Splashdown Ch. 11 - The End

Peggy closed her eyes thinking, 'Children. We're already later having them than I promised Gary. We should have them by now. I haven't given children a thought, little less how to integrate raising young in the midst of all this. How would they fit into my new job structure? Wait, I need to fit my children ... into my job?' Peg looked up astonished, then sickly as she realized I still needed an answer.

Peggy wasn't offering rebuttal. She was asking an honest question, "You want me to answer that hypothetical, hoping it will help me see my current real problems?"

I was quiet, I tried not to lead her, only to point the way, "Yes, my darling Peg. We both need that answer, as screwed up as it is. You need it even more than me. What's your choice in that circumstance? Who do you love, Peg?"

I looked at her with as open a face as I could. Her eyes began to dart back and forth as her jaw began to slacken. This was what she had not faced. She couldn't get anywhere dealing with me because this was what she needed to deal with first and she'd run from it as hard and far as she could.

I asked again, "Who do you love the most, Peg? And how much do you love each of us?"

* * * * *

Escape Velocity

Peggy

I broke. I should've run to Gary. I saw the fear, the horror in his eyes. Why was I still sitting here? Why was I crying? Why had I not chosen him? Dear God, did I love the job more than Gary? The job was there first, before I met him, space was my dream, but that's not how priorities work. How could my astronaut job rise from the dead at the very time I was supposed to reconnect with my husband from a rift caused by that very job?

My time as astronaut had been finished, I'd run that race, now it was time to repair the damage to my marriage. How could my astronaut status come back now when I was to make Gary the priority? Had I sold him a bill of goods? Was I that dishonest with myself about the disparity in my priorities? Was everything I promised him a lie: loving him completely, raising a family, deemphasizing the exploration of space, walking away from NASA? That's what I said I'd do when I'd finished my time as an active astronaut. Gary said he'd never put a vocation ahead of his wife. He'd walked the walk. He sacrificed his calling for my happiness. But now that I could be an astronaut again, I wasn't offering to walk away from space for him, was I?

I realized I was sitting there crying at terrible possibilities. Why would I cry if they were merely possibilities? Shouldn't mere possibilities be easy to dismiss? Poor Gary was waiting for me as it seemed he always was. I wasn't giving him anything to grab hold to. I never did. I couldn't. Oh God. I COULDN'T!

An idea germinated: spallation!

* * * * *

Gary

Peggy finally looked at my drawn weary face. She'd watched my heart break before as she broke it before. This was always the probability; it was actuality now. She'd pushed everything to an extreme point trying to make all the disparate desires work. Now, instead of flowing, they were clotting up in the end. Now we faced a giant maelstrom of swirling conflicting promises and desires, some were fused together in ways never intended. It wasn't a tangle to be untied, this was a Gordian Knot; it had to be severed.

Now Peggy saw how down I was. She saw I was so terribly down because this was the outcome I'd expected.

"Was this a test Gary? Y-You aren't reacting as I expected."

"Peggy, forgive me my love. I had to know for sure, and you needed to face facts! It wasn't a test, just a way of holding a mirror up to us as a couple."

This time I knelt in front of her.

"Let me explain what I've done, Peg, before I explain where we are. In the name of brevity, a virtue our adventure has not possessed, I may phrase things in a way that sounds callous. You know that's not my intent."

Peggy was right there with me, nodding, finally we were facing things together. She was sad but resolute. She knew I'd take care of her.

I began, "My former agency will never offer me another job, but you didn't know that. Although you haven't officially stated it, I know you just chose your happiness over mine, your worth over mine. You chose to spend time away again, even after our past debacle, even after promising me everything - again. Even though it would break my heart. But then you didn't expect to get the offer when you made what we now know were worthless promises.

"And a mission to Mars no matter how long the duration, you could never say no to that, not even for children who you may come to love more than me. You also know you would take a lover on that journey. You'd have to. You couldn't hold out without the release and intimacy. Don't feel bad Peg, that's true of most. But you would want to share the triumph of our species and the personal spectacle that way." I sighed more loudly than I wanted to. "Sharing is one of the big keys, baby."

