The Astronaut's Wife

by Robert Tine

  “Thanks for coming,” he said, a little smile on his face. “I mean, I know how you hate hospitals.”

  This time Jillian laughed out loud, luxuriating in the rapturous delight of his return.

  Spencer’s face darkened. “How’s Alex doing?” he asked. “Is he all right?”

  The look on her face told him all he needed to know. “Not good,” she said sadly. “The doctors say that there was a terrible strain on his heart.”

  Spencer seemed to wince in pain and he closed his eyes. “Is Natalie with him?”

  Jillian nodded. “Yes. She’s there.,”

  Spencer nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s good…” Then he seemed to slip into a peaceful sleep. Alex Streck had been consigned to the Ultra Intensive Care Unit and lay unconscious, inert on the bed. He had more than a simple intravenous tube in his arm. His chest was dotted with pressure pads, and a bank of machines monitored every breath and nerve in his body. They whirred and clicked and beeped softly, mechanical guardians that never slept.

  Natalie Streck, clothed from foot to neck in a clean suit, slept soundly in a chair at his side. Her face was gray and lined, her mouth slightly open, dead to the world. She was sleeping so deeply that she did not notice what was happening to her husband.

  Without warning, his eyes began to flicker and move beneath his eyelids, as if he had slipped into a massive rapid eye movement cycle. Then his cracked, dried lips began to move.

  “Spencer?” he whispered, his voice dry and, raspy. “Jesus Christ, Spencer…”

  Natalie did not hear her husband, but the monitors began to come alive. The beeping became faster and more urgent as his heart rate accelerated alarmingly. His respiration rate shot up and a sweat broke on his brow. His eyes remained closed.

  “What is that?” Streck’s voice was full of alarm and fear. “Spencer, do you feel that?”

  The machines picked up the rising agitation and began racing faster and faster.

  “What is that? Oh God!” Streck thrashed as best he could in the bed as if trying to run away from his own nightmare. “Oh God, what is that? What’s happening?”

  Suddenly, Alex Streck’s eyes snapped open, but they were unseeing, as if he thought himself in an-other place. “Jesus!” He almost managed to yell this time. “What the hell is that?”

  The monitors hit the red zone and an alarm split the air, the loud howl wakening Natalie instantly. She jumped to her feet and rushed to the bedside of her husband.

  “Alex? Alex? What’s wrong?”

  The machinery kicked up another notch; a second alarm joined the first. Lights flickered and rolls of graph paper, scratched with a crazy quilt of ink, began to pour out of the mouth of one of the monitors.

  “It hurts!” Alex wailed. “Oh God, it hurts!”

  “Alex!” Natalie screamed. “Wake up!”

  Somehow, Alex found enough breath in his weakened body to let out a terrible howl. “Jesus! It hurts so much!”

  At that moment, the door flew open and a team of doctors and nurses swept into the room.

  A nurse pounced on Natalie and tried to pull her away. “He’s in pain,” Natalie yelled. “He said something and he’s in pain.”

  “Come with me, Mrs. Streck. Please…”

  “He’s dying!” wailed Natalie. “Save him!”

  “Let the doctors do their work,” the nurse insisted, pulling her away from the bed.

  “Oh, Alex!”

  In the bed, Streck began to thrash wildly. A doctor and two more nurses fought to keep him down on the bed. Alex’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body arched off the bed as if a million volts were running through every nerve, muscle, and synapse in his tortured body. Half-formed words broke from his spit-flecked lips as he struggled to say something, as if he was desperate to speak.

  “Jesus, hold him,” said one of the doctors, gritting his teeth. “Don’t let him break out.”

  A nurse handed an enormous hypodermic needle to the doctor and without hesitation he jammed the horrific instrument into Streck’s chest and jammed down the plunger, shooting the liquid deep into the astronaut’s body.

  The monitors were screaming—all except the one that measured Streck’s heart rate. In a sickening monotone, the machine shut down and flat lined. Abruptly Alex stopped thrashing in the bed, his body falling flat and rigid.

