Leigh grew up in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Her mother was distant and her father was turbulent and violent towards her. Leigh did what she could to protect her little sister from him. She used the water and swimming as a way to get away from her home and her father. And once she was old enough, she stayed away--going to school as soon as she could. Leigh got a degree in marine biology and was researching all over the world. She was lucky enough to get onboard a boat that was sent to explore a newly discovered trench in the ocean. The trench was deeper than had ever been known before. The Captain of the boat and a man who had become a mentor to Leigh swam into the trench and disappeared, right before they were supposed to turn back.
After the boat expedition, Leigh was invited to work in Southern California on a very secret project that involved space travel. Leigh was working on growing plankton that could be eaten and grown in space for long-distance space travel. At some point, she is made the backup to the backup space mission and begins training. Because of the distance, the secrecy of the mission, and the demands of Leigh's work, Leigh is not able to go home. So, even as her mother loses her memories and her sister gets more frustrated, Leigh distances herself farther.
After named as the backup to the backup, it was inevitable that Leigh and her two partners would end up going to space. The three of them leave Earth, using borrowed technology that they don't understand to go farther and faster than human beings ever have before. At first things go well, but then their bodies start to fall apart, and it is a slow decline.
The end of the book suddenly and unexpectedly switches perspectives to Leigh's younger sister, Helena. Helena is trying to find out what has happened to her sister. The spaceship lost contact and Helena was informed that her sister was dead. But she knows nothing else. Many years later Helena is able to visit the island where Leigh was supposed to have returned, and she finds the building that had been set up for the astronauts to quarantine.
The final scene of the book is a bit of a mystery. Leigh splashes back down on Earth. She is the only one alive. She kicks open her space capsule and there is only water. She saw on the way down that the entire Earth is covered in water. My guess on what happened here, is that Leigh was traveling faster than the speed of light, which does something with time. She comes back to Earth after many decades or centuries to discover what havoc climate change has wrought.
Perhaps the theme of this book is a frustrating lack of closure on any story line. Whether it's Leigh's family, the Captain of the boat at the trench, or even what happened at the end--it all feels very open ended. Perhaps this lack of closure more closely resembles real life even if it's not what we expect in literature, and maybe that's why I can't forget about it. Although this book was a bit of a struggle at times, and I sometimes wished MacInnes would explain things a little more, I'm glad I read it.
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