Splashdown Ch. 01

I could tell Kathy was well aware she was telegraphing her own troubles over my misgivings. That wasn't what a counselor was supposed to do. It was however what I needed. I needed her to understand so she could tell me honestly at the end if I was crazy.

Kathy had digested everything thus far, so I kept going. She didn't try to disguise her amazement that there was more.

"There is another problem with a longer-term sexual liaison, it's how the two of us are wired. Peg wants there to be emotion tied with the physical deed. If her dalliance is short term that's one thing. But if she's incarcerated with him for a longer time and he truly becomes ... a lover, with basically no way to escape him, she will be practically forced to immerse herself in him. The guilt from betraying me will multiply exponentially because he will become a lover in the emotional context as well, and that will do her in.

"There may be a harsher edge for me as well. Look at it: if Peg doesn't just fall but falls for him, and has to choose her space flight lover or her ground-based husband, hasn't she already made the choice? She already chose the flight over me and would have already consciously and with consideration chosen him over me. So now instead of facing the man she betrayed, she gets the carrot of a guy in her same profession. A guy she shared the high of her life with. Astronauts in love makes a much better movie or novel than zero g work buds, so there is a lot for the newspapers and cable channels to talk about. Everyone is happy with a positive spin. Why run with "Adultery in Orbit" when you could have "I Found My Soul Mate in Space".

Kathy cringed. I could see her thinking, 'Holy crap, that is just the sort of pablum the press loves to spew.' As far as the emotional component to Peggy "falling" in space Kathy prayed I had it wrong. However, she had not found a way of refuting what I posited.

I added a layer to the growing onion, "The government will side with whatever gives them better pub. A happy ending is much better for the agency which has lost press interest; a romance might be just what it needs to get back in the public eye."

Kathy expelled a dejected sigh.

"There are other problems if Peg chooses me once she's back though. Once it gets out that she cheated up there, every astronaut spouse will not want their astronaut significant other to go up unless we bring back unisex crews. The spouses would be at odds with the space agency that wants good pub, and the press who want a story to sell. What a mess! Given that mess as an alternative, as if Peggy would need any further incentive, having all the powers-that-be aligned pressuring her to take the popular course, the answer they will push her for is "to hell with me! The poor girl simply fell in love, it had nothing to do with the mission per se." Isn't it easier to just flush me away than deal with the consequences of bad behavior? Take the new guy for now! If she just takes out the trash, me, quietly, she's a media queen and hero. You can even dump the new guy later, get off scot-free, and still be on every news agency as a recurring guest host when we have the next big space news."

Kathy was at a loss. As bad as I was painting matters, it was a paint by numbers picture. It seemed already laid out. She could not find a dent in the process big enough to wedge a toe in.

"So, on one hand Peg gets accolades, popularity, good press, and the good will of the space agency she loves, or she has a disgruntled man who is trying to love her when they both know she betrayed him several times over, coupled with the enmity of the space agency and all astronaut spouses. Why would Peg come back and pick the one way forward that is not covered in good will and accomplishment, but guilt and hardship?"

Kathy had to figure out a way to refocus the discussion on avoiding the problem instead of the fallout from it after the fact. Except I had not finished laying the issue out for her.

"I can't normally imagine Peg forming emotional ties with another man, then again normally she would not share physical intimacies either. I can't deal with that possibility. If it's short term and on ground that's one thing, long term and living with him and not me, whether it's in space or not, is something else entirely. Then it will be an affair and not a fall. The fall is hard enough.

"All of this is true for Peg too, even if she buys into the notion that her biology beat her down, which I am trying desperately to cling to, it's going to rip her in half. Why do I cling to an idea that is not necessarily intellectually honest? Because I love her and need a bridge back to her over a situation that normally would be relationship fatal. But why would she possibly entertain doing the same? Her alternative is that she just shared the most exciting adventure of her life with her new lover. Who wouldn't want to keep that going? That's rocket fuel for love! Kathy, if that's the case then I'm just as immolated as I would be if they tied me to the launchpad at lift off.

"If on the other hand Peg decides to try to stay with me, her one course may be the same course of lying to herself that I am practicing, so that she has a road back to me. Can mutual deceit in a common cause be a viable foundation for a loving relationship? I haven't found any research on that. I'm hoping you or some counselor you know may have that answer.

"Six months at 17500 mph is life in the fast lane, I don't know how she will handle it. I don't know how long it will take her to bounce back enough to even give me a chance to try to set it aside and save us. Her brain, her spirit, her soul will suffer greatly afterwards, and Kathy, Peg has virtually no coping skills for something like that."

