Splashdown Ch. 02

Peg went through several expressions, anger was still one: no one likes to be accused, but my tone was not accusatorial, rather highly concerned. She was pensive as she actually looked at the pattern and saw it for herself. She was frustrated the pattern actually existed. Then fear as the recognition dawned that indeed there were a whole host of parallels there.

"Babe, I don't think that you are conspiring to cheat on me. If you were, you would cover your tracks a lot better than this, but you are exhibiting tunnel vision concerning your flight. The same folks giving you extra work to do now before the flight, are the ones telling you what your health choices are and are rushing them. It sure seems like you are being manipulated. Then again, I am paid to be paranoid. I stopped believing in coincidence a long time ago."

Peggy tried to respond but my last sentence seemed to negate whatever point she was about to make. She saw I was almost desperate to make her understand. The anger was drowning out as a sick sympathy was replacing it.

"It seems to me that if your body builds a resistance to whatever new drug they want to give you, or if your friends up there can get to it and switch it, or tamper with your future injectables, or if it is an injectable that breaks down with cosmic rays, or has a shelf life, that you could end up there without either protection or the chemicals holding back your sex drive. I don't know how frank you have been with your doctors, if your strong procreative drive has ever been entered into your official records, your circumstances could be altered in such a way as to set you up. Whether it happened by chance or deception, you still wouldn't have a chance. You won't know what hit you till after your hit."

"I have made sure that NASA, that the agency, knows everything about me physically, that I know," she spoke softly but blushed crimson. "Gary, I get hit on a lot. I do. Never once has another man even tempted me. This may be the absolute wrong thing to say, but I pray it's the best thing to put you at ease. You are very fit, but I am constantly surrounded by successful extremely fit military men. There are a ton of female "buttons" to push in my everyday environment. Fit young men, success, command, power, men that have excelled to a point of surpassing all but a fraction of one percent of others in their branches of service or chosen endeavor. Hell, there are even uniforms! Some women melt at the sight of a uniform. Gary, I react to NONE of those buttons. The only man I want is you."

"Peg, I just want you to understand the patterns that are already manifest, that's all. I don't think for a second that you want another man or want to sample, or play, or see this adventure as any sort of opportunity to try something new. But there is more than a small chance that it could still happen if you are up there without anything inhibiting a strong drive. And if that happens and the percentages play out ... well if it happens you will be beside yourself. You will feel terrible and you know what? I will have to pick up those fucking pieces too."

Peggy's face went blank realizing that's exactly how matters would play out if she cheated. I would have to manage my pain and hers if we were to stay together. I watched it turn her stomach.

"Additionally, you are putting me in the worst position possible to do that for both of us because it is all so easily avoidable. If it happens after this conversation, it will be in the light of that you knew what could happen. We would both know that you never had to choose against me, but still did. You don't think any of that would make me doubt your sincerity or your desire for me?"

Peggy seemed very desperate. Why? All I needed her to do was make the right choices. The biggest one was just talking to me about the choices before she made them. I wasn't even trying to lead her there on her own any longer; I was telling her directly.

"Gary, what can I do to give a demonstration of my, faith, my fidelity, what? Tell me, I will do it!" She grabbed for my arms.

"I have laid out my great fear: that you will hurt both of us. You are already giving credence to pressures that would damage us. I don't see demonstrations of faith Peggy, what I see are demonstrations of pulling away from me. You are making decisions against our marriage that simply don't need to be made. You seem to make them because you are giving our marriage no consideration."

My wife looked helpless, but not angry, in fact there was a ton of guilt right under the veneer of fear. She saw what I was saying. I found it disturbing that she was trying to find a path away from it instead of slamming into it head on. That didn't sound like Peggy, she normally charted a path for what she wanted and headed off at throttle up.

"Peggy, asking me for one thing to do for atonement is a pipedream; I needed you to start thinking like a woman in love again."

She recoiled at my remarks. A gesture all the more confusing as it was not said in anger. Besides, why recoil? I had just done what she told me to do. Pipedream or not I told her to start acting like a woman in love. Something she claimed to be already, recoiling from the idea was hardly in keeping.

"Look, I forgive you already, but if you make decisions that make your ultimate fall unavoidable, even though you may not want that fall, you are culpable. If you set yourself up where that fall is practically a fait accompli, then you aren't innocent, even though you didn't want the outcome. It's like deciding to drive drunk and being in a wreck. You didn't want to wreck, but you did everything possible to bring one about.

"As I am not allowed to believe in coincidences, I have to step up and admit this is more, this has seemed fishy all along. I make my living and keep people alive based on my fish-smell-meter and this is really bad. Every additional happenstance can no longer be taken as happenstance: it's simply more evidence."

I'm pretty sure I looked blindsided, dismayed, confused, and betrayed.

"Oh Gary ..." she looked away. This was eating at her.

"Peg, I love you. I trust you, but this is setting yourself up to fail like employing a newly reformed alcoholic as bartender the day he comes out of rehab. You need the sex right up to launch, I mean it, six months is too long! I didn't think three months was going to work."

