The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(112)

“Into the examining room?” Nathaniel’s voice cracked.

“No—no. Just the lobby.” There had been a phone at the nurse’s station, and I’d nearly called Nathaniel from there. Thank God I hadn’t. “When Parker came out, he was green. And he stopped in the bathroom to throw up.”

The problem with small clinics is that the walls are thin. I am all too familiar with the sound of retching.

“After another five minutes, he came out. He was pale, but not green, and he’d put his aviators on.”

I had some guesses about why he was wearing sunglasses inside. My eyes always got red after a bout of vomiting.

Nathaniel grunted. “So the news is bad. Did he tell you what?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t ask. I let him pretend that everything was fine.”

“That was kinder than he deserved.”

I shook my head. “I just didn’t want to feel sorry for him.”

“Anything else?”

“He let me have the controls of the T-38 on the way back. I guess it was a reward or something.” My fingers had gone to ice. How could I be sweating and cold at the same time? “So … that’s it. Back at the IAC, it was like nothing had happened.”

Nathaniel grunted again and turned back to pacing. He’s tall, my husband, and our apartment doesn’t give him a lot of ground to cover. With the Murphy bed down, he had even less. He finally stopped in front of the window, staring out. “I could … I could force the issue. With the Sirius coming online, the G-forces of takeoff are going to be harsher than with the Jupiter. I could insist on physicals for all the astronauts.”

“He would see through that.”

“I’m not going to have him jeopardize the program, or the people in it, for the sake of his ego.”

Or for mine, for that matter. Nathaniel didn’t say it, but here we came to the problem. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had anxiety. While some of that was fear that they wouldn’t let me go into space, the rest of it was the same old concern. What would people think? And then, beneath that, the fear that they were right. “He’s been deferring missions while he tried to figure out what was going on.”

“But now there’s the moon.” The streetlights lit his hair into a corona. “You really think he’s going to defer that?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ll have to get rid of the pills, that’s for certain. And stop seeing the doctor. The more time between my last refill and when Parker outs me, the better. He will, though … Not immediately, because if he did, I would have no reason to keep silent.”

Nathaniel’s head snapped back to me. “That seems like a very bad idea.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” I spread my hands, but my fingers were shaking, so I rested them in my lap again. “He knows. I don’t know how, but he does.”

With a grunt, Nathaniel turned to pace again. “The driver—that night we stayed in a hotel because of the reporters, I sent a driver to pick up our clothes and your prescription.”

So it wasn’t just Parker who knew. How long—how long before everyone knew and I got booted from the program and it went into the papers and—

My stomach lurched and twisted in time with my thoughts. I staggered to my feet and barely made it to the bathroom before losing it. Huddled on the bathroom tiles, I clutched the toilet and retched. Nathaniel came in behind me and held my shoulders as all of the accumulated anxiety of the day heaved out of me.

And I hated myself. Daddy would have been so disappointed in me, unable to handle a little pressure. If I couldn’t handle this, maybe I shouldn’t be in the space program. I was stupid and weak, and it didn’t matter how hard I worked: this sickness would always be a part of me.

Nathaniel filled the tumbler from the bathroom sink with water and held it out to me. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“How will you stop him?” My throat hurt as I spoke, but I took the water and swallowed.

“I don’t know.” He ran a hand over my hair and down my back. “Not all of it, at any rate.”

“I don’t even know part of it.” I rocked back to sit on the floor, leaning against the side of the tub.

Nathaniel stood and opened the medicine cabinet.

“No.” My fingers tightened around the tumbler.

Ignoring me, Nathaniel pulled out the bottle of Miltown and crouched in front of me. “Elma … is this better? Throwing up and being miserable? Is that better than whatever it is Parker could do to you?”

“I don’t—” My voice fractured on the pain in my throat. “I don’t know.”

“Then let me tell you what I see.” Nathaniel shifted to squeeze in next to me against the tub. He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him, the pill bottle in one hand.

“Okay.”

“You’re better. With this. I was so—so worried about you before…” He shook the bottle so the pills rattled inside it. “Before this. I could hear when you threw up. You’d stopped eating. We went to bed together, but you didn’t sleep. And you weren’t talking to me about any of it. I thought you might be pregnant, until … that day. In my office. I was really frightened for you. And right now? The idea that Parker might put you through that, deliberately, because he’s made you afraid to use a tool that helps—I would like to punch him.”