Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
Vivian was packing up the last box in the kitchen, wrapping newspaper around Joe’s favorite coffee mug, when someone knocked at the door.
She set the mug down gently on top of the box, a rush of déjà vu hitting her as she remembered standing in her kitchen in Houston, packing this very same mug to take to this house in Cocoa Beach.
She’d been grieving then as she was grieving now, and she’d taken hold of the mug, a flash of anger filling her at how impotent she felt against the weight of the world.
The mug had felt hefty in that moment, solid, and she’d imagined taking it and just chucking it at the wall with all her might, watching it smash into smithereens as she felt like her life was breaking all around her.
Now she glanced at it, grateful for the fact that she hadn’t destroyed it, that it would be another memory of Joe that she would have to carry with her to the apartment she’d rented in Arlington.
When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Frank standing on the other side, looking like he’d just come from work, his briefcase still in hand.
“Sorry to bother you,” Frank said. “I tried calling, but it says the phone’s been disconnected.”
“It has. Come on in.” Vivian stepped back, allowing him room to move over the threshold as she closed the door behind him. She saw the moment it hit him—the impact of the nearly empty house a final reminder that Joe wasn’t coming back.
Vivian put her hand on his shoulder, holding him steady.
“Damn, I miss him,” Frank whispered, the grief in his voice making her knees wobble. He glanced at her. “He would have been so proud of your interview, what you said on television. He’d be so proud of this new television job you have. Would be telling everyone they have to watch you on the news.”
“Thank you.”
Letters had begun arriving after her interview with Graham.
Many of them were supportive and encouraging, but others called her a traitor for even speaking out about the space program as little as she did, said she should be ashamed of herself for being un-American and not wholeheartedly supporting the astronaut program, for being critical of military life and the Space Race.
It felt like no matter what she had said in her interview, someone was going to take issue with it, but the thing she worried about most was the notion that Joe might have taken issue with it, the nagging worry in her mind that she had perhaps broken some unspoken code.
Hearing otherwise from Frank, Joe’s best friend, meant everything.
“I’d offer you a place to sit, but they’ve already taken the furniture. How are you doing, Frank? How are things at work?”
“They’re alright. There will be investigations about what happened, I promise you that, Vivian. Everyone’s already starting to ask the right questions. Your interview put the spotlight on this thing in a way that we won’t be able to look away from it. We’re facing a lot of scrutiny right now.”
“I’m not trying to take down the space program.”
“I know that. I’m sorry if I made you think I was anything but in your corner.
In the aftermath of the launch, it felt like everything was falling apart.
I lashed out because I was scared, and I was grieving.
Because I felt responsible in a way because I was the one on the ground.
I shouldn’t have. You were right to ask the questions that you did.
Right to push the way you did. Joe would have done the same for you if the roles were reversed. ”
Vivian hadn’t realized until now how badly she needed to hear him say this, how badly she needed to know that their years of friendship would survive, that by continuing to have Frank in her life, it would be another link to her husband that she would have to hold on to.
It wasn’t something she took for granted.
She saw how it was for so many of the other widows, how they were excluded and pushed to the fringes, treated as though they were a constant negative reminder of all the things that could go wrong in spaceflight.
Considering how much they supported their spouses—and how much the astronauts and, subsequently, the space program relied upon that support—it had always struck Vivian as shameful the way it seemed like they were left with so little after they had given so much.
“Thank you, Frank. That means a lot. Your friendship means a lot.”
He cleared his throat. “I have you to thank, too. What you said in that interview…it really made me think about what it’s been like for all of you for so long.
What it’s been like for Polly and my family.
I want to do right by them. I want to do better than I have.
If that means giving this all up, then so be it.
I don’t want to be looking down the end of my life, alone, separated from my girls, or on my second or third wife, regretting the choices I’ve made. ”
“You’re a good man, Frank.”
“I’m trying to be. I have a date with Polly on Friday. I’m taking her out to dinner and dancing. I figure it’s a start.”
Vivian smiled. “It sounds like a fine one.”
She didn’t tell him that she spent the last weekend dress shopping with Polly while she was out in Cocoa Beach visiting, figured she’d let him be surprised.
Frank’s expression changed, the hope in his eyes becoming something more serious.
“Vivian. The reason I came by to see you today is—” Frank was silent for a moment.
“Before the mission, the astronauts decided they wanted to record messages for their families.” He swallowed.
“It’s something we all started doing in case the worst happened.
In case we didn’t make it back.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a videotape.
“Joe asked me to give you this before he left in case—”
Vivian stared at that tape in his hands, torn between a greedy eagerness to yank it from him and play it as quickly as possible, and a heaviness that filled her at the thought of seeing Joe again and hearing his last words to her.
Up until now she had this image of Joe in her mind, an image that she had carried with her that felt finite and complete.
And now it was going to change again, evolve to encompass this new, unforeseen moment in their history, and she wasn’t ready.
She didn’t feel ready for any of this.
Vivian glanced around their little house, at the boxes there, and that familiar urge returned—the urge to scream, to break something, to rail against the futility of the world.
Sometimes grief, like love, played on an infinite loop.
“Thank you,” she replied, taking it from Frank.
