It was a fair question, and Catherine owed her a true answer. “When I was younger, before you were born, I wanted to see the stars more than anything. I wanted to be out there among them. After you were born I still wanted to see the stars, just not more than anything. Remember that, Aims: you don’t stop wanting things just because you have a baby; you just try to get better at making compromises.”
“And your compromise was to… leave?” Aimee’s voice was careful, as if she recognized that Catherine was working through her thoughts, too, that both of them were trying to find their footing.
“I know that sounds terrible.” Catherine still remembered the tension between her and David, but every time she asked, every time she tried to talk about it, he insisted it was fine and that she should go. “The Sagittarius missions are so important, Aimee. Now that we can reach planets outside our solar system, there’s a better and better chance we can find a planet like Earth. The Earth may be fine during my lifetime and yours, but… it might not. I told myself,” here Catherine’s voice started to thicken, remembering how difficult the conclusion had been, “that I might be away from you for six years, but I was part of making sure you would always have somewhere safe to live.” Remembered sadness faded into wry humor. “Oh, the irony; my biggest adventure yet, and I don’t remember a damn thing about the actual destination.”
“I’m sorry. That has to suck.”
All the lost time, during and after the trip, all the worry, losing nearly a decade of her life, and Aimee had managed to distill it down to four words. “Yeah.” Catherine allowed a laugh—because it was either laugh or cry—and said, “It definitely sucks.”
The aesthetician returned, much calmer than when she’d left. “Ladies, I apologize for taking so long.”
“Oh, we’re not in any hurry,” Catherine said, managing a smile that felt real behind the mask. The question still lingered in her mind. Had she made the right decision? Hindsight made it easy to second-guess herself. Would she still be asking herself this if the mission had been a success? It was an unanswerable question, as unknowable as her missing memories.
“Tony’s for all three of us?” Catherine kissed David’s cheek before he held out chairs for both her and Aimee. “Are you spending my hazard pay?” she teased. She’d been able to shake off her melancholy thanks to Aimee’s obvious enjoyment of their outing and brute determination on her part not to spoil it.
“No, Aimee’s college fund. She made out so well at her graduation party, I figure we can get away with it.”
“Hey!” Aimee protested good-naturedly. “I worked hard for that graduation money!”
David picked up his menu, but then let his eyes linger on Catherine. “You look radiant, both of you.”
Catherine and Aimee had finished the afternoon by getting their hair, makeup, and nails done. Catherine had to admit, it was the most glamorous she’d felt in a long while. “Your daughter is clearly better at being a girly-girl than her mother ever was.”
“Director Lindholm was telling me at the party that he wants you to start doing TV interviews. You should see if someone there can do your makeup if you do,” Aimee suggested.
Catherine groaned. “Is he still pushing that idea? Every time I think I’ve gotten him to give up, Paul tries a new angle to get me to agree.”
“The man is a bulldog. He doesn’t give up on anything,” David said.
The waiter arrived and they gave him their orders, then talk turned to Aimee’s plans for her dorm room. Even facing the fact that her daughter was going to go thousands of miles away in a few months was more appealing than thinking about Lindholm and his hunger for media coverage. More important, it felt normal.
“You should see the rooms, Mom. They’re so tiny! I don’t know how they expect future engineers to live together in such a small space. There’s hardly any work space at all…”
“We’ll get it figured out,” Catherine said.
After she and Aimee decided what dessert they wanted to split, Catherine realized something else had been weighing on her since yesterday. “Julie mentioned something at the party yesterday…” She toyed with the napkin in front of her. “The doctors have decided it’s all right to tell Mom about me coming back. Julie wants us to come to Chicago to see her this summer. ‘Sooner rather than later,’ she said.”
“Cath, that’s fantastic.”
“It is and it isn’t.” God, Catherine hated to bring this up here. “It… might not be much longer now. We might be going to, well,… say good-bye.”
Aimee took her hand. “Mom, we’ve known that for a long time now. It’s just new to you.” Aimee, as always, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
Goddamn it, she wasn’t going to sit here and cry in the middle of a restaurant. Catherine held her eyes open to keep the tears from spilling out, holding on to her husband and daughter. “Yeah, I guess it is. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine,” David said. “We’ll figure out the next weekend you can get away, okay? Talk to Aaron Llewellyn; he’ll find you some time.”
With the launch of Sagittarius II just weeks away, that was going to be hard. It might have to wait until after the launch, but now that Catherine knew she could go, she wanted to desperately. She missed Nora so badly, and couldn’t help feeling that seeing someone else who knew her, someone who knew her deep down in her bones, would help her shake this feeling of unreality and disconnection.
“Yeah, okay. Thank you.” Catherine was able to swallow the lump in her throat and smile at both of them. “I’m so lucky to have you both.” The idea of visiting Nora hung before her like a glimmer of hope, and she was going to reach for it with both hands.
12
“SOME THINGS DON’T change around here, do they?” Catherine sat in the cafeteria across from David on Monday, enjoying the sunshine coming through the atrium windows. “The politicking, the jockeying for the right sort of attention…” She nodded over to where a small group of systems engineers sat, and she could read enough body language to see a competition between two of them to get control of the conversation—even over lunch. Conversations like that happened all over NASA. Catherine had been in her fair share of them.
“Admit it—you missed it, didn’t you?” David teased.
“You know, it’s weird. Yes, in a way. People in large groups act so differently from those in smaller groups. I mean, you’d think people are people, right? But it’s… different.” Catherine shook her head. “I guess I just mean it’s nice to be back with everyone again.”
David smiled, then his gaze moved to a point behind Catherine. Cal Morganson stood there with a chilly smile. “Sorry to interrupt. David, can I steal Catherine for a few minutes?”
David stood up. “Of course. Cath, you want me to wait here?”
“Sure. I shouldn’t be long, right?” Catherine smiled curiously at Cal and stood as well.
“No, I won’t keep you,” Cal said, still radiating ice.
Catherine expected Cal to ask her to follow him to his office, but instead he surprised her by leading her out into the courtyard off the cafeteria.
“Let’s walk for a moment,” he said.
He led her away—from potential listeners, she realized. Once they were out of earshot, she asked, “What can I do for you?”
Cal didn’t answer, uncharacteristically quiet at first. Catherine waited, curious to see what sort of game he was playing.
Finally he said, “I was here late Saturday, finishing paperwork. I looked out my office window and saw you drive up a little after midnight. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”