Chapter Three #3
Polly’s entire demeanor transformed, and Vivian realized just how tightly her friend had been holding on to her emotions. “Vivian, that’s amazing. Mission Control was able to reestablish communication with the spacecraft?”
Vivian hesitated. “That’s the thing—I just spoke with Frank. He said he hadn’t heard anything.”
“How is that possible? If you heard it on the squawk box, how could they have missed it? Don’t they record these things? Maybe the communication problem is on their end, something in Mission Control.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. I got the impression, though, that Frank thinks I imagined it or was dreaming.”
“Oh, Vivian.” Polly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.
“I’m sure you didn’t imagine it. Hopefully, he’s out there and there’s just a problem with the radio or something.
You know how tricky these systems are. How much the guys complain about things going wrong when they’re prepping for a launch.
They’ll get it figured out. They have to. ”
Joe had talked to her about how much pressure they were all under at work. Vivian had seen how Joe carried himself in the weeks and days leading up to the mission, although every time she’d asked him if everything was alright, he’d said that it was.
Had there been something else bothering him? A problem with the spacecraft he hadn’t wanted her to know about?
“Frank wants me to give a statement,” Vivian added. “To give the nation hope and to make the space program look good.”
Anger flashed in Polly’s gaze. “I wish I could say that I’m surprised, that your worry and grief are bigger than the space program, but, well, that’s not true, is it?”
“ ‘The mission comes first,’ ” they both echoed in unison, their voices soft, but the words rote now for how much they had been drilled into them, how many times those words—spoken or not—had been given to them in moments of deep worry and pain, drowning out the hope that perhaps once—just this once—it wouldn’t be the mission that won.
The mission came before wives, children, elderly parents, ill relatives, family weddings, holidays, vacations, first steps, and last breaths.
It came before the dreams of every other member of the family.
It came before moments that could never, ever be replaced, memories that could never be replicated.
They were often told it was what they had signed up for, which was a complete and total load of bullshit as far as Vivian was concerned. There was no road map for this life, and no timeline for it, either. It was constant and unending, more than one spouse buckling under the weight of it.
They also all knew that Vivian was spectacularly bad at it.
She glanced back at the squawk box, anger filling her as she remembered how quickly Frank had rushed her off the phone, how he’d dismissed the evidence she’d presented him with, years of being ignored and devalued, of watching the other spouses be forced to perform under immense pressure, tragedy, and heartache, culminating together in this moment of striking clarity. Of being forced to do the same herself.
“I don’t want to give a statement. Talk to the press.
Any of it. It feels like—” Something squeezed tightly in the vicinity of Vivian’s heart.
“It feels like they’re laying the groundwork to accept that the spacecraft isn’t recoverable, that they’re already looking to the next mission, and they’re more interested in safeguarding that than bringing Joe and the others home. ”
Polly glanced at the closed doorway behind them and then back at Vivian.
She lowered her voice. “Then don’t say the statement they want you to deliver.
You’re a journalist. You don’t need someone to tell you how to feel, how to express yourself.
And you don’t need to be worried about carrying the space program’s message for them.
You go out there and you speak from your heart.
You tell the public what you want them to know about Joe. What do you want to say?”
“I’m not—I’m not good at this stuff. I’m not good on camera, or with interviews. You know that.”
“Then you’re going to have to be,” Polly replied. “For Joe. And for yourself. If you’re going to address the world, we’d better get you ready.”
Polly strode over to Vivian’s closet, flipping through the clothes hanging there before she settled on a dress that they’d bought on the same trip when they’d purchased her launch outfit. This one was a sedate navy.
At the time, neither one of them had spoken it aloud—there were some things you just didn’t discuss, whether it was a test flight, or a combat mission, or a trip to the Moon—but they’d both understood what they were doing, had both known that the navy dress would be saved for an occasion such as this one, a moment in time when Vivian might be forced to face the world and address the terrifying part of her husband’s job.
She’d hoped she would never have an occasion to wear it.
Vivian glanced back at the squawk box.
She would give anything to hear her name once more.
Silence greeted her instead.
Where was Joe?