The skylight opened only halfway. If Tea pushed it any farther, rain dripped straight onto her pillow. The landlord called it the character of an old building. Tea called the room temporary, although she had been keeping her books in a suitcase for four months. After the breakup, she had no energy for another round of unpacking.
She translated instructions for devices she had never seen. Her former partner used to tell her it was time to find more serious work. Then he left with a colleague whose career he considered more ambitious. Tea heard that sentence in her head even when a client paid her on time. At night, she watched one bright point between the television antennas and imagined that at least it stayed in place.
When she sent a photograph to the local astronomy club, a member named Omer replied. He explained that it was a planet, not a star, and that it would not always remain in the same part of the sky. For reasons she could not explain, this made Tea sad. She wrote back that he had just ruined her cheapest form of security.
Omer apologized and sent her the schedule of observations on the hill above town. He did not insist that she come. Over the following weeks, they exchanged photographs of the sky and bad jokes about clouds. She corrected awkward sentences in the club newsletter, and he told her when it was worth opening her window.
She arrived late for her first observation evening. Omer was a man in a broad hat carrying a thermos of tea, a little older than she had assumed. When he asked what she did, she said she translated. She waited for him to ask what she really did. Instead, he wanted to know which word was hardest to translate.
She did not fall in love that evening. Later, that mattered to her. She liked the way he gave her room to approach the telescope herself and did not take offense when she declined a ride home. They met on Sundays, and sometimes on Wednesdays when the sky was not worth watching.
In spring, she found a regular client and rented an apartment with proper windows. Omer helped her carry the books, then asked where she wanted them. Only then did she realize she had stopped waiting for someone to show her what she ought to want.
On her first night in the new apartment, she could not see the planet. She sat on the floor, unpacking her suitcase. Her phone lit up with his message: "Clouds." She replied with a photograph of her shelves, finally full.