Vessel

by Lisa A. Nichols

  “I was out of line. When you talk to her, make sure she knows that I know that.”

  “I will, I promise.” David hesitated then said, “Tell me the truth. Are you okay? With everything, and the fight with Aimee . . . please tell me.” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “Look, whatever’s happened between us, I still care. I know . . . I know the last time we talked I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

  “We both did,” she said automatically. “I’m sorry, too.” She wasn’t actually sure she was, not yet, but she knew an olive branch when she saw one.

  “So talk to me. What’s going on?”

  Standing there, in her dim living room, Catherine was tempted to tell him everything. Instead she just laughed. “It’s been kind of a weird year, David.”

  After a moment he laughed with her, and things felt as though they might be okay between them. Not “married” okay but “still friends” okay. “Point taken. Just remember you’re not alone, all right?”

  “Yeah. I know.” Then because she didn’t know what else to say, “Thanks.”

  “I know you’ve always wanted to be the best mom possible,” David said. “And whatever happens between you and me, I hope we can keep working together as Aimee’s parents.”

  “Of course. Of course, we can.”

  It was so much easier to talk to David now that she wasn’t worried about trying to stay married to him. And now they could both focus more of their energy on Aimee. They chatted a few more minutes, and then Catherine started cleaning her apartment. She moved automatically to the kitchen. Rather than pour a drink, she threw herself into washing the dirty dishes that were days old. Maybe she couldn’t fix everything, but she’d fix what she could.

  She was almost finished with the dishes when her phone rang. Aimee’s name flashed on her screen. Heart pounding, she wiped her hands on a dish towel and picked up her phone, trying to sound calm.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom.” Aimee’s voice was subdued; not quite at full sullen-teenager levels, but close.

  “I’m so glad you called,” Catherine said. She sat down in her tiny dining area, leaning against the table.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been talking to Dad and Julie. They both thought I should.”

  “Aimee, I’m sorry. I never should have hit you. I . . . wasn’t in a very good place then, I got hurt, and I reacted badly.” Catherine’s throat tightened and she swallowed several times.

  “I shouldn’t have . . . said what I did. I’m sorry.”

  “You had—you have—every right to be angry with me.” The guilt was threatening to swallow her whole, making her want to throw herself at Aimee’s proverbial feet. But something Dr. Darzi once said stuck with her: You can’t build a relationship on guilt. Yes, Catherine had made mistakes, but that didn’t make her responsible for everything. She took a deep breath and said, “I have the right to be angry, too. Neither of us handled it well. But I’m the grown-up, and I should have done better.”

  “I don’t want to be angry at you all the time.” Aimee’s voice quavered. “I just want things to be normal.”

  Catherine pressed her lips together, her eyes stinging. “I don’t know what normal is going to look like for us. But we can get there. I don’t want to do this on the phone. Can we meet? I understand if you don’t want to come here yet.” They needed neutral territory; Catherine could sense it.

  Aimee was silent at first then said, “Sure. Yeah, we can do that.”

  “Great. Today? Coffee shop down the street from you? About two?” More than anything, Catherine needed to see Aimee, to hold her, to make everything feel real.

  “Okay.”

  When they hung up, Catherine went through the apartment cleaning up after the weeks of misery. Everything felt so much lighter today, as though she’d cut all her hair off or shed a heavy coat. There were still questions that needed to be answered, but now she wasn’t going to try to answer them alone.

  Dr. Darzi had been wrong: the only way she was going to put everything behind her was by remembering everything and getting the full story about what happened. And now with Cal to help her, she was sure she could do it. Sooner or later she was going to remember.

  * * *

  The coffee shop was crowded, but Catherine ordered two coffees and found a table while she waited for Aimee to get there. When she arrived, the two of them looked at each other awkwardly, then Catherine stood and carefully reached out to her. They fell into an embrace, and all the tears that Catherine had been holding back started to fall.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I love you so much, Aimee.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Conscious that they were drawing attention, Catherine tried to get her crying under control and sat down again. Aimee sat across from her, wiping away her own tears, sniffling.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Catherine said, then had to stop, choking up again.