"Were you going to throw me out if this ... premonition came to pass?"

That worried me. I thought that was dismissive, she was upset so perhaps I read the use of the word incorrectly. The parallels were there damn it, there was no denying it.

"No, I was going to live with the scar and the pain the rest of my life because I want you. I was going to suck it up, that was my plan because you simply HAVE to go on that rocket! You must in order to be true to yourself, but Peg, you don't have to betray me to do it. So, let's make sure you don't. If you won't simply increase the contraceptive dose you are employing now, I want you to reconsider the shutdown of your reproductive system. You don't have to be untrue to me to be true to yourself."

My voice was shaky by the end and I found that embarrassing. Peg looked sickly again as she saw it play out. She was tearing my pride away.

"What? Why?" Peggy was confused, and even more upset than I expected.

"Because if you are already going radical for the one-third solution, go full in radical and shut yourself down. Just think about it."

She seemed to be mulling it, yet was strangely sad.

"Or what's better: let's walk this whole thing back to practical and do it right. We should not have to go without each other for that long. I love you and you love me. Let's show everybody that and stop this opportunity for manipulation here and now, before it's used to harm you and us, and anyone who comes after you."

That struck a couple of cords which made Peggy shake again.

"What do you say, babe?" How could she not at least consider it? Hell, she had just asked me for a demonstration she could make to reassure me. Considering that I had just bared my soul, and given her my greatest fear, I was offering the olive branch of olive branches.

She could not look at me as she began sobbing, "Garrry, I-I already made the decision."

"I know. We will tell them we have changed our minds tomorrow. Really, it's no problem I CAN get us in to see them - and their bosses. Why are you so upset, isn't that good news?" I didn't understand. My question wasn't excited or panicked, I just needed verification.

"Gary ... I had the first shot today -- already! It was the longer-term higher dosage one: the option you hate!"

She wept like a kicked dog. She turned away from my eyes. My lips were parted, at least I was not completely slack jawed, I knew I was just staring at her. If she was expecting me to console her, she was disappointed, but not more disappointed than I was. My reaction surprised even me. I didn't like to be worse than courteous as a bottom resort with Peggy. Bad guys were a different story. This however, was pain and shock manifesting, pure and simple, jet fuel for sorrow.

I couldn't think, the words came right from my heart, "You've already fucked yourself up?! W-Without even talking to me? You -- you ... sold me down the river? That ... that can't be."

That last was choked out, all of it was blurted, none of it was planned. I don't like not being in control of myself, few things cause that reaction. This was the worst.

Peg was full out bawling now, perhaps pretty poor choice of words. Or perhaps a bullseye. I had never expected her to make me doubt her. Once doubt is introduced who knows where it ends. I was scared of having an idea infect her mind, now one had infected mine.

"Can you switch tomorrow?" I knew the answer, but I had to try, I had to think quickly now.

"And send my bios all over, only four months before launch?"

Wow, her response was in anger. There was no slip up in that. That response was full of what I saw as nothing but a rotten attitude.

"Yes! BECAUSE it's four fucking long months away! Or rather four "NO-fucking" months. Four months with my WIFE being at best a blowup doll! You didn't even call me! If this had to happen, you HAD to let me decide to do it to myself. I have NEVER chosen against you or your mission! I never would have!"

She cried out, "I'm sorry!"

"Why? You made this choice! This must be what you wanted! You knew exactly what you were doing. This basically cuts me off for ten months. And you didn't bother to even talk to me. How could you? I can't ... I simply can't believe ... I never would have believed you were capable of this level of disloyalty. Hell, it's not just that, this is an act of contempt towards me."

Such sorrow as I have never known flooded into me and I searched for some other way to explain it. I quietly admitted the only categorization that fit. And the quiet made it echo, "My God honey, it's, it's betrayal." I was beyond shocked, I was blown away.

I know the words were cold. But I did, and do, believe them to this day. Honest appraisal: what she had done was atrocious. I would never do the like to her. Peg knew that was true. She also saw I was not poorly using words in my dismay and anger: I truly believed what I had said.

"Wait," I blurted, now two bad ideas were merging into a bigger really bad idea, like toxic chocolate with diseased peanut butter forming one horrific taste that kills great together. Peg tried to listen to me through her sobs.

"Did I see grocery bags?" I turned confirming grocery bags were indeed on the kitchen counter. "You knew all this; knew you hadn't consulted me about any of it. Then you went grocery shopping on top of it all, further delaying notifying me I have been put on the shelf?"

She nodded, her blood running cold as she saw me put something together. She froze, even the tears stopped. She barely uttered an involuntary, "Oh no."

I began a monolog, "Well, let's see how complete this sell out is." I went to the bags. I wasn't even careful as I dug through each bag sending the contents over my shoulder and far away, so they could not contaminate the evidence. I prayed I would not find what I knew I would.