  “He’s going,” said one of the nurses matter-of-factly. “His vitals are dropping.”

  “Not yet, not yet,” said the doctor firmly. “Get ready to defibrillate, nurse. ”

  The nurse grabbed the portable defibrillator and pulled it to the side of the bed.

  “Paddles,” the doctor ordered. He grabbed the paddles and placed them against Streck’s chest.

  The nurse watched the machine. “Charging…Go!”

  “Clear,” the doctor ordered.

  He gave the dying man an unholy blast of electricity right over the heart, Alex’s body arched tight again but the heart rate remained at a sickening flat line.

  “Still at zero,” the nurse announced.

  “Again!” yelled the doctor.

  Another powerful charge of electricity surged through Alex Streck’s body, convulsing him once again.

  No one noticed that Jillian was watching this terrible tableau from the open door. Leaning heavily against his wife was Spencer. Jillian seemed horrified at what she was seeing. Spencer seemed curiously detached from the proceedings.

  Another zap of electricity went through Alex— and as Alex’s body spasmed he opened his eyes and looked directly at Spencer. Jillian saw it, the two men staring at one another and all the action in the room seemed to have stopped, the frantic sound in the room fading away. Spencer looked into Alex’s eyes and nodded to him, a slight move of the head, as if he was saying “okay,” giving Alex some kind of permission.

  In that instant, motion and sound seemed to return to the room. Alex closed his eyes calmly and the heart monitor began to climb up from the flat line, working its way back to a weak but steady pace. The doctor and his nurses sighed.

  “He’s back,” the doctor whispered. “We got him. It was close, but we got him back.” A moment or two later a nurse discovered Spencer and shooed him back to bed, clucking like a hen as she returned him to his room. Once Spencer had returned to his room a doctor entered, administered a sedative, and sent Spencer off to a very deep and dreamless sleep.

  Then the doctor turned to Jillian. “There’s nothing you can do here, Mrs. Armacost. He’ll be out all night. Why don’t you go home and get a good night’s sleep…”

  But there was no sleep for Jillian that night. She tossed and turned in her bed for a while, then threw aside the covers, pulled on a robe, and walked to the French doors and looked out into the still night. The sky was dappled with stars, white points of light that, on another night she would have found pretty and reassuring. Not tonight. Tonight they looked incomprehensible and tinged with evil.

  5

  After a couple of days of what doctors always called “observation,” Spencer Armacost was released from the hospital, having been awarded a completely clean bill of health. In accordance with hospital policy, however, Spencer Armacost—clean bill of health and all—had to leave the facility not under his own steam but in a wheelchair. Jillian wheeled him to the front door and as the double doors swept open Spencer took a deep breath of the sweet, humid Florida air.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “There’s lots more out there,” said Jillian smiling.

  Spencer twisted his wheelchair seat and looked over his shoulder at his wife. He smiled broadly.

  “You’ll never guess what you missed, Jillian,” he said. “A very big event.”

  “What did I miss?” she asked.

  “The President called.”

  Jillian brought the wheelchair to an abrupt halt. “The President?” she asked.

  “Of the United States of America,” Spencer filled in, as if to distinguish him from o
ther presidents. “He called this morning and told us that me and Alex were true American heroes. He wants us to go to Washington, D.C. so we can shake his hand in the Rose Garden. How do you like that? Being married to a true American hero.”

  “I love it,” said Jillian simply.

  “I figured.”

  “What did you say to the President?”

  “Well,” said Spencer, “I said that we would not have had a chance to be great American heroes if he and Congress hadn’t cut our budget and forced us to put a piece of shit exploding satellite into orbit up there.”

  “You did not say that,” said Jillian flatly. Al-though, knowing her husband as she did there was always the possibility that he had been less than respectful.

  “But that’s not all,” Spencer continued.

  “Really?”

  Spencer nodded. “Then he said, as a way of showing his appreciation, he was going to send me a new car. A special new car, just for being a hero.”

  “How special?” Jillian asked, playing along now.