  “I’ve missed you,” Aimee admitted. “Dad is great, always has been, but . . . he’s not you.”

  At the mention of David, Catherine fought the urge to ask if Maggie was coming around again already. This wasn’t about David or Maggie. Aimee was the only one that really mattered right now. “You guys did okay without me for a while there,” Catherine teased faintly.

  “We do better with you. Or I do, at least.” Aimee stirred her coffee aimlessly, looking into the cup. “Dad was really worried about you. So was I.”

  How much should she tell Aimee? She wanted to be truthful, but didn’t want to scare her. Catherine focused on her own cup while she gathered her thoughts, then looked up to meet Aimee’s eyes. “I was struggling—I’m still struggling. Coming home was so much harder than I thought it would be. I wasn’t ready for that.” She paused again. “I . . . tried to cope with it by drinking too much.” One corner of her mouth twitched into a faint smile. “You see how well that went.”

  “But you’ve stopped now?”

  “Yeah. I’m trying. If I can’t stop on my own, I’ll get help, I promise.” Catherine laughed wryly. “See, I’m learning to ask for help.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for you yet,” Aimee shot back with a grin.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think there might be.”

  If only she could remember what happened—all of it, no matter how painful the truth.

  26

  CATHERINE FELT LIKE she had everyone fooled. Just yesterday, Dr. Darzi had commented on how much progress Catherine was making now that she was looking forward and not back. Considering what she and Cal were working on, the irony of that wasn’t lost on her.

  Her first couple of days back at work were awful. It felt as though everyone was staring at her, waiting for her to have another meltdown. At times the tension in her ramped up so high that she wanted to scream, but she forced herself to toe the line.

  Now she sat in Paul Lindholm’s office with Aaron, making plans for Sagittarius II’s voyage through the wormhole, anticipating the inevitable surge in requests for information and background pieces.

  “I think that’s all we need to worry about from a media perspective,” Aaron was saying. “And once the initial rush of requests dies down, it’ll be quiet around here for a good long time.”

  “I have another idea,” Lindholm said, leaning forward with a gleam in his eye. “If you’re interested, Catherine.”

  Cautiously, she smiled. “What are you thinking?”

  “Now that you’re back on your feet, so to speak, how would you feel about making some more appearances talking about your experiences? I’m still getting requests from the big networks, plus CNN, MSNBC . . . everybody wants to know how you’re doing.”

  Catherine just barely managed to keep from making a face, but Lindholm was right. There was no excuse she could give at this point to keep her face out of the news. “Sure, I can think about that.”

  “It would give us a real boost,” Lindholm said with a smile. “Especially if
we could make it a family affair. You, David, your daughter . . .”

  “Paul . . .” Catherine hesitated. “You do know that David and I are separated, don’t you?”

  Lindholm waved his hand dismissively. “You haven’t gone public with that yet; no need to muddy the waters right now. How about it?”

  Catherine thought about the conversation she and David had had just the night before, and the one they were going to have with Aimee later that day. No, but it’s going to be a matter of public record pretty soon . . . “Well, I’ll need to check with David and Aimee, and make sure they’re both on board.”

  “You do that.”

  Later, over lunch with Cal in his office, she commented how strange it was that everyone got over her lapse so quickly.

  Cal just shrugged. “They were rooting for you, for one thing. You’re one of us, and they know you’ve been through hell. Besides, everyone’s eager to move on.”

  “Dr. Darzi said everything has been a natural response to trauma.”

  “You could have swollen up and turned green and she would’ve said that.”

  Catherine laughed to hear some of her own thoughts reflected back at her. “Well, to be fair to her, it does sound like trauma can do some pretty wonky things to people. So, someone, somewhere, probably has swollen up and turned green.”