I tilted my head acknowledging her before I went on, "I actually get that aspect of it, I do. I saw that plainly enough with Alexi the day of your spacewalk. I know it wasn't romantic then, they chose him to be your seducer because he'd already gotten inside some of your defenses. He did that accidentally by sharing your space walk with you. You weren't as programed to fight him off because the seeds of romance were planted on that trip. Because you have a classically romantic view of space flight. I'm not saying I approve, just that I understand."

Her eyes became fluid knowing I'd understood that about her before her flight and wanted desperately for her to share that space walk with me. Instead, she chose to hide it from me.

"But Peg, I could never condone that behavior when it's our marriage that forms the complication. I understood what happened on your flight this time. I never condoned it. I forced myself past it, but I could never do it again, especially if the stakes were higher.

"Think about it. Think about what your past history indicates: the mission means three years estranged. You'd want to concentrate on the mission to the exclusion of all else, baby. That isn't necessarily bad, only in light of certain complications, like me.

"Think about your new job offer, gone frequently for weeks at a time, punctuated by six months stints away. Am I supposed to open our marriage? I didn't completely cheat the last time. Am I supposed to be celibate that whole time? Again? Even if you're getting some on the side? With regularity? Does NASA provide a nanny or daycare for our kids, or do I forego any career myself, raising our children alone, waiting for my wayward wife to return - again - or do we not have kids at all?

"Peg, my lovely girl, in that scenario you would cheat on me again without the drugs and brainwashing. In the end it didn't matter how much that or anything else hurt me. I saw it, I knew it. I just didn't want to believe it was true: that you loved the agency that much more than me. You had to make a simple choice. But you didn't just love it more, you felt compelled to sacrifice me for it. And that was never necessary. I never would've stood in your way if you could just truly love me too.

"I hoped it was the history, the romance of the trip you took, the experience of writing your name on the stars. How could a simple man compete with that? But after your grand adventure, your trip up there, you never came back to me.

"Peg, when you thought you were out of the space agency after your fall, you were trying to forge something with me. I believe I AM your dream man. But your dream man is pretty far down the list from your dreams of space exploration. Then I brokered the deal with NASA to keep you on board. You could stay, you weren't excommunicated. And from that point on you stopped trying to reach me. It's hard to believe that I stuck my own finger in my eye. From then on you showered me respect, trying to give me my due, trying to repay me. You were thankful as hell for me and my actions in both Germany and in the settlement with NASA. But all of that consideration together doesn't add up to true love.

"And Peggy, knowing your love of space and NASA I never want to take one iota of wonder, marvel, or respect away from it. I respect your love because I love you. I hoped you could have both of us. You could serve NASA and still have me. After your career was over, I hoped you could be mine, but you don't want that. I've never forced you to make a choice between us until today. Except, you'd already made that choice, a long time ago, and it wasn't forced. You can't move forward until you see it and embrace the truth."

She looked at me completely trusting and finally ready to see matters for what they were. She felt them now and had to understand them. I was honored she trusted me to guide her. I just wish she could love me instead.

"Peg, it wasn't the trip that bested me. It's the agency, the dream, the romantic pursuit of tomorrow, that's your greatest love, and as a result I'll never be foremost in your heart. I knew this was part of you, but I thought I was too. You were my stability and my happiness, but once you accepted your flight, fully consummating your relationship with space and discovery, you no longer felt clean being those things for me, isn't that right?

"After your flight when you never came back to me I saw in your heart it was either/or, that your heart had to choose one of us. You could only be true to one of us. I'd have to accept a much more distant place in your heart while you now openly declared your fealty to your most loved: the entity that had exalted you by sending you above us.

"After that literally lofty demonstration by your paramour you wanted to dedicate yourself to your first love, except you thought the dream was done with you. Still, true people wish to be true. Peg, I love you for your nature. It's ironic that it has forced this outcome, but neither you nor I should tamper with what is most essentially you.

