Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“He would have gone up.”
Graham startled. “I’m sorry—are you saying that you believe your husband would have still made the same choices even if he knew he wasn’t going to come home?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, the facade slipped, and Graham stared at her not as the world-renowned newsman, but as a man who had loved her, and she could see the incredulity in his gaze, could read all the unspoken words there, saw the moment that he grappled with the knowledge that she had just admitted on national television that she, Vivian Mitchell, a woman who lived her life with the goal of avoiding as many risks as possible, who was as pragmatic and responsible as anyone could be, had fallen in love with a man who would have willingly gone to space with the knowledge that he likely wasn’t coming back.
“I loved Joe,” she said more by way of explanation to Graham than to the audience.
“And he loved me. And he loved space. And if my husband was sitting here today, he would demand answers. He would want accountability; he would want better for the spaceflights to follow his. And he would want to know that America had put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, just like President Kennedy vowed years ago.”
Silence filled the air for a few more seconds than necessary, and then Graham recovered smoothly, ever the consummate newsman.
“Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Mrs. Mitchell. Before we go, is there anything else you have to say to the audience?”
Graham referred to the viewing audience, of course, but pure instinct had her looking out at the sea of cameramen and television crew watching the interview.
Vivian froze.
Kerry Krieger stood in the back by the door.
She hadn’t changed much in five years, was exactly as Vivian envisioned her each time she thought about picking up the phone and asking Kerry for the chance she’d offered before.
The chance to make her voice matter once more.
There were so many things she wanted to say, so many emotions inside of her.
She was angry, and she was sad, and she felt like Joe was sitting here beside her, and as much as she had told Polly that she wanted to burn it all down, as much as she wished the damned space program had never existed in the first place, that the Soviets had never launched Sputnik and started this whole Space Race, as much as she wished she’d fallen in love with a dentist, or an accountant, or the postman, she was here on as big of a stage as she ever would be, and she was Joe Mitchell’s widow, and considering she had loved him with every breath inside her body, she couldn’t be the one to bring down the dream he had loved so much.
And at the same time, she thought of Bridget and Polly, the widows and wives who had been pushed aside so much, and she knew that she had to speak because she would regret it for the rest of her life if she did not.
She had spent so much of her life standing in the shadows of other people, often by choice. But she had changed. Life had changed her.
It was time to take a step into the spotlight no matter how much it terrified her.
It was time to be brave.
Vivian looked straight at the camera.
“It is an audacious thing to go to space.
It is an awesome thing to see an astronaut be launched into the universe, to dream of putting an astronaut on the Moon one day.
It is glamorous, and exciting, and heroic.
What is far less glamorous, or exciting, is the wife who is waiting for her husband to come home at the end of the day.
The child who wakes up Christmas morning without a parent.
“There is a cost to all of this. One that is often hidden behind the glossy magazine articles and press conferences. One that is hard to see when your gaze is focused on a Saturn V rocket heading to the Moon. This lifestyle—it’s breaking us.
It’s breaking our families, our marriages.
It doesn’t have to be like this. It doesn’t have to be so hard all the time. We deserve better.”
In the back of the studio, Kerry smiled.
Vivian waited patiently in her seat as Graham signed off from their interview, as the cameras went down, as the crew removed her microphone.
She thanked everyone who had helped, and then she walked off the stage to where Kerry waited for her.
“I told you that you would be good on camera,” Kerry said by way of greeting. “When I heard the news—I’m sorry for your loss, for what happened to your husband, to the other astronauts.”
“Thank you. I’m surprised to see you here.”
Kerry nodded toward the stage. “Did you know I got my start at this station? I heard a rumor that Graham was going to interview you and, well, I called in a few favors.” Kerry cocked her head to the side, studying Vivian.
“I was surprised you didn’t call me for the interview, although I suppose with your history, it isn’t wholly unexpected that you would reach out to Carlson.
You could have made the story your own, you know. ”
“I wasn’t ready,” Vivian replied.
“And now? What’s next for you?”
Vivian thought about Joe—the risks he’d taken chasing his dream.
Of the way those people had cheered on his launch, of the sense she’d had when she was watching the Saturn V fly through the sky that she was part of something bigger than herself, something that was unifying them all, giving them hope when they desperately needed it.
She’d never go to the Moon, of course. But there were other ways to make a difference. It was time.
“I’d like to talk to you about a job. I’d like to try my hand at delivering the news—on camera.”