking now. She was hanging out at his house because her parents, Melissa and Javier, were visiting the doctor. Dylan didn’t know all the details, but he’d heard the word “cancer” and had seen Javier coming home from work early since the new year, looking skinnier than usual, his tall frame slumping, He seemed older and tired, his usually bronze skin gone pale. A few weeks ago, he stopped going to work altogether and spent much of the day wrapped in a blanket, leaning back in a lounge chair in their next-door backyard, reading a book, napping, or just staring off into space like he was looking for something that might not be there.
That morning, Sally had overheard her parents talking about how important today’s check-up was. She’d heard the words “prognosis,” “remission,” and “recurrence” and looked up each one online. She was overwhelmed by what she read. Spending the day with her best friend instead of following her parents to the doctor was a relief. The wait until her parents returned gnawed at her mind but wasn’t nearly as bad as waiting in the hospital. She wanted to talk about something else to keep from dwelling on her father’s condition.
“What does your mom do there?” Sally asked. “You know, at NASA?”
“I’m not really sure,” Dylan said. “Something to do with telescopes and other planets.”
“Aliens?” Sally asked, eyebrows arched.
“Maybe,” Dylan said, shrugging. “I’ve heard her talking on Zoom sometimes.” He circled a toe in the water. “They mention intelligent life, civilization, atmosphere, technology, nuclear stuff. I just catch bits and pieces.”
“Sounds like aliens to me,” Sally said.
“Maybe,” Dylan repeated.
~ ~ ~
Dylan’s mother Ramla emerged through the sliding doors at the back of their three-bedroom ranch house. The people who thought Texas featured only “McMansions” had never visited this neighborhood where professional families saved for their kids’ college education instead of blocking out the sky with homes far bigger than they needed. The small pool was as close to an extravagance as anyone would find here.
Having grown up in Ontario as the child of Egyptian immigrants, Ramla had mixed feelings about the Texas heat. Egypt, which she had visited with her parents only twice as a teenager, seemed to her incomprehensibly hot. Texas was only marginally better. She sought shade every chance she could and sometimes wondered how people survived this place in the summer without a pool. Canada was her true climate home. She missed the snow and wished these late spring days in Texas lasted longer. Once summer hit full blast, she would spend less time by the pool and more time wherever she could find air conditioning, whether at work or home. Fifteen summers in Houston, one spent pregnant and extra sweaty with Dylan, still hadn’t acclimated her to the heat and humidity.
Ramla’s parents were a doctor and dentist living on a tree-lined street in suburban Toronto, taking daily neighborhood walks in their favorite heavy wool sweaters. They were thrilled when Ramla earned degrees from McGill and Harvard, but, like most parents across the globe, they wished their only child lived closer to home. Even as Ramla approached forty, her parents still thought of her, in part, as their little girl, always curious about the stars from the time she was in pigtails and lace-collared dresses, returning from school now and then in tears after being called a nasty name by a classmate. Texas remained as mysterious as outer space to Ramla’s parents. They never knew quite what to wear when they visited and usually settled for slacks and light cotton sweaters, standing beside each other at the window air conditioner as much as they could.
Ramla moved toward the kids as they sat poolside. She carried a black bowl decorated with stars and heaped with red grapes, each orb pulled from the stems, rinsed, and patted dry. “Dylan, Sally,” she called out. “Snacks.”
Sally hopped to her feet. “Thank you, Mrs. A!” Her pale shoulders were beginning to pink in the late Saturday afternoon sunshine, despite several applications of sunblock. She had her mother’s sandy hair and freckled skin. Dylan rose more slowly. Brown as a berry! Ramla liked to say about her son’s early season tan, but she was still a shade darker year round.
“Thanks, Mom,” Dylan said. He noticed that he had caught up with Sally’s growth spurt. She was the tallest girl in their class, and only a couple of the boys were taller. Sally may not have inherited Javier’s dark complexion, but she has her father’s long limbs. Ramla was barely five feet in the jogging shoes she wore to work, but Dylan’s dad, Jesse, almost had to duck as he stepped out of the house with a plate of meat for the grill.
~ ~ ~
Jesse Clinton, Dylan’s dad, was what local people called “Texas-sized.” He came by his cowboy first name naturally, being raised on a small farm an hour north of Houston. Instead of cattle or horses, the farm specialized in vegetables. The parents and four sons scratched a living from the dry Texas earth. Jesse and his brothers operated rakes and hoes by age five and small tractors by ten. Despite years of diligent scrubbing, Jesse estimated that he still had microscopic dirt fragments under his fingernails from the first Bush administration.
