Chapter Fourteen #2
“I asked to see you because someone gave me this—” Vivian reached into her purse and pulled out the folded piece of paper and handed it to Graham.
She waited while he read over it, and then he glanced up at her, concern on his face. “Who gave this to you?”
“I don’t know. A man handed it to me at the press conference I gave right after Joe and the crew disappeared, but it was so crowded that I didn’t get a chance to see who it was.
He was wearing a hat, I think. A suit, I suppose.
I saw him from behind, but it was only a glimpse.
I didn’t know the significance of what he handed me until later.
I regret I didn’t pay more attention in the moment. ”
Graham glanced around the nearly empty bar before leaning in more closely to her. He lowered his voice. “There are some rumors that there were problems with the telemetry system on the capsule. Up until now, that’s all I’ve heard—rumors. This is the first concrete piece of evidence I’ve seen.”
“I didn’t know if you were working the story,” Vivian murmured, even though that wasn’t exactly true.
She had certainly suspected. And most importantly, she had noticed that none of his reporting ever suggested that the crew might have been responsible for a mishap affecting the spacecraft, as others’ had.
“It’s the biggest story right now. Everyone is working it.” Graham picked up his pencil, opening his notebook once more. “Did Joe ever talk to you about concerns with the capsule?”
“No, he didn’t. That sort of thing—Joe wouldn’t have wanted me to worry. He knew how I felt about his job, and—”
Vivian’s voice broke off. For a moment, she’d committed the cardinal sin of forgetting who she was talking to.
Yes, they had history, and yes, once they had been lovers—friends, even—but at the end of the day, Graham was still a reporter and a shrewd one at that.
The last thing she needed right now was the press dissecting her marriage or writing off the entire business as an accident because Joe had been distracted.
“He didn’t want me to worry,” Vivian repeated. “I read the memo, but I’ll admit, I didn’t understand all the scientific information contained there.
“You said that you’d heard rumors—from who?” Vivian asked.
Graham shook his head. “Come on. You know I can’t give up a source.”
“I gave you the memo.”
“You gave me the memo because you want me to do something with it. You forget that I know you, too.”
“Perhaps.”
Vivian wasn’t entirely sure why she decided to give him the memo; these days it was hard to tell what was rational and what was a product of her grief.
But if there had been a problem with the spacecraft and they’d sent the men up anyway, she needed to know.
Maybe it would give her the closure she needed to finally feel like she could accept that Joe was gone, and at the very least, hopefully increased scrutiny and attention to the safety practices would keep similar accidents from happening again.
Certainly, it would go a long way to clearing her husband’s and the other astronauts’ names. It felt like the least she could do.
“Why bring it to me?” Graham asked. “Why not take the story yourself?”
She shook her head. “My husband isn’t a story. Not to me. I’m not—I’m not ready yet. I’m bringing it to you because you have the biggest reach of anyone I know. And because I trust you to do the right thing. You always have.”
“Thank you.” Graham cleared his throat. “Have you shared it with anyone at NASA?”
“I showed it to someone I trust, asked them if they’d heard anything about it.”
She felt a loyalty to Frank, to Joe’s friendship with him, to Polly’s family. She didn’t want to drag him into this if he didn’t have anything to do with it.
“Had they?”
Vivian shook her head.
“And you believe them?”
“I do. Have you learned anything else?”
“No. I’ve been trying to talk to someone within the agency, to get an astronaut to speak to me on background, but no such luck even without me using their name.”
“I have a feeling it’s going to be hard to get anyone who wants to speak out even if they do know something,” Vivian replied, recalling her conversations with Frank. “It’s the Moon—”
“I know. Everyone wants to protect the possibility of trying to achieve lunar orbit, of eventually putting a man on the Moon.”
So many aspired to go to the Moon, looked up at it with a sense of wonder and a zeal in their eyes. The sight of it haunted her now.
Would she ever look up at the night sky in the same way? Would she ever again be able to appreciate the beauty now that she knew the cost?
“This memo—you think that this is what went wrong? The reason they lost contact with the spacecraft?” Graham asked.
Had there been a problem with the telemetry system like the memo suggested?
Had Joe worried about the mission? He’d been different in the days leading up to the launch—she’d chalked it up to nerves and the fact that he knew she didn’t want him to go, that she was angry, but now Vivian couldn’t help but wonder if there had been something else bothering him.
They were supposed to be partners, and it hurt to know that he hadn’t confided in her.
But that was the trouble with his job. Given the sensitive nature of the space program, so much of his work had been off-limits to her, and they’d fought so much about it that it had become such a sore subject between them.
“I think it could be. What is your plan? What are you going to do next?” Vivian asked.
“Keep digging. See if I can convince someone to talk to me.”
Vivian remembered those days, the thrill of chasing down a lead, watching a story unfold before her.
A part of her craved that feeling again, how it had made her feel powerful, particularly now when she felt anything but; however, she had been honest when she told Graham that she wasn’t ready, that the idea of covering what happened to Joe hit too close to home.
“Is the network behind this?” she asked Graham.
“They are,” Graham replied. “Look, there have been enough problems with the space program that people are starting to have concerns. It’s not as popular as it was when President Kennedy first proposed that we go to the Moon.
The American public wants answers.” He met her gaze.
“I suppose I wanted to talk to you first to make sure you were alright with me pursuing this line. I want you to know that it’s not just a story to me—it’s a matter of national interest, yes, but I don’t want you to get hurt in the process.
You’ve been through so much, and I care about you, Vivian. Always.”
“Thank you.” As a journalist, Vivian understood how much it would cost Graham to walk away from a story like this, and considering she’d ended their relationship, she was grateful for the kindness he was showing her now.
“If there was a problem with the spacecraft, I don’t want it to get buried.
I want you to track down every lead you can.
I know how often operator error is blamed, saw the beginnings of it with the questions the reporters asked me at the press conference, have been following the negative press coverage that has cropped up since then.
I don’t want Joe to be unfairly blamed, don’t want the three of them to be forgotten. ”
“They won’t be. I promise you that. I’ll do some digging, make some calls. I promise that as soon as I know something, I’ll let you know.”
“What are you hearing from official channels?” she asked him.
“Probably the same thing you are.”
“I very much doubt that. I’m being managed. Likely even more so because I’m not just Joe’s wife, but a former journalist.”
“There’s been some talk about Joe’s state of mind,” Graham said, refusing to meet her gaze. “About everything he’d—your family—had been through.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Vivian. It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t. Then again, life rarely is fair. We only have to open a newspaper or turn on one of your broadcasts to be reminded of that. It could always be worse. I’m sure somewhere it is worse.”
Graham appeared as though he was at a loss for words, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for him.
She imagined he had been expecting to see the girl he once knew, the girl he once loved, the girl she once was, but she’d lived a lot of life since then, and she was certain she was now a sanded-down, barely recognizable version of herself.
“I’m here for whatever you need,” Graham finally replied.
He reached out to take her hand, and then he froze mid-motion as though he remembered the way she’d reacted when he’d embraced her, his fingers inches away from the wedding ring on her finger.
Vivian placed her hands in her lap, glancing down at her linked fingers.
“Thank you.”
Graham was silent for a moment, and she knew him well enough to know that he was searching for the right thing to say, and nerves filled her as she waited for whatever he had to tell her.
“Have you thought about telling your story?” Graham finally asked.
“My story?”