  Cal grinned, and she marveled at how quickly their relationship had turned around. There was a decent guy under the prickly exterior. She was struck again by how much warmer he seemed, and how that warmth transformed him from someone forbidding to someone she could get close to. Then his grin softened. “Are you still having dinner with Aimee and David tonight?”

  “Yeah.” She wished he hadn’t mentioned it. At the thought of it, her belly tied itself in knots. “I’m just glad Aimee and I patched things up.” They still had a long, long way to go, and Catherine wasn’t sure tonight’s conversation was going to help matters any.

  “She loves you. You’ll work everything out.”

  “I hope so.”

  That hope stayed with her for the rest of the day, right up until the moment she knocked on the door of her old home. The fact that she was knocking instead of just going in said volumes about how much things had changed.

  Aimee opened the door with a tentative smile. “Dad’s in the kitchen cooking.” Aimee gave Catherine a hug so cautious that Catherine wanted to cry, but at least it was a hug. A couple of weeks ago she’d wondered if she’d ever get that much from Aimee again.

  “And you let him?” Catherine teased, trying to get a smile out of her.

  “Hey, I’ve been busy.” Aimee gave her a twitch of a smile. It was enough.

  They went into the kitchen together and Catherine rubbed her palms against her jeans to dry them.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” David said.

  “Good, I’m starving.” Aimee started setting the table in the dining room. Catherine stayed out of the way and watched as the two of them moved as a single unit, getting drinks and napkins and dinner on the table, years of practice showing in their movements. They’d perfected a dance, and Catherine saw clearly how she had come home and thrown everyone’s rhythm off.

  “Okay.” Aimee sat in the dining room chair she’d sat in since she was old enough to eat at the table, between her parents. “How about you two tell me whatever it is you’re planning to tell me.”

  “We can’t just have dinner as a family?” Catherine asked.

  “Yeah, we can,” Aimee said, and now there was a bigger smile. “But that’s not what this is. Dad’s been acting weird all day. So what’s up?”

  “Well . . .” David looked at Catherine and she nodded. “There are a couple of things, actually. First, I want you to know how much better your mom is doing.”

  Catherine was uncomfortable with the praise but smiled at him. “I had a lot of help.” Then she sighed. “So . . . the downside of me doing better is that NASA wants me to be more visible. Instead of just playing a spokesperson role, they want me to get more personal, to talk with the media about what happened to me out there.”

  “That’s no surprise,” Aimee said. “You said all along that Director Lindholm wanted that.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Catherine took a breath. “Now it’s going to happen. NBC wants to interview all of us. They want to talk to you and your dad about your experiences, too.”

  Aimee looked to David with raised eyebrows. He shrugged. “I signed up for this, too, when I initially began the training program. You didn’t, though. Your mom is going to talk to them, and I am, too. Whether you do or not is entirely up to you. Your mom and I are happy either way.”

  “Can I think about it?” Aimee asked.

  “Of course; that’s why we brought it up,” Catherine said. “And if you want to talk it over with either of us, or with Maggie, that’s okay, too. Just . . . keep it between all of us for now.”

  Aimee grinned. “Right, no bragging on Twitter, got it.”

  That was the easy part. Now came the hard part, the real reason they’d come together for this talk with Aimee. “So . . . the next thing isn’t fun,” Catherine said.

  “You’re getting divorced,” Aimee said.

  Catherine should have known Aimee would figure it out.

  “Your mom and I have talked about it, and we think it’s best if we go ahead and file. We’re not planning to fight over anything. I’m going to keep the house, and we’ll divide the rest. You’re almost eighteen, so obviously we’re not going to fight over custody of you.”

  Catherine stepped in. “We figured you’d probably want to live here when you’re not at school, but you’re welcome to stay with me as much as you want.”

  Then she and David stopped talking, waiting for Aimee’s reaction. Catherine braced herself.