I was pretty good at reading people. Kathy was wondering if she had coping skills for something like that herself. I could tell she felt exhausted, and we hadn't been speaking that long.

"Gary, how long have you been carrying this around?"

"Since I found out that Peggy's trip had been changed from one week to three months, and that she had known for a month and didn't tell me until I confronted her and forced her to come clean."

Kathy's mouth fell open and her eyes shot open. "What?"

"Peg said she kept it secret because she was scared to tell me. She said she was scared to disappoint me. Dr. Anderson, I don't want you to take me at face value on that one, I insist you ask Peggy about it. I have never been violent with her, which she says never played a role in her decision, although it undermines her position of fearing my reaction enough to keep the information from me. I need her actions corroborated by someone who understands, and you will do nicely. Because I considered her actions a lie of omission. Kathy, I have been off my center since I discovered Peggy knew something and lied to me to keep me from sharing. That all adds up to serious juju.

"Peggy never lied to me before, Kathy. She had accepted this mission at three months duration and never told me nor asked for my acceptance of it. I know spouses can go without each other for long periods, but she had me purposely believing this was still a one-week mission. I know the shuttles are retired so I already knew that could not possibly be the case. Kathy, Peggy had to know that I knew, but she still would not discuss it.

"Peggy knew the entire time it was a three-month trip and she had already told them she was go status. That's making a huge unilateral decision, cutting me completely out of it. Of course, I would have said she had to go. It's what I said shortly after I did know. But now it's even more a thorn in my side because I know my wife was going regardless of what I said. So, my world has changed; I now know my wife will lie to me. What I still don't know is when or why she will lie.

Now that I know she lied to me and that she placed the sanctity of the flight over honesty with me, the notion she could sacrifice her ideal of fidelity to achieve her goals also becomes real when it never was before. It's that seed thing I spoke of. Now that I know, I can't unsee what I know.

"Knowing she will lie to me about obvious things she can't possibly escape, ratchets up my fear of an affair. An affair she might never come clean about. So, I am hardly coming up with all this in a vacuum. I have too many good reasons to be concerned.

"As far as my dealing with the notion that Peg seeks out another man for, dammit, relief. I don't see any way to mitigate it. I just can't give Peg permission because I can't stand the notion." I looked up shaking now, "I-I don't have the defenses and can't seem to form them."

"Gary, why can't you form them?" Kathy's eyes were so large and full of sympathy.

It was an honest caring question not a challenge. While I might have said earlier that I like a challenge, I would resent the hell out of someone postulating that's all this was.

"Because to form them I have to shut her out and hold her at arms-length, which is just another way of losing her, merely before the fact. I need her to live now: she is that much a part of me. To lose her is to rip apart the man I currently am, and I don't think I'm a bad guy, in fact, I think I'm a good guy.

"Basically, it comes down to my letting her fulfill her destiny even though conditions have changed dramatically. Unfortunately, I believe that is tantamount to giving her permission to cheat, and I am not built that way."

Kathy was wondering about something I said earlier: I had mentioned two factors. I was still explaining the first. As I was running out of steam, she could tell we weren't likely to hit that second factor today. She was thinking, 'The poor guy, this wasn't a Q and A, as much as a counseling session or philosophical debate.' She understood that whether my concerns were valid or not, this situation had me spooked! Kathy wondered how much of a pun she had just made considering my probable profession.

She started when I spoke, "Doc Anderson, it's all a strange circumstance. Worse, I can't discuss it with Peg for two reasons. The first simply is giving her permission be with another is to give her a knife which says, "in case of emergency plunge into husband's chest". The cheating would be terrible, but to know she weighed the cost benefit and chose to sacrifice me is so withering I don't think I could rebound from it enough to save the marriage. But I said I would die for her, damn it, it looks like her dream mission is going to come at cost of my life, either as I knew it, or my happiness, or maybe ... I am a practical man if it gets to be too much ..."

"Gary no!" Kathy quickly interjected. Immediately she realized she was not speaking with a hysterical man. She looked at me seeing my resolve. A chill went down her spine as she connected some unwanted dots.

"Gary, have you faced mortal combat?"

Kathy's question deepened my gaze, "Doc, I know for a fact what I am capable of. It wasn't supposed to happen. The guys said I did okay, they respected me more afterwards. I'm not an operator. I just didn't want to die. It was more than that: getting back to Peggy was my strength, both in the moment of action and in the desperate escape back to the LZ afterwards." I stopped talking as her question was answered.

I looked straight into her eyes, "Kath, I can't stand losing her ... I guess I still don't want to die."