The old nightmare.

He rubbed his face, trying to banish the images, but they were too deeply engraved in his memory. He had been a college freshman when Challenger exploded, had been walking through the dorm lounge when the first film footage of the disaster had aired the television. That day, and in the days that followed, he'd watched the horrifying footage again and again, had incorporated it so deeply into his subconscious that it had become as real to as if he himself had been standing in the bleachers at Cape Canaveral that morning.

And now the memory had resurfaced in his nightmares.

It's because of Emma's launch.

In the shower he stood with head bowed under a pounding stream of cool water, waiting for the last traces of his dream to wash away. He had three weeks of vacation starting next week, but he was a long way from being in a holiday mood. He had not taken out the sailboat in months.

Maybe a few weeks out on the water, away from the glare of city lights, would be the best therapy. him, and the sea, and the stars.

It had been so long since he'd really looked at the stars. Lately it seemed he had avoided even glancing at them. As a boy, his eyes had always been drawn heavenward. His mother once told him that, as a toddler, he had stood on the lawn one night and up with both hands, trying to touch the moon. When he could not reach it, he had howled in frustration.

The moon, the stars, the blackness of space -- it was beyond his reach now, and he often felt like that little boy he once was, howling in frustration, his feet trapped on earth, his hands reaching for the sky.

He shut off the shower and stood leaning with both hands pressed against the tiles, head bent, hair dripping. Today is the sixteenth, he thought.