By Swetha Amit

From her window, eight-year-old Maria watched the star-studded black sky. Amidst the stars, she searched for her grandma’s face. That’s where dead people eventually reach, her grandma liked to tell her. She continued to gaze curiously, hoping her grandma’s face would appear. Then she would wave at her grandma and plead with her to come down and give a goodnight kiss. She took a deep breath, and felt her heart beat faster than usual. In this same room, Maria remembered how she would rest on her grandma’s lap and listen to stories about the galaxy before she went to sleep. 

Once she told her grandma, The moon looks like cheesecake and the stars like the cashew cookies you make. When she saw the crescent moon, she’d asked, Who cut the cake in half? Is it one of the angel’s birthdays? Her grandmother laughed and said it was just the different phases of the moon. 

She now wondered what it would feel like to touch the moon and be part of that starry world. Away from the misery, she endured after grandma succumbed to a bout of illness. She couldn’t eat her mother’s pie. It was the cheesecake she wanted from the sky. And why would she even touch those boring crunchy orange carrot sticks her mother gave her? It was the cashew cookies she wanted. Her mother eventually left her alone. Her father sometimes stood quietly by her door. The doctor examined her and mumbled she needed more time to recover. But Maria felt she would never recover. 

Occasionally, from her bedroom window, she saw patterns of stars in the sky. She stared in awe whenever she spotted the shapes of a bear or a hunter. On the day of her grandma’s birthday, she saw two shooting stars. They appeared to be coming toward her. At first, she was afraid and opened her mouth to scream. Then she recalled her grandma telling her a story about how these special stars would make her wishes come true. She stared at them in excitement, closed her eyes, and whispered a wish, hoping it would happen. When she opened her eyes again, the stars had disappeared. She soon dozed into slumber. 

The next day, the sky was still dark, and the stars adorned it like shiny ornaments. A crescent moon hovered by the window. She stepped out and hesitatingly sat on the moon, which took her for a ride. She clutched the moon while they circled around Venus, and squealed in delight seeing the glowing red Mars, then waved at Jupiter, and touched the rings of Saturn. Whizzing past the galaxy of constellations, she recognized them. Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and her own one—Cancer. A man dressed in a silver suit was selling some cookies shaped like stars. Want some? he asked. Maria took a bite, and the taste of cashew filled her mouth with sweetness. The moon zoomed past Orion to another spot where music was playing. Angels were singing and dancing. Amidst the crowd of white and silvery wings stood her grandma beside a cake shaped in the crescent of a moon. She looked so much better. Happier. The bouts of cough were gone, and her watery eyes glistened like the gems in the sky. The same old smile, wrinkled face, snow white hair, and that beautiful pink dress with roses on them. 

Maria swiftly locked in a tight embrace with her grandma. Tears of joy poured down Maria’s cheeks. Grandma was right. Her wish came true. She wanted to do a little dance around the sky. Her grandma fed her a slice of the mooncake, and the taste of cheese, sugar, and yogurt swirled inside her mouth. Maria told Grandma how she looked for her face amidst the stars, about the silence at home, and her absence from school. Grandma promised to show her face, as a pattern of the stars, every night before Maria went to bed. She made Maria assure her she wouldn’t skip school anymore. It was now time for Maria to go. After a parting hug, she sat on the moon, and together they swept across the night sky until she reached her window. 

The following day, she decided to go to school, wondering if she should mention to anyone about her escapade in the night sky. She decided not to. They’d probably scorn her. That night, she looked up at the sky. She saw the stars glistening as usual, the patterns of the bear, and the hunter. She sighed in disappointment, wondering if it all had been a dream. A tear rolled down her face. Just as she decided to go to sleep, she saw a strange pattern of stars in the form of a face beside the moon. She waved, and the pattern curved into a smile. Something fell from the sky onto her windowsill. She opened the silver package of the star cookies and took a bite. The sweet taste of cashew and cream blended with the salt from her tears. Maria’s vision blurred. The night sky disappeared.