A Cosmic Kind of Love(5)
I hadn’t lied when I said I missed her. Yet, the truth was I didn’t miss her the way Tom missed his wife, Pam, and his kids. Sometimes I caught the guy rereading their letters that one of the crew handed to him hours before launch. I wondered what she and the kids said that held him so transfixed and brought peace to his eyes.
I wondered why I didn’t feel envious that I didn’t get that from Darcy, until I thought of my father and felt a cold splash of reality I’d rather ignore.
My father, Javier Ortiz, co-owner of a multi-industry corporation in Manhattan, eschewed the concept of love. Not just romantic but familial too. Even when my mother was alive, the son of a bitch.
The only affection I’d ever seen my father dole out was to my late brother, Miguel, and some offhand tenderness to my mom when he was in the mood.
There was no affection between us like there had been between him and Miguel.
Although, there was pride. I think he was finally proud of me. Pride wasn’t love or affection, but it was better than nothing, and Javier Ortiz was openly proud that his youngest son was an astronaut. Not just any astronaut, but one of only fourteen Latinx astronauts in the history of NASA.
“My father, ladies and gentleman,” I muttered to myself as I pulled myself into the training station.
Tom was already inside running on the treadmill. “They scheduled you in here too?” It was unusual for us to be scheduled for a workout at the same time.
My commander didn’t shake his head as he ran. Sweat was a problem onboard the space station. With no gravity, sweat expanded across our bodies in wet globs. Any sudden movements