  “The special kind that brows up when I put the key in the ignition,” said Spencer deadpan.

  Abruptly Jillian spun the wheelchair around until they were face-to-face. “Spencer Armacost, did the President call you?”

  Spencer nodded. “Yes, he did.”

  “And what did you say to him?”

  Spencer opened his mouth to reply, but his wife cut him off, holding up her hand like a cop stopping traffic. “Ah-ah-ah,” she cautioned. “Don’t you lie to me.”

  “I wasn’t going to lie… After he called me an American hero I said, ‘Thank you very much, sir.’ ”

  Jillian laughed leaned down and kissed him lightly, then turned the wheelchair back toward the door. “Now that’s a little more like it,” she said.

  “Then I asked him what he was wearing and he hung up on me. Why do you think he did that? Can you imagine, me—an American hero and I get such disrespect.”

  “Amazing,” said Jillian. “Some people just didn’t learn good manners. ”

  “My feelings exactly,” said Spencer. He climbed out of the wheelchair and stretched. “I’ll take it from here.” NASA had the ability to turn a public relations disaster into public relations gold. No sooner had Alex Streck and Spencer Armacost been released from the hospital, allowed a couple of days at home for a little rest and rehabilitation, then the press department of the agency called them back to the Cape for a space shuttle Victory victory celebration. It was a perfect opportunity for a carefully staged photo-op. And the icing on the cake was that the public had been invited.

  Jillian Armacost and Natalie Streck sat with the wives of the astronauts on the mission on a bleacher erected on the lawn in front of the main administration building. Jammed in with them were dozens of tourists, curiosity seekers, and space buffs who ranged in age from eight to eighty.

  The bleacher faced a huge American flag with the entire crew of the Victory posed in front of it. Over their heads flapping in the light breeze was a huge banner that read simply: WELCOME BACK!

  A phalanx of photographers fired roll after roll of film at the seven astronauts, calling out to them by name to look this way and that. And to smile— above all to smile. The danger had passed, the program was back on track, and if you didn’t believe it, here was photographic proof. The picture would appear around the world by that time tomorrow. The astronauts looked happy, the NASA officials looked happy. The spectators were delighted.

  Only Natalie and Jillian looked concerned. They spoke in whispers, not daring to risk being over-heard.

  “Jill,” Natalie asked. “Spencer…does he ever talk about it? About what happened?”

  Jillian looked from the photo shoot and then back at the very worried-looking Natalie.

  “How do you mean?” she asked warily, trying to stave off a series of painful questions. Questions she had asked herself since the day it all happened.

  “I mean… does he ever say anything about what it was like?” Natalie hissed. “Did Spencer ever tell you what it was like? About what happened when they were alone up there?”

  Jillian shook her head and touched Natalie’s arm lightly. “It’s okay, Natalie. They’re back. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Try to forget. Try to put it behind you.” She spoke with a firm self-confidence she did not feel at all.

  Natalie was not fooled by this show of certainty. She sensed that Jillian’s brave face was nothing more than a mask, a facade. “He doesn’t talk about it, does he?” She did not wait for a response, feeling that she knew the answer already. “I know he doesn’t talk about it,” she went on. “Neither does Alex. Never. Not a word.”

  Jillian nodded. “It must have been horrible,” she said. “Why would they want to relive it?”

  “How could they not?” Natalie said, her voice rising slightly above her discreet whisper. “You’re right, it must have been horrible. Those two minutes, they almost died, Jillian. I have thought of nothing else since it happened. So they must, too. It’s only natural.”

  “But they didn’t die,” Jillian protested. “They didn’t die. They came back and they’re well again.” She looked over at the crew. All of them seemed genuinely happy. And why wouldn’t they? Alex and Spencer had cheated death. It must be an exhilarating feeling. At least, it should be, shouldn’t it?

  Natalie could not leave it alone. The experience of the two men went around and around in her brain. “But they almost did, and to go through that, and never mention it. Never.”

