1960s: Space walks, renovations and high school

1965 has a violent start with the assassination of Malcolm X. For Barbara, who as a part of the Beat generation of artists, has always sympathised with the Civil Rights movement, the strength of the reactions still surprise her. In Fort Robles, they would have lively discussions over a glass or two, someone would write something, and read it to the others.

Here she sees protests. In Celebration Square they are few, in neighboring blocks they are bigger. She discusses the matter over dinner with her new friends.
"That's because you're used to doing nothing," they say a bit too honestly.
"But we did something! Art and literature changes people's minds, writing, reading, painting are all ways to express the disappointment-"
"But did you ever do anything. Protest? Join a march? Go down south and get involved?"
"Well no-"
"So nothing. Painting, writing... that's nothing."




Barbara is already a bit uncomfortable when she returns to her little flat above her shop, and even more so when she hears a noise coming from the bathroom. Stepping inside, she finds a strange man taking a bath! In her apartment! With Abby sleeping in the next room. 

She throws the man out, and wakes Abby up, holding her baby close. How could someone just... the nerve... She is more than a bit shaken up. Yes, technically this is not built for residential use. And not so technically there is no door on the flat itself and people can - and do - walk up without hesitation. But those people are friends. Neighborhood kids who watch Abby, someone who is looking for her and wants to chat for a while. This was someone she's never met before. He walked up to her apartment, and then took a bath! What if he'd been out to hurt Abby?

"I don't know what to do. I don't feel safe leaving her alone up there even for a minute," Barbs complains to her friends the next evening as they share some bubbles together. The bubbles feel good, they calm her down a bit, as she has been tense all day, running in and checking on Abby even as she knows there are people there to watch her. 

"The house next to ours is for sale," Lisa says. "It's a bit run down, but only five minutes from here. You can still hang out here - we do all the time. Just bring Abby along and let her be where you are, or with the kids." 



Barbara has never thought of moving before, but somewhere safer for her baby? In the end Abby means everything. And seeing the house can't hurt. So a few days later, she walks the five minutes down to the house, and heads inside to take a look. 

It really is run down! There are holes in the walls, a stain on the floor that she doesn't even want to know what it is, and the floor creaks with every step. But it also has potential, and light. But it's when she sees the bay windows in the room what she knows would be Abby's that she's sold. Yes, this will work! 

Selling the store is a must to afford it, however, even if it's run down. But that is a small price to pay. "I'll just sell my paintings the way I did before," she tells Alice on the phone. "You'll still get your money, back, I promise."

"It was a gift," Alice reminds her. 

"I'll pay you back," Barbs promise. 

She moves the few furniture she has gathered (that aren't a part of the studio) with her to the house. They all more or less fit in the bedroom she's picked out for herself. That's where she puts Abby down too, before going to work on what will be her room. Dressed in some thrifted clothes that fits better than they look, and with her hair simply tied pushed back by a bandana, she goes to work. 

Just painting the walls aren't enough. She wants something more, a mural, for her daughter. Something with trees, and birds and lots of colors. 

By the time she's finished the whole room, all in bright colors with lots of murals on the walls, Abby has been sitting on her own for a while, and on the day she moves into her new room, she decides to take a chance with standing too. Barbs is so proud of her daughter! 

Now that Abby's room looks good, she can get on with the rest of the house. That part is still a mess, but Barbara has time. 

That, however, is something that Arthur has to little of. On March 18, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first human to perform a spacewalk, and the news cannot get enough of this feat. It doesn't matter that a few days later, Gemini 3 with astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young, becomes the first spacecraft to change its orbit, because who cares about changing orbits when there is a human being who just walked in space? 

For Arthur this translates to long hours and late nights. On TV Audie and the girls see the news of the clips from the space walk, filmed by the mounted camera on the spacecraft. At Edwards, Arthur is neck up in hardware testing, aerodynamics research, re-entry dynamics, and simulations for the coming space missions. 

"We need a man in space this year!" His boss says. "We need to catch up to the Soviets!" 

For the family, this means that when Cindy's birthday is coming up, they decide to celebrate it with just the family, holding the cake until Arthur can come home late in the evening. 

"You will not miss your daughter's birthday, and we can't have people over so late," Audie says firmly, spending the day cleaning, cooking and caring for Cindy while the twins are at school and Arthur at work. Cindy has been crawling for a while now, and is never in one place for long. 

Once Arthur comes home the entire family is hungry. The girls homework is done, and they can all sit and eat together. Cindy, however, is napping for most of dinner, and they wake her up after, so that she can blow out her candles. 

That night, as Arthur reads his little toddler to sleep, he notices how cramped they are in the house. For now, Cindy can stay in her parents room, sleeping in her toddler bed in a corner of the room and then play with her older sisters in their room during the day. Soon, however, she will need a room of her own, or a shared room with her sisters, but theirs is just not big enough for one more bed and there are no more rooms in the house. 

But for now, it will have to be good enough. Cindy won't need a big bed for some time, and things are just too busy to look for houses now. A date for the first US space walk has been set, and Arthur needs to make sure all the calculations are correct and all the machines are in order before they can take off. 




Instead, it's Barbara who keeps focus on her new house. Now that Abbys room is done, she can focus on the rest of the house. The studio, of course, though small and a bit cramped, and then the living room. She's opted for another mural, quite liking her first, and while Abby learns to eat solid food, and learn to crawl, Barbara works on her mural, her hair growing longer as she doesn't take time to cut it. When Ed White makes the first American spacewalk – floating outside the spacecraft for about 20 minutes and leaving Arthur to have some semblance of peace at work, Barbara is too busy to notice.




While Arthur is working on calculations that will get astronauts to the moon, and Barbara is renovating her new house, Michael has started high school. He certainly didn't miss the footage of Ed White in space, nor did his brother. Carl might be closing in on becoming a teenager himself, but he's still as fascinated with space as he ever was. He no longer says he wants to become an astronaut, it sounds too childish, but he still has some hope. That or an athlete, he has trouble making up his mind.

Michael wants none of that. He doesn't really know what he wants (other than a really hot girlfriend) but he does know he wants something more intellectual. Not a doctor like his father, but perhaps a journalist, or a lawyer or something. Something which will make a difference somehow. But for now he'll settle for doing well in school. 

He has some good friends already, and there is this one girl who... well who knows where that might go. All in all, he likes going to high school, and while dad might worry about long haired kids, he doesn't need to worry about this one not doing his homework.