"We should have been able to sit down after your flight and work it through. But then there was a terrible complication with Alexi that should never have been part of the problem. It clouded matters while revealing desires and needs. Suddenly, you were in terrible trouble with Alexi not of your making and had to find a way out.

"Peg, I want you to really consider this, I'm convinced, but I don't know for sure. It's so you, yet it becomes ugly when seen through the prism of me. I've tried to take that away, Peg. I don't want you to see it through that prism. You say you weren't raped because you feel on some level ... you wanted to be with Alexi. Now wait, before you object, you never wanted Alexi as an individual, but the idea of anthropomorphizing your love of the dream and giving yourself to it entirely had great appeal. Join with the dream. Be part of it to the greatest extent. Taken as only that, it sounds positive, doesn't it?" I nodded my head encouragingly.

It was hard for me to say the next part. It was so odd, yet it explained so much, "Peg as far out as it seems, I think your mania wanting to fertilize your eggs was part of it. I know how things worm their way in your brain, and I'd brought up the notion of cosmic rays impairing your ability to have children. I planted those seeds in your head. I think you would've been in the same froth sexually in that little cottage, but I think your thoughts fixating on having your eggs fertilized goes back to our pre-launch conversations about having a family. I wanted kids with you. You had to be true to one of us. You chose space so the idea of taking those eggs away from me and giving them to your true love is what I think was bouncing around your head, even in the midst of your traumatic situation. You never wanted to hurt me or cheat on me. You never wanted Alexi per se, but to join with the dream, yeah.

"Except the reality of the exit interview was horrid. Dreams can be attained but need to stay dreams, even if you live them. Making a dream real life is a terrible hybrid, a monster fighting the nature of both parents, and yours was a doozy.

"You do love me, at least a portion. I still wanted you and I was still there, and you felt you owed me. I was the obvious answer to many short-term questions, especially when it seemed that long term, you'd burnt the bridge with your first love.

"I stood up for you. I tried to draw us back together and it seemed the reasonable thing for you to do. You tried to be compassionate towards me again. But your actions looked so very different when I was in the equation as opposed to when I wasn't. Deep down you knew, but simply didn't want to admit to yourself that I wasn't what you wanted most.

"All those bills, what you promised and now what you felt you owed me came due. Deep down you hadn't expected me to still be there. You pushed me away subconsciously trying to clear the slate and be true to your most loved. Many of your actions served both goals of solidifying your relationship with your dream and pushing me away. How else do you explain continuing to recount your sins against me and always with greater detail? You wanted me to go, I just wouldn't leave. I was as much in need of you as ever, but I was still only a consolation prize to you.

"My fixing your compromised situation in Germany and making a path for you to stay at NASA only muddied your thinking. You wanted the space agency, but it didn't want you. You wanted to be true to it and your memories with it. I made you feel like you were cheating on it. Insidiously for me, my actions to take away your troubles gave you a second chance at a choice you had lost: the original choice: your dream or me.

"I don't enjoy your dilemma. I'd done more for you than vaunted NASA, who was prepped to dump you in the gutter. My great foolishness was believing that you would see the contrast and that it would make a difference. I didn't want to take you to stop loving exploration, just to love me more."

I smiled wanly, holding out my hands opening myself to ridicule, "I knew what you loved most, yet I still loved you! Why did I believe seeing NASA for what it could negatively be, would change your love for it? That's not how love works. I was the proof that I hadn't seen: you wanted it to love you and it wouldn't, and I wanted you to love me and you couldn't."

I shook my head. I laughed at myself, "I was a fool for love. Just as you didn't want to see your predicament, I had blinders on that kept me from seeing mine." I bellowed the hardiest laugh yet, "Peggy, we were both desperate to be true to our loves! I think in that light, though star crossed, we both acted commendably in terrible circumstances."

That took her breath away. I wasn't damning her at all. I nodded confirming the fact.