  “Give them time, Natalie,” said Jillian. “You have to give them time to understand what happened. It’s not the sort of thing you can take in all at once, not something you can consume whole. It will take a long time for them to figure it all out. You have to believe that, Natalie. It makes sense, right?”

  A look of pity came into Natalie’s brown eyes. She had the feeling that Jillian was speaking from the heart—but for different reasons. “I know this must be hard for you, Jill.”

  “It’s hard for everyone, Natalie.”

  “No,” Natalie persisted, “hard for you in particular. I remember how bad it got for you after your parents died. It must have been horrible. Just like this is.”

  Natalie had crossed a line. Jillian’s face turned cold and her words were clipped. She looked right at Natalie. “This has absolutely nothing to do with that,” she said.

  “It just scares me, Jillian,” said Natalie, oblivious to the stab of pain she had jabbed into her friend. “It just scares me that he acts like it never happened.”

  Jillian looked from Natalie and then back to the photo shoot, which seemed to be coming to an end. Spencer and Alex were talking, their heads together as if they were whispering conspiratorially. Except for the cane that Alex Streck leaned against rather casually, neither men looked as if they had just survived a near miss with death in space followed by stays in the hospital. Spencer appeared to glow with health and Alex Streck seemed to have shed a few pounds and a few years, as if he had spent a week in a spa rather than having done excruciating time in a NASA intensive care unit.

  As the photographers packed up their gear and the Victory crew dispersed. Jillian watched as two self-conscious kids edged into the scene. Both carried pictures of the Victory that the public relations guys had papered the visitors area with earlier that day. Spencer saw them looking longingly in his direction and he motioned to them, waving them over.

  “Hey, kids,” he said. “You two want an autograph or something like that?”

  The two boys could not believe their luck. They raced over to the two astronauts. Spencer and Alex signed the pictures with a flourish and the two kids took off with their trophies. Jillian had seen the whole exchange and beamed with pride in her husband. Now that was Spencer Armacost—the real Spencer Armacost that she knew.

  Jillian left Natalie and walked down the bleachers to her husband’s side. He slid an arm around her slim waist and together they watched the kids run off.

 
“I know exactly what they’re feeling,” Spencer said. “They’re going to grow up and be spacemen. I was going to do that. All my friends laughed when I told them…”

  “But you did,” said Jillian. “You showed them.”

  Spencer laughed a little. “Oh yeah… I sure showed them all right. I’m the envy of every adult in the country.”

  “You did what you set out to do,” Jillian insisted. “You left your mark. That’s more than some guy who works in a bank does. You became part of history. You did it…”

  “I did it,” he said quietly. “And now it’s done.” He looked at her and smiled. “All done.”

  Jillian returned his gaze but was also aware of Sherman Reese standing off to one side watching them. “What is done?” she asked. “What are you talking about”

  “I’m resigning from the service,” said Spencer bluntly. “That’s what’s done.”

  Jillian shook her head slightly, like a boxer shaking off a quick blow to the head. For a moment she was not entirely sure she had heard him correctly. She was completely taken aback by the announcement her husband had made in such a matter-of-fact manner.

  “Is… is this because of what happened to you up there, Spencer?” Maybe Natalie was right after all, maybe something terrible had happened up there. Something that would alter his life— and by extension her own—forever.

  Spencer took a deep breath and suddenly looked a little weary, as if he was not quite up to the task of explaining his reasons to her. “I’m done up there, Jillian,” he said. “I’m finished with up there. I think I’ve just about had enough.”

  “What will you do?” she asked. She could not imagine her husband doing anything but being involved in aviation.

  Spencer smiled. “Believe it or not I got an offer, a job offer. Out of the blue, as it were. ”

  “From who?” Jillian asked.

  “An aerospace firm,” Spencer answered. “It’s an executive position. And it pays a lot of money, Jillian, bucket loads of money.” Being an astronaut did not pay anything close to a single bucket load of money and there were a lot of things they had done without over the years. But neither of the Armacosts were particularly interested in getting a lot of money. It was usually the furthest thing from Spencer’s mind.