Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
Forty-Five Days Gone
Vivian opened the door to her Cocoa Beach house, surprised to see Dr. Robbins—Cal—standing on her doorstep.
“I’m sorry to bother you—I tried calling first, but the operator said no one answered,” he said.
“I thought I’d drive over here and leave this on your doorstep, but, well, I saw the car in the driveway and figured I’d take my chance and knock on your door.
We really should stop meeting like this,” he joked.
Vivian laughed, surprised at how pleased she was to see him. “Come in. Sorry about the phone earlier. Ever since my television interview, people keep calling, and sometimes it’s just easier to ignore it.”
He followed her into the house, turning down her offer of lemonade.
They sat on the couches opposite each other in the living room.
“I saw your interview,” Cal offered. “I thought you were wonderful.”
“Thank you. I hope it will make a difference. I’m starting a reporting segment as well—I’ll be on-air. One of the first stories I’m working on is interviewing some of the astronaut spouses about their experiences—maybe talk about the struggles military spouses are facing as well.”
She was simultaneously nervous about being thrust in the limelight and excited about the possibility there, about this new direction her career was taking. It gave her a sense of purpose. It gave her hope.
“That sounds amazing. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. The agency has asked to meet with me, to talk about quality-of-life issues for astronaut families, so I’m hopeful that they’re really interested in making a change,” Vivian added.
“They’d be foolish not to, considering you highlighted the struggles astronaut families are facing on national television.”
“I hope I can do their struggles—our struggles—justice. I never really wanted Joe to go to space. I mean, I did, as his wife, because he wanted it and I wanted to love and support him, but it’s never meant the same to me that it seems to mean to everyone else.
I didn’t understand why he wanted to go to space so badly.
Didn’t understand how he could risk so much. ”
Cal remained silent across from her while she spoke, and there was something about his presence—or perhaps how much she’d been speaking her mind lately after being silent for so long—that emboldened her.
“I worried. When he was a pilot—I worried constantly. The nights before he would fly, I would lie beside him in bed and I would just watch him sleep, and I didn’t want to let him go. It seemed like we were tempting fate in a way.
“With as many horrible things going on in the world, I felt so lucky to have found him. It felt like an impossibility of sorts that we could love each other so much, that I could find someone with whom I felt so at peace. I suppose I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to not come home one day. I would watch it happen to families we knew, watch pilots he flew beside crash, hold their wives’ hands while they grieved, and it felt like we were hurtling to this moment.
To one day it being us.” Vivian took a deep breath.
“I’m angry. And it’s not even that I’m angry with NASA—I mean, I am angry with NASA, angry with Joe, angry with the whole damned world and this country’s bizarre obsession with going to space.
My hope is that this television opportunity gives me a chance to turn that anger into something that could make a difference. ”
“I don’t know you very well,” Cal said. “And perhaps I’m speaking out of turn, but from where I’m sitting, I’d say you’re doing the best you can to manage a very difficult situation. I don’t think many people could imagine being in your shoes, and if they were, who knows how they would react.”
“Thank you.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small paperback novel. “I came here to give you this. I mean—not Cocoa Beach, here—I’m here for work at the Cape—but I wanted to bring this to you,” he finished, his cheeks flushed.
Cal handed the book to her. “I know you said science fiction isn’t your favorite genre to read, that it was more your husband’s, but I thought you might like this book.”
Vivian glanced down at the cover and title.
Infinity. By Michel Robert.
Something went very still inside her.
It had been a month since her interview, nearly six weeks since she traveled to Hampton, Virginia, and there hadn’t been another sign from Joe, no more notes saying “wait for me,” no objects out of place, nothing since she’d found his copy of The Mystery of Time and gone to see Cal.
“It was my favorite when I was a kid,” Cal continued.
“Sorry it’s a little worn. It’s the original copy my parents gave me when I was a boy.
I’ve probably read it a hundred times.” He looked a little embarrassed by that fact.
“It’s pretty incredible that you can pick up a book at so many different points in your life and still love it every single time.
If that’s not the sign of a great book, I don’t know what is.
“Anyway, I know it seems like a strange thing to bring you, but what you were saying about your husband—it got me thinking. There’s a similar storyline in this book.
A man goes to space and basically comes back as a different version of himself, only he doesn’t know it. It’s fiction, of course, but—”
“It was Joe’s favorite book,” Vivian whispered. “He has a copy in the bedroom. He read it when he was a kid. It was one of the books that made him want to become an astronaut.”
Cal smiled. “He had good taste, then. I confess when I read it, it made me want to be an astronaut, too.” He pointed at the glasses on his face. “Didn’t have the vision for it, though. I tried to join the military first—wanted to be a pilot—but I was disqualified on account of my eyesight.”
“And yet, you found a way to work in the field you love even if it isn’t exactly what you imagined.”
He nodded. “I’m not going to lie, it’s not as exciting as going to space, but I like what I do. There’s a poetry to science, something romantic about using it to understand the world around you. It’s like a secret language or a series of coded messages that unlocks the meaning behind our universe.
“I should go,” Cal said, rising from his seat on the couch.
Vivian rose at the same time he did, and they stood there staring at each other, and Cal shook his head slightly as though he was confused, and for the first time, she wasn’t.
After all, they lived in a universe filled with infinite possibilities.
“Would you like to get a coffee or something?” Cal asked her.
“ ‘Or something,’ ” Vivian echoed. She smiled. “I’d like that very much.”