  Aimee sat with her head lowered in thought. “You know, when Mom moved out, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you two. I thought you loved each other, and that was all that mattered.”

  Catherine nodded, not wanting to interrupt.

  “But . . . when you came back, I guess things were a mess for all of us for a while there.”

  “All of us had trouble adjusting,” David said. “Your mom and I gave it our best try to fix things, but ten years is a long time.” It seemed they weren’t going to mention Maggie, or Tom, and Catherine was relieved. Despite everything that had happened, this really was just between her and David.

  “I still care about your dad, and we both love you, Aimee. We’re still a family. It’s just going to look a little bit different now.”

  Aimee smiled ruefully. “Guess that’s nothing new. We’ve never been a completely normal family anyway.”

  “Not so much, no,” David said with a smile of his own.

  “Hey, do me a favor,” Catherine said, “don’t tell that to NBC if you talk to them, okay? Lindholm would kill me.”

  “I don’t know . . .” David grinned. “Can you imagine the look on his face?”

  “I can, hence the caution.”

  “Okay.” Aimee leaned forward and looked at both her parents. “Tell me more about this interview. It might be fun . . .”

  Catherine and David exchanged smiles, and Catherine felt some of the knots inside her unravel. It would take time, but for the first time, she had faith that her family would be okay.

  27

  “ALL RIGHT, THAT’S about it for right now.” Cal tuned out the chatter around him in Mission Control so he could focus on the crew, which was now somewhere past Mars and close to ERB Prime. “Anybody have anything else I need to know about?”

  On the screen overhead, the crew glanced at one another, and Navarro nudged Nate. “Go on, Doc. Ask him.”

  Nate sighed. “So these guys—”

  “And you, too,” interjected Navarro.

  “Fine; we just wanna know why NASA is stealing our thunder.” Whatever Nate was talking about, Cal could tell it wasn’t his idea to bring it up, whether he agreed or not.

  �
�What do you mean?”

  “One of the techs told us about the interview with the Wells family. We watched it.”

  Cal chuckled. “You and a few million other people, Nate.” It had been a ratings bonanza, no doubt fulfilling Paul Lindholm’s wildest dreams. Americans had tuned in to hear about the sole survivor of Sagittarius I, and how her family felt after getting her back from the dead. Lindholm probably hadn’t been thrilled that David and Catherine admitted they’d filed for divorce. But the real surprise of the night hadn’t been the announcement, but rather their daughter, Aimee. She’d turned out to be well-spoken and incredibly bright—and already gunning for a job at NASA.

  “So who’s going to listen to what we have to say about TRAPPIST-1f when we come back?” Nate asked.

  “I thought you said you watched the interview. Come on, guys. Nobody was paying attention to a few vague artistic renderings from years ago. She came back, yeah, but her memories didn’t.” Cal was suddenly aware that most of the staff in Mission Control had stopped to listen to what was supposed to have been an ordinary status meeting. “The story there was all about how she survived a tragedy. God willing, that’s not the story you guys will be telling—and you’ll have some hard information about another planet. Trust me, gang, there’s plenty of story to go around.”

  He swallowed his misgivings. Depending on what he and Catherine learned, the story Sagittarius II brought back might be different from anything they could have imagined . . .

  But instead, he just grinned at his computer screen. “You bunch of walking egos have anything else, or are we good?”

  “That hurts, man. That really hurts.” Nate was grinning back, though, and the rest of the crew looked a little more relaxed.

  “Yeah, well, they hired me for my brutal honesty.”

  “We’re good,” Commander Duffy said. “Thanks, as always, Cal.”

  “No problem. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.” He signed off and closed the connection, pushing back from his station.

  Cal headed for his office, thinking about the interview. He’d watched it, too, of course. The divorce announcement caught him off guard, his stomach twisting in a mix of nerves, worry, and anticipation. It was a combination of feelings he really didn’t need right now, not while he was still trying to figure out what Catherine was doing during her blank spells.