She stared at the tape in her hand, and then back at her husband’s best friend. Frank looked worn down by the entire experience, and she realized this likely wasn’t the first time he’d had to go through this process.
“Have you had to do the same with the other families?”
He nodded. “I gave Bridget an audio cassette tape that Michael left for her and the kids after the funeral. Paul did an audio recording for his parents as well.”
Of course, of all the mediums he could have chosen, Joe went with a video.
It almost felt like another message from him—a callback to that first night they met when she explained to him what television meant to her, the comfort it gave her when she was a little girl at home alone, trying to make sense of a confusing and ever-changing world where she never truly felt safe.
It seemed like another way Joe was trying to give her comfort despite the immeasurable loss she was forced to navigate.
—
Vivian waited until that evening, until she was alone in the motel room she’d rented since their furniture had already been moved out of the house.
Since they were hard to find, Frank had brought over a Sony CV-2000 videotape player he’d gotten from work and set it up so that she could watch Joe’s video when she was ready.
If she was being honest, she took her time before watching it, slowing down the pace of the evening as one might prolong and savor a favorite meal.
It was the finality that struck her the most, the sense that she would never again experience Joe walking into a room or taking her into his arms. There were so many moments in their relationship when the sight of him had set off a thrill inside her, and it was the absence of that pure, unadulterated joy that she felt so keenly.
In a manner of speaking, this felt like the last one of those moments she would ever have before she had to say goodbye.
Her hand shook as she pressed “play.”
There was a pause, the screen fuzzy, and then Joe stared back at her.
Alive.
Vivian took a deep breath, the sight of him a shock she hadn’t prepared for. Seeing him like this—it almost felt like he was alive, still with her, existing in this tape he had made and the last words he wanted to share with her.
And then she recognized the outfit he was wearing—
It was the same shirt and pants he’d worn that day she asked him to leave the astronaut program, when they’d had that terrible fight, and he’d walked out the door.
Had he known while they were arguing that he was going to be recording this later, or had he gone into work and needed to release some steam and decided to leave this message for her?
She wished she knew.
Vivian reached out, her fingers touching the glass on the television screen, hovering near his face as though the surface between them would simply disappear and she could stroke his skin.
She imagined the warmth of his breath on her lips, imagined the future they would have had if things had been different, if he’d never gone to space.
“Viv.”
Her breath hitched at her name leaving his lips, the sound one she hadn’t thought she would ever hear again.
The affection in his voice rang through, and with that one word she knew that their fight hadn’t diminished how he felt about her, that the awful day hadn’t defined their relationship, that he loved her as he always had, as she’d always loved him.
They had always been able to communicate with each other without saying anything at all, and she knew that he had intentionally chosen to record the video on this specific day, had wanted her to know that their last memories together weren’t defined by the struggles in their marriage, but most importantly, by the love they’d shared.
“If you’re watching this, I want you to know that I’m sorry.
More than you can ever know. This life—I never wanted to put you through all this.
God knows you’ve had to weather more than anyone should.
I know you always thought I loved flying and space more than you, but I want you to know, Viv, what I said to you that day, about you keeping me grounded, being the thing that tethers me to what’s important.
I meant it. Every word. I couldn’t do any of this if I didn’t know that I had you to come home to.
“You’ve given me that—a home. The family I always wanted.
This life we’ve made together, difficult as it can be, has meant more to me than anything—flying and space included.
” He took a deep breath. “I know it’s going to be hard for you now, Viv, and I’m so damned sorry that I’m leaving you alone.
I wouldn’t blame you if you moved on. Just promise me you won’t do it with a Navy man,” Joe joked, and despite the tears running down her cheeks, Vivian laughed.
The jovial rivalry between Air Force and Navy pilots was something Vivian had gotten used to over the years, even more so because the astronaut corps was comprised of a mix of military flying backgrounds, offering countless opportunities for banter and good-natured ribbing between them.
“Seriously, though, Viv. I just want you to know that I love you. More than anything. Always. I promise I’ll find you again. In this life or the next.”
Joe said it with such conviction, such certainty, that she felt it in her bones, knew that despite the impossibilities of such a promise, she could count on it.
His gaze was unwavering as he said it, and for a moment, she thought he’d finished; all things considered, he’d ended things on a pretty perfect note.
But then he smiled.
A quintessentially Joe smile that sent a thrill through her body and gave her that Coney Island roller coaster feeling all over again, like in the beginning when she was falling in love and in all the moments in between.
“And who knows? Maybe all that science fiction reading will come in handy.” Joe’s smile deepened, and by the faraway look in his eyes she knew he was remembering that day in his apartment in Italy and the conversation they’d had.
“Maybe there’s something out there. Maybe there’s some chance to find my way back to you.
Maybe I can come back as someone with a boring job,” he joked, referencing her frequent quips that she desperately wished he had a different job, any job.
Something like a postman, or an accountant, or a dentist—
Her heart thudded, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it, thought of the rivalry Frank had alluded to, the way the astronauts liked to give them a hard time—and the story Cal had told her of his favorite book as a boy and how it had made him want to be an astronaut, the same book that had been Joe’s favorite, and how Cal had pointed at his glasses and explained that his eyesight kept him in a lab somewhere rather than in space.
She whispered the words at the same time her husband said them on the screen.
“Maybe I’ll come back as a scientist.”