Where Were You?

Halcyon was one of those things no one comprehended as it was happening, or we didn’t want to comprehend. Couldn’t comprehend. I watch Director Ehler in the recording of the press conference that inevitably accompanies the new footage of Janus, and I don’t recognize my colleague of twenty-five years. He is younger, yes, but still grey, and slim, and himself. After comprehending, he was older. Greyer. Slimmer. Part of him died with Halcyon.

We met for breakfast that morning. He wasn’t my colleague more often than he was. We flew together, and then we didn’t. Not on the flight that mattered. I was a medical disqualification; he was a clean bill of health. I was an almost; he was an astronaut, or still is, because that never leaves you. Neither does almost, but only one of us ever got asked for an autograph. Director Ehler—Mark—couldn’t eat. He kept rubbing his forehead. It hurt, he said, the way it does before a hurricane. I went to find him some aspirin. When I got back, the hand was still there.

“I’ve never felt worse about a mission,” he said, and washed the pills down with his coffee. “I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been nauseous all morning. Tell me I’m crazy.”

“You’re crazy,” I said. My appetite was unaffected.

“But what if I’m not?”

“You’re just having a nervous breakdown,” I said. Ehler was prone to those back then. Now they’re called anxiety attacks. “We’re ready. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“This feels different.”

“The crew feels fine about it. The inspections came back clean. The weather is beautiful. It’s a perfect day for a launch, Mark. I think you need to eat your breakfast, then go for a walk to clear your head.”

I went with him. The humidity was already oppressive at 0800, though it never stops being oppressive in the summer. My clothes clung to me. Ehler’s face was pink from the heat, as was mine, I’m sure. While we walked, he stared at the road. “You don’t have a bad feeling about this?”

“Not at all.”

“So we shouldn’t scrub.”

“No.” My hand closed around his elbow. “This is routine. They’ll be fine. The last thing the crew needs is to see you like this; it’s hardly a vote of confidence. You can’t scrub a launch because of a bad feeling. We’d never go anywhere.”

“But that conference call with the contractor—do you remember that?”

“I thought it got resolved months ago.”

“I thought so too, but it’s eating at me, Teddy.”

“Somebody would have said something,” I said. “Every mission has its hiccups.”

He let out a sigh that could level a forest. “I guess you’re right.”

A pair of herons flew across the road, right over our heads, and disappeared into the treetops on the other side. I’ve always wondered what the animals think about the launches—the vibration of the engines reaches down your throat and grabs you by the heart. That must be distressing to a soul who doesn’t understand what the sensations mean, and sometimes to souls who do. Ehler was doubled over on the road’s shoulder, throwing up breakfast.

***

Mission Commander Julian Grosland had the perfect handshake. Not too firm, and not limp, like he was ceding the conversation before it had happened. A lot of the engineers are that way, maybe because their arms are numb from being tucked between their bodies and the drawing table for hours at a time. “Thanks for all your help these past few months,” Grosland said as our hands met. “I always know you’re gonna take good care of Jenna and Riley while I’m gone.”

“I don’t know, guys.” I turned to look at them. “Do I take good care of you?”

Riley, then six, nodded. Jenna smiled. “Of course,” she said.

“Do you have it?” Riley asked, one of his tiny hands still in Julian’s.

“What? Your present?” I shook my head. “No, sorry. I didn’t bring anything for you.”

Riley frowned. Julian nudged him with his elbow. “I think Mr. Loveridge is teasing you.”

“Every launch day,” I said, taking the challenge coin out of my pocket. “That was our deal.” I put it in Riley’s waiting palm. “And this one is special.”

“What does it say?” Julian asked. Riley held up the challenge coin so he could see it. “Wow, that’s awesome. That’s my shuttle, huh?”

“Halcyon,” Riley said.

“Yeah, buddy. That’s right. Halcyon’s tenth mission.”

And for Jenna, I’d brought a solid gold pin made from excess fabrication materials intended for Halcyon’s circuit boards or heat shields. Only four were made, one for each family. She asked Julian to pin it to her floral dress. Clothing was so brightly-colored back then, it got a little lost in the pattern, except when it caught the light. They embraced. He kissed her cheek. I gave them a few minutes to say their goodbyes, and then it was time to go.

“Let’s hope it’s a short two weeks,” I said during the drive to the viewing area. Riley and Jenna sat on the opposite side of the van. She was looking at me; he was looking at the little car he’d brought with him.

“I hope he has time to call. I always worry,” Jenna said.

“I hear you. I don’t think I could be married to an astronaut.”

“I knew it would be hard. I just didn’t know how hard.” She rested a hand on Riley’s shoulder. “But we’re proud of Daddy, aren’t we?”

Riley nodded and drove his little car on the window of the van.

We took our seats on the bleachers when the van reached the family viewing area. Riley wanted to sit next to me. Jenna sat on the other side. Ten minutes until launch. They took turns looking through the viewfinder on their camera. In the distance, the orbiter and its fuel tank stood like a mountain against the shapeless landscape.

I’m here again. With them. Not them, but people like them. Jenna is gone. Lymphatic cancer. Stress is more physical than most people realize. April is here instead. A crew of confident, smiling men and women. They wave—waved—to the cameras. Approached the mountainous silhouette and pretend to be bigger than they are. Expanding and contracting like they have lungs, the orbiters exhaled steam.

There’s a delay between the light from the engines and the sound, on the screen and person. Jenna took Riley’s hand as the vibrations reached us. Main engines start. We knew that before the public affairs officer said it; we had seen it. Six. Five. Four. It was too late to do anything now. One. There they went. Four beloved ones I had reassured Ehler would be just fine.