"It looked like NASA was going to kick you to the curb. Let you fend for yourself after it locked you out in the cold with the pack of wolves circling. I intervened in Germany. Now NASA was happy to make up and play kissy face. Though it was never going to be as it was, your relationship was saved.

"To your way of thinking, you now owed me even more than you had, and were presented with even greater reasons to love me more than you did. But in your heart loving me meant you weren't one hundred percent committed to your first true love. The tumblers had all turned in my favor and yet you are loyal. Your loyalty was to your most loved: space exploration. All I'd done in saving you, was lose you back to my competition.

"You had to prove yourself to your truest love. You had to make a show of not paying me my due. I don't think you meant to make false promises. It's just how the cards played out in your head."

I didn't try to keep my voice from breaking a little. All we had left was honesty and a regard for one another, "But dammit all, I held every card this time ... except the one that overrules them all: your heart. You didn't want a fair fight. And Peggy you need to face it: you didn't want me to win.

"Peggy, I'll never believe you deceived me out of anything but misunderstanding or self-deception. I love you too much to even consider the possibility that you are a hard, calloused, selfish, bitch, who would use a man who loves her to further her own goals. Regardless, you made an example of me to your true love.

"As I see it my choice is either/or as well. I choose to see you in the most positive light. I always will. Just like you, sometimes I choose to do the thing opposite what the equations tell me to do, because just like you, I must follow my heart.

"Your illicit lover was your husband, your affair with me soils your greater love. That's why you were no longer willing to be my stability and my happiness. Some of what you've done, not all, was to push me away. Perhaps even a small part of Alexi. But Peg, I can't, I won't ever believe that: if for no other reason than it would add a truly ugly facet to what I have always loved as an exquisite gem: you.

Remember, sharing is the key. Who did you want to share everything with? Those in your space agency family. Who did you have to keep from sharing those things of value with; your true family's rival: me."

I reached to her taking her hand gently in mine, "Peg, I had to show you what you refused to see. So, earlier today I put your true love back on your doorstep with a ring in hand on bended knee. After your true love's proposal this morning you had to find a way to dispatch me, nicely if you could, but you had to push me away. Even to the point of having me pour out my heart for you, while you lead me down a path to a romantic getaway to finally reconcile and finally join forever: only to tell me to take the journey with another woman!

"I saw it all very clearly when you said that, while you didn't. You didn't know it, not yet. You still believed you loved me. I'm sorry for all this Peg, but you had to see it for yourself. We couldn't go on and you couldn't go forward. We sure as hell can't stay where we are. Forgive me."

Some unusual tears formed on her cheeks. Though I couldn't fathom their nature, I understood their meaning. Peggy was finally seeing the truth.

"Spallation?" She asked flatly, like pronouncing the word for the first time.

Peggy knew the answer before I spoke. She understood the offer to be an astronaut again was a ruse, designed to make her see what she valued most. She also saw now, that instead of a dagger pointed at her chest the ruse was a key. A key to open the lock and set her heart free.

"Yes."

"The fragmentation of us, under my constant bombardment?" She stated.

"Almost. The fragmentation of your love for me and our union under your own constant bombardment. You want to be true to your true love. It's simple, it's basic, and there's nothing more human. We can travel light years, and that won't change. At least, not as long as we're human in any recognizable way. And no matter how I feel about it, I'm not your deepest truest love. So, you had to kill off what you felt for me. You couldn't just walk out, though unconsciously you sure tried to make me walk away. You gave your love for me a death by a thousand cuts because you cared for me too much to just plunge a knife into the part of your heart that loved me. I leave it to you to judge if it was truly better this way."

Her voice was but a pallor of a whisper, "Oh Jesus Gary, I see it."

"I'm sorry this farce is what it took. I truly never wanted to hurt you, even now." I'd never felt this alone while in Peggy's presence.

Peggy just sat there frozen, generating nothing for me, not even a hug. The lack of anything was as poignantly sad as the cold starkness of the stars. Perhaps that was what our love had become, no longer the red-hot heat of passion, but a cold dead gravity well where love and apparently even compassion could barely escape.