Finally, on the third bag I found more household products than food, a particular shaped box was in my fingers. Now I stopped frozen. I looked at the bag the same way a fisherman who was pulling in a marlin looks when he realizes he is also pulling in a shark who has ahold of his would-be trophy: the dream was ruined. But not only ruined, matters were worse: they were suddenly dangerously bad.

Peg stopped breathing. I actually heard her whisper, "Oh God help me."

I dared not look into the bag. I was working on feel. I withdrew the package. I didn't want to look at it, it would confirm my world was not what I thought, that perhaps it never was what I thought.

When I did remove my hand from the bag, still clutching the terrible contents, it seemed like my hand could not drop it. I could shake it and still it would not fly away, as if the terrible contents had grafted themselves to me, their realty rewriting my entire married life.

I let my eyes drop to my hand. I emitted a loud noise; it sounded like the first part of a sob then replaced by a roar. My hand shook. I stared at the shaking box of condoms it held. I heard the loud sound but didn't register what it was. My wife still on the floor since she knelt some time ago, recoiled and pushed herself against the wall. I came out of my fugue just enough to realize the box of condoms was still in my left hand, but the kitchen table was no longer near my right. The wall to my right was shattered and the table was demolished at its foot. Apparently, I had reached down and thrown it. Wow, good toss! That must have been what the sonic boom was, that or my marriage exploding.

I couldn't help but think that this was the same dose of anger that got me home that day everything went wrong in that far away country. The day I had killed in order to make it back to Peggy. I had to get home to Peggy. There was nothing more important than Peggy!

Now these new bastards were trying to take me from Peggy. I had been extremely lucky that day not so terribly long ago, maybe not so lucky now. Now it was Peggy taking herself away from me. In a staggering display of asymmetry, apparently there were things more important to her than me. She had joined forces with them against me. My validation, my base, my stability, and my happiness were all simply gone.

The air in my lungs suddenly felt leaden. All the energy just flowed out of me. I glanced at my wife who was still astonished sitting on the floor to my left; she saw it. I could read it in her expression: I had transformed from a man who was powerful, who could make lightning bolts come out of my eyes, into the saddest clown in the world.

Quietly, more of a groan than speech, I asked of the groceries she had purchased, "So which bag has my damn cock cage in it?"

Peggy was transfixed. Not only by what she had seen me do, or seen me melt into, not just the question I had just asked, but knowing everything her husband had to feel in order to ever ask a terrible thing like that of his cherished wife. She heard a slapping sound in front of her and glanced to see that I had finally dropped the box of condoms.

She looked up at me still in the clutches of raw astonishment, I wasn't looking at her, I was just gazing straight ahead, having no focus at all.

My voice was dry and raw as if I had been yelling at a sporting event for hours, "Well, I don't think I can get it up enough to fill those anymore, so your plan to cut me off has worked better than you expected. Hell, maybe you should have my job: you just wrecked your opponent. That was devastating work, thorough, complete. Bravo Peg.

"So, uh, maybe take those damn things to work or, yeah sure, take 'em with you up there: give 'em to the Russians. The three Russian men you will be cohabitating with. Because that's what they will tell you when they find it out. I've already confirmed it. Oh, the irony of that. You never even thought of that. How the hell could you ever agree to go with Russians? Or maybe they are ones who turned you against me."

"G-Gary ..."

"I used to have a wife and now she goes and shacks up with three Russians. Hah, in my world the Russians still try to kill me. It was one of their South American lackies that gave me the scar on my chest, babe. How about that? It looks like they will get the job done this time. Somewhere between now and ten months from now they'll finish the job."

This revelation seemed to flatten her. It was the last secret I was holding out. She didn't know exactly what I did for a living, but the premise was all too clear. And so was the cause: if she had been involved or considering me or my feelings, or my considerations, or my circumstances at all, the connection of an all-Russian crew with the wife of an alphabet named intelligence agency analyst would have bowled her over.

Coincidence? Hell, she never looked at it or me, never bothered; I wasn't worth the time compared to her precious space flight. This had betrayal or trap written all over it. She would figure out the obvious consequence soon, now that she finally had her eyes open.

And I had never sold her out. Not once. I took the consequences for her, for us, for love. I was a fool.

We stayed there for a bit. I don't really know how long it was before I came out of my nightmare enough to be capable of motion.

"Well, I guess I can say it one more time considering that's the tree I have been nailed to ..." I started walking, "I love you, Peg."

In a quiet voice she replied, "Gary I lo..."

I rounded on her, perhaps the last of the lightning bolts were there in my eyes, "Stop. Stop. Stop! You don't have to do that. I know very well where I stand now: it's crystal clear. It's just a hell of an adjustment. But you don't need to say it anymore, I won't make either of us into hypocrites on top of everything else. I will still back you. Heck, I actually do love you. Don't worry, I will make sure you get on that rocket, after all, it is the thing you love more than anything else. So even if you have pneumonia, bubonic plague, and the fucking clap, I will make sure you are on that goddam rocket."

I felt an involuntary shudder. I wasn't sure what to do, finally I shrugged my shoulders and walked to the kitchen door, opened it, and walked outside. I kept walking without even closing it.