The sound was like the sky was being torn in half. Roll program confirmed; Halcyon now heading downrange. Launch sequences happen unimaginably fast for anyone who hasn’t been running through them for two months straight. Ten miles up, the long, white condensation plume was all we could see of Halcyon. Then it bloated and spit fire and split into two paths, where it should have gone and where it was going. Halcyon was one of those things no one comprehended at first, and one of those things that makes you nostalgic for a few seconds ago, when one of the variables might have been changed. What if they just didn’t go? What if I hadn’t told Ehler everything would be fine?

I covered Riley’s eyes, hoping the less he looked at it, the less he’d remember about it. “What’s happening?” Jenna asked. “Teddy? What’s happening?”

“Obviously a major malfunction,” the public affairs officer said, which was, to those of us witnessing the catastrophe and not just reading its data, perhaps the understatement of the century.

“Let’s go,” I said, my hand on her back. “We’ll talk somewhere quiet. Don’t look, Riley.”

Jenna clung to me as we hurried to the van. She was asking about parachutes. April is sobbing into my shoulder, too heavy to drag away. I let her cry. Halcyon could not have been ignored. Janus broke up into pieces too small and far away to see. Somewhere else, almost home—almost—the sky is weeping tears of white-hot debris.

April’s convulsions stop, eventually, and we watch the empty runway for a while. It’s hard not to imagine Janus shimmering with heat on the horizon, a cloud of eye-stinging smoke at the moment of contact with the runway, the chute deploying. “April,” I say. “Let’s get you home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” she says. “Cory won’t be there.”

“I’ll get you a hotel. Would that be better?”

April nods. A pair of herons fly across the quiet runway. Janus is three minutes overdue.

I find her a hotel about twenty miles from the Complex and buy out the entire floor. It’s far enough away that she won’t see any signs for the Complex on the roads, but close enough for me to make it back to the office in less than half an hour. Two security police officers and I get her settled in the hotel room. The carpet looks stiff and scratchy. The bathtub is shallow. The lights are yellow and sickly. It was the best I could do so close to the Complex—none of the hotels out here are all that nice. She slips off her shoes and crawls under the covers without even taking off her belt.

“Do you want a change of clothes, April?” I ask.

“That would be nice,” comes the weak, muffled reply.

“How about something to eat?”

“No. I’m not hungry.”

“Okay. Any requests before I go?”

“No. Thanks.”

One of the officers stays outside the room, and the other one takes me to the nearest store. Jenna didn’t want to go home either; she and Riley stayed in that hotel room for two months, and then they went to her parents’ place.

I tell the officer to find a quiet corner of the parking lot and give him my security badge before going inside. No one so much as glances at me. A space shuttle explodes and the whole crew dies doing something good for their country and people leave their homes to go grocery shopping because it was just something they saw on their televisions. Some might cry. For most it will be nothing more than a topic of dinner table discussion, remembered for a few months, then forgotten. That was how people reacted to Halcyon seventeen years ago, and I already see it happening for Janus. But we will grieve forever.

I find three pairs of pants, three blouses, a couple of dresses, and undergarments for April. Food, though she said she didn’t want it. Sweet things. Comfort food. Deodorant. A toothbrush and toothpaste. Some makeup, not that I know what she’d like. Cleanser. Things I would buy for my daughter if she’d lost her suitcase on a trip. And finally, four packs of cigarettes—two for me, two for April.

“Hi,” the cashier says, not looking at me. “How are you?”

“Just fine,” I say, out of habit. “And you?”

“Did you hear that the space shuttle blew up?” she asks. The scanner beeps as she slides the barcodes across it. “Crazy. It’s so sad.”

I nod, hoping I haven’t left anything NASA-related on my person.

“I remember watching Halcyon blow up in junior high school.” Her eyes meet mine. “Where were you when that happened?”

“I was at work,” I say. My shirt collar is suddenly too tight.

“Crazy,” she says again. “That was traumatizing.”

She has no idea.

April and I smoke together on the balcony when I get back to the hotel. She quit last year; I quit twenty years ago, except for the three weeks after Halcyon, when I smoked more than I had my entire Air Force career.

“Are we supposed to be smoking out here?” she asks.

“I don’t think so. We’re not supposed to be smoking at all.”

April laughs a little, but then the smile becomes a grimace. She douses the cigarette, puts her head in her hands, and starts to cry again. I don’t have to ask why. Laughter feels like a betrayal after loss. I go inside to get her a tissue.

***

The faces in the photos are different, but everything else is the same as it was seventeen years ago. I hoped I’d never be here again. A memorial program soggy from sweat in my hand. Flags draped over caskets. A fog hanging over reality. April is up conversing with the other families before the memorial starts, probably glad to have a moment away from me. We’ve spent most of the past three days together, days that should have been spent with her husband.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see Ehler, the version that is not himself. “Teddy,” he says. “How are you?”

“Hey, Mark.” I get up to hug him. “I’ve been better. But it’s not really about me.”

“I think it’s about all of us. The whole country.” He glances over at the photos of the smiling patriots in orange jumpsuits. “They’re still the future. No better way to die, I think. Just not when you’re thirty and you have a family at home.”

“Did you feel it the morning Janus was supposed to come home?” I ask.

Ehler shakes his head. “No. I think you get a warning like that once in your life. If you ignore it, it never comes again. Should have listened to it.”

“I told you to go ahead with the launch.”

“With all due respect, Teddy,” Ehler says, “You’re a family support officer. Your opinion was the last one on my mind that morning.”

We both smile. Here again, seventeen years apart. Nobody ever learns, and that’s the only reason we ever made it to space.