The farm had been in the Clinton family for six generations before Jesse’s oldest brother sold it to a big agricorp less than a month after their parents died a month apart, barely sixty, of lung cancer brought on by a combination of smoking and inhaling pesticides. After settling the debts, there wasn’t much to go around between the four brothers.
Jesse sometimes joked that he apprenticed as a roofer to work as far away from the dirt as he could. He started at eighteen, learning the trade from the ground up, so to speak, and eventually knew how every nail and shingle fit every eave and soffit. By thirty-two, he used his small inheritance as a down payment to buy the company from his aging and grateful boss. He changed the name from American Pride Roofing (because every third business in the state was called “American Pride” something or other) to Jesse Clinton Roofing.
Jesse doused the grill’s charcoal briquettes with lighter fluid, his “farmer’s tan” evident on the thick arms that poked through his sleeveless t-shirt with “Jesse Clinton Roofing” emblazoned across his broad back.
That name, “Jesse Clinton,” could generate as many Texas sideways glances as Ramla’s. Sometimes, just for fun, Jesse would answer his business phone, “Chelsea Clinton Roofing!” After the inevitable few seconds of silence, he’d pronounce very clearly, “This is Jesse, owner of Jesse Clinton Roofing. How may I help you?” No one ever got the joke except him, and because everyone knew his company did the best work in the greater Houston metropolitan area, he never lost a customer.
Jesse took good care of his seven-person roofing crew: five men, two women, all tough as the spikes in their nail guns. He made sure their immigration status was legal and up to date, which wasn’t as hard as people thought. And he paid above minimum wage with longevity raises to keep turnover to a minimum. He could have hired undocumented workers, as most of his competitors did, and paid them less so that he could live in a bigger house or drive a fancier car. But that made about as much sense to him as overfilling his small swimming pool and flopping around in the water spilling over the sides.
“Don’t stuff yourself with grapes,” Jesse called out to the kids. “I’m about to put the burgers and dogs on the grill.”
The fumes from the lighter fluid ignited in a whoosh that made Sally and Dylan’s stomachs growl loudly enough that they both heard each other. They shared a chuckle and popped a few more grapes into their suddenly hungry mouths.
~ ~ ~
Sally’s mother had driven her father to his appointment at a downtown medical center late that morning. Given the slow turning of the great American medical wheel, Melissa and Javier probably wouldn’t be back until well into the evening. They were grateful that Sally could spend the day with her lifelong alero and the most responsible parents they knew.
Once Jesse finished with his grill work, they all sat at the picnic table in the shade of an oversized umbrella. The kids had emptied the grape bowl quickly, and Jesse placed a serving plate with hot dogs and hamburgers next to various jars of mustard, ketchup, and relish. Jesse was already halfway through his first burger as Ramla tonged a small pile of salad onto each plate.
“I promised your mother you’d eat veggies,” she said to Sally.
Jesse licked the ketchup from his fingers and flipped open a fresh bun. He used his hands to move the salad from his plate onto the bun and then added two burger patties. Sally and Dylan imitated Jesse but only added one burger each, along with generous amounts of ketchup. Ramla stared for a moment and then shrugged. She lined her hotdog bun with leafy greens, sprinkled a few drops of balsamic vinaigrette, and then inserted a hot dog. Jesse stared.
“I learned that in Toronto,” Ramla said.
“Oh, Canada,” Jesse mumbled as he bit into his double-decker.
~ ~ ~
Jesse and Ramla met when he did some roofing at the small office building on the NASA campus where she was first assigned. She arrived at dawn one morning to find Jesse climbing a ladder to the roof and admired his bravery. Her own mild fear of heights usually kept her away from the second-story windows, but she inched close and watched as he descended that ladder. When Jesse glanced in to see her staring out at him, the two broke into simultaneous shy smiles. They met at the lobby vending machines for Pepsi and peanut butter cracker lunches the next three days and then had their first actual date for a real dinner, Ramla’s introduction to authentic brisket, that weekend. The wedding was six months later, a civil ceremony that each family accepted as better than the lifetime of singlehood they had assumed was inevitable for their stubborn, independent-minded offspring. A year later, they bought their cute little house with its cute little pool just in time for Dylan’s arrival.
Their different ethnic backgrounds resolved quickly within their families. Ramla was about as Muslim as Jesse was Christian, meaning neither were explicitly religious and last attended mosque or church during a major holiday while still in high school. Ramla’s parents had mostly secularized long ago, but they taught her that the Quran promoted human dignity, optimism, and care for Allah’s creation. Jesse’s father had no discernable faith, but his mother taught him Christian empathy, compassion, and charity between bouts of foul language directed at the government. Ramla, like many Muslims in mixed marriages, enjoyed Christmas even more than some Christians because the holiday brought no family baggage for her. And Jesse liked spoiling Ramla and Dylan on Eid. Ramla rolled her eyes when he referred to the holiday as “roving springtime Christmas” for its tendency to move around the calendar.
Outside their home, some early tension rumbled briefly. Jesse had a stern talk with his oldest brother, the one who sold the family farm, after he mumbled a bit too loudly that Ramla looked like “a Mexican alien.” After Jesse’s “talk,” which included the younger but much bigger brother using his looming height to punctuate his message, the brother had nothing else to say on the subject and was consistently kind to Ramla. Ramla’s parents were reserved at first, worried that Jesse was not just an American but a Texan-American. They soon accepted their hulking son-in-law, however, when they saw his good manners and respect for Ramla, as well as the fact that he only drove his pick-up for work and scrunched into a Prius for everyday driving.
~ ~ ~
Sally studied her burger for a moment and then spoke: “Ramla? Are you really looking for aliens?”
Ramla chuckled and finished chewing her bite of hot dog. “That’s kind of a funny way to put it,” she replied. “But, yes, I’m part of a team that’s looking for intelligent life beyond the Earth.”
Sally’s eyes were wide. “How do you do that?”
“Well,” Ramla said, “we’ve been listening to radio signals coming from space for decades.”
Dylan spoke up. “Like songs that aliens might play on the radio? Don’t they have Spotify and Pandora?”
“Not exactly,” Ramla said, “although it would be interesting to hear music from an alien civilization. But they might be so different from us that we wouldn’t even recognize it as music. It might sound like noise to us.”
“Like hip-hop,” Jesse said.
“Or country,” Dylan countered.
“Touché!” Jesse replied, high-fiving his son.
“We use math,” Ramla said, ignoring the father-and-son antics. “Music has patterns that are a lot like math, whether it’s hip-hop or country or Beethoven. So we listen for numerical sequences that would be more than just the random background radiation that comes from everywhere in space. These kinds of patterns might be music, but we think it would be more likely that they would be a message sent by an alien civilization hoping to contact us. Sort of like a hand waving to say ‘hello’ in case anyone is looking in their direction.”
“Have you found anything?” Dylan asked. He hadn’t really thought much about what his mother did after she dropped him off at school and drove to the NASA campus.
“Unfortunately, no,” Ramla said. “But space is really big, and we can only listen to a tiny area at any given time. If you imagine that all of space is the size of the ocean, then we’ve only examined an area the size of our swimming pool.”
All four of them turned their attention to the pool. It was a simple, pleasant pool that helped them keep cool in the humid Texas summer. They were happy to have it. Dylan didn’t mind skimming the grass and leaves and bugs off the surface every day, one of his regular chores. Jesse was glad that he made enough to maintain it and didn’t mind that it looked like it would be at home in a 1950s backyard.
And they all knew that this pool was, as the saying goes, just a drop in the ocean.
“If looking for radio signals doesn’t work, then what else can you do?” Sally asked.
“We think the best signs of intelligence would be evidence of technology,” Ramla said.
“Now we’re talking,” Jesse said, rubbing his hands together. “What sort of tech do you have in mind? Like big space computers?”
“Maybe,” Ramla said. “But our computers have gotten smaller as they’ve evolved. That’s probably true of alien computers as well. So they would be very hard to detect from far away.”
Dylan perked up. “We learned about the Webb telescope in school. Will that help?”
“Ramla broke into a wide smile. “Yes!” she said. “Everyone at work is pretty darned excited about the Webb. The Kepler Space Telescope malfunctioned a decade ago and ran out of fuel a few years later. But Kepler was still amazing. We found more than two thousand planets orbiting half a million stars, and we think that barely scratches the surface. Once Webb is completely operational, we should be able to find a lot more and detect technology in space way better than anything we could do before.” She nodded toward Jesse. “We probably still won’t be able to see space computers, but there are other signs of civilization.”
“Like what?” Sally asked.
Ramla continued. “A civilization probably produces lots of energy, and we’ll be looking for signs of that energy production. For example, we’ll look for heat. If a planet seems hotter than it might naturally be, that’s a sign that there might be a civilization producing energy.”
“Like climate change?” Dylan asked.
“Shhhhh!” Jesse said, winking. “It’s probably illegal to say those words in Texas!”
Ramla ignored her husband’s comment. “And we’ll try to see if a far-off planet shows signs of pollution in its atmosphere, toxic clouds possibly made by burning fossil fuels.”
“Yuck,” Sally said.
“Or we could look for evidence of chloroflourohydrocarbons,” Ramla said.
“What’s that?” Dylan asked.
“That’s a chemical byproduct of some forms of technology,” Ramla said. “We have them here on earth from making refrigeration and different kinds of fuels and solvents”
“Wait,” Sally said. “I remember that from science class last year. They talked about how we almost destroyed the Ozone in the sky.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dylan continued. “But we were able to fix it by getting rid of some kinds of spray cans.”
“That’s right,” Ramla said. “We were able to stop the destruction of the Ozone layer in our atmosphere and reverse the damage. But if we see an alien planet with damage similar to that Ozone problem, then we can use that evidence to guess that a civilization on that planet has some kind of advanced technology, which means they have an intelligent civilization.”
“Messing up their air with pollution doesn’t sound very ‘civilized,’” Sally said.
“Or ‘intelligent,’” Dylan added.
“That’s a good point,” Ramla answered. “Here’s something even worse. We might be able to use the Webb telescope to see if a planet shows evidence of something called ‘tritium,’ a rare form of hydrogen that can be a signature of nuclear explosions.”
“Woah,” Jesse said. “Does that mean aliens would be able to see that we’ve set off some pretty big bombs?”
“It’s possible,” Ramla said. “Some scientists believe that we’ll find aliens only because they’ll find us first. And one of the best ways for them to know that we’re here is that they might have detected the atomic bombs used in World War II or all of the testing of nuclear weapons that human beings are still doing.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best way to invite aliens to visit,” Dylan mumbled. “Bombs.”
“Yeah,” Sally added. “And I don’t really want to go visit aliens who are bombing their own planet.”
Ramla nodded. “There’s a theory called the ‘Great Filter’ that states the civilizations that produce the most technological evidence of their own existence have probably already destroyed themselves.”
“That’s kind of a depressing thought,” Jesse said, pausing between bites of his burger.
“It is,” Ramla agreed. “But many of us are hoping for something different, like finding evidence that shows a civilization without extreme pollution or extinction-level bombing. We’re not sure what that evidence might look like, and it’s probably hard to find. But maybe we can discover that they didn’t use their technology to build bombs. Maybe they used it to make sure everyone on their planet was safe and happy and had enough food and water instead of making weapons. Maybe they made medicine to keep everyone healthy.”
“That’s not what we did,” Dylan said.
“Maybe we did some of that,” Sally replied. “Like my dad’s radiation treatment. That’s a good use of technology. But we still have bombs that can ‘filter’ everyone right off the planet. Sometimes that really scares me.”
The four grew quiet for a moment, staring at their unfinished plates of food.
Jesse broke the silence. “You know what I think would be a great sign of intelligent life?”
“Yes, I do,” Ramla answered, regaining her smile. “You’ve mentioned this to me a few times before.”
“It’s a roof,” Jesse continued, ignoring Ramla’s playful dig. “A roof protects us, lets us grow, lets us thrive. Without a roof, all you have are walls and fences. That’s two-dimensional thinking.” He tapped his index finger on his temple. “Intelligence is three-dimensional. You can’t have civilization living with just walls. Civilization needs a roof.”
“You know,” Ramla said, “I forgot to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” Jesse asked.
“We started looking for reflections in the Webb data,” Ramla said, slipping into a combination of her curious and professorial voices. “There are reflections from cloud cover and bodies of water, of course. Even some land masses with smooth surfaces are somewhat reflective. But those are generally large. When you have many small reflections grouped together, that can be a sign of a town or even a city. Those kinds of groupings are a sign of collective action. Of intelligence. There’s even a set of planets called Trappist-1 where all the planets are very similar in how they line up and orbit the sun. They move in the same way, which seems unlikely for naturally occurring objects in space. Once the Webb is working at full capacity, we might be able to see them more clearly to find out if they’re really something like a set of solar panels, kind of a roof built by an alien race around small planets, or even big space stations to generate power.”
Dylan smiled. “I’d rather find solar panels than nuclear bombs.”
“Me too!” Ramla agreed.
“Like I was saying: a roof,” Jesse said with a chuckle. “I love that it has solar panels, but don’t tell the oil companies.” He gave a contemplative nod to his wife. “You can’t have civilization without a roof. A roof can make energy, sure, and that’s a nice bonus. But a roof makes survival possible. Safety from the elements. It makes rest possible. A place to eat and sleep. It makes complex thinking possible. Conversation. Connection. A place for family.”
Ramla reached across the table and took his big hand in hers. “You’re building civilization one shingle at a time, my love.”
“And you’re going to find civilization, my darling,” Jesse replied. “And when you do, those aliens will be lucky to be half as smart as you.” They shared a long, meaningful look.
“Umm, gross,” Dylan murmured. He and Sally rolled their eyes.
“We’re outside now,” Sally said. “We’re not under a roof but we’re eating and thinking and being together.”
Jesse pointed up. “This umbrella is kind of a roof. And if it started raining right now, we’d take this party under a real roof lickity-split.”
“Good point, Sally,” Ramla said. “The fact that we have a roof on our home gives us the freedom to choose when we want to be outside and when we want to be inside. Choice about where we live our lives helps with individual brain development and overall advancement in civilization.” Sally nodded.
“I should paint that on the side of my truck,” Jesse said.
“You’d need a bigger truck, Dad,” Dylan said, taking a second hot dog before his father could claim it.
Just then, Ramla’s cell phone burst into muffled music. When she quickly extracted it from her pocket, the theme from Star Trek filled the air at full volume.
“Is that …?” Jesse asked.
Ramla met his gaze. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, my god.” She stared at the phone momentarily, then almost dropped it as she fumbled to slide a finger across the screen. Everyone at the table stared at her as she spoke. “This is Dr. Al-Katib.” She nodded. “Yes. I see. What’s the GalRS? Oh? Okay. And the ICRS? Oh, yes, that does sound significant. What did Dr. Abraham say about the probability? Oh, my! Very significant! I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
She lowered the phone. “They think they found something,” she said to her husband. Jesse’s eyes widened.
“Mom!” Dylan said, not hiding his excitement. “Do you mean aliens!”
Ramla nodded to her son and broke into a nervous giggle.
“I’ll take care of things here,” Jesse said. “You go. It’s okay.”
Ramla rose, blinked, picked up her hot dog, and then set it back on the plate. “I’m going,” she said, not moving.
Sally stood as well, distracted, and looked out beyond the pool. “Mom and Dad,” she said. “They’re home.”
From across the small fence separating their backyards, they heard car doors closing and saw lights coming on through the back windows of Sally’s house.
“Sally?” Sally’s mother called out as she came through the back door of her house.
“We’re over here, by the pool,” Jesse called. He looked at Ramla.
”We have news about Javier,” Melissa said, as Javier’s tall frame emerged behind his wife. Their expressions were tired but, beyond that, unreadable.
Ramla and Jesse exchanged glances. So did Sally and Dylan.
“Is it okay if we come over?” Melissa asked.
“Of course,” Jesse said. “We have food. It’s still warm.”
Ramla tapped her phone and lifted it to her ear. “Yes,” she said. “Dr. Al-Katib. Make it an hour. Yes,” she said firmly. “One hour. Something important came up. Yes, more important. One hour. They’re not going anywhere.” She squeezed Sally’s arm.
Jesse walked around the pool and opened the gate between the two homes. Melissa and Javier walked into their neighbors’ yard. Sally rose from her chair, strode to her parents, and the three locked in a tight embrace. Melissa spoke softly. Dylan stared for a moment, then looked away when he heard what could have been laughter mixed with tears.
~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, millions of light years away, using technology that even Ramla couldn’t have comprehended, beings very different from ourselves--but also very much like us--observed this human scene as the last hint of the afternoon sunlight gently glanced off the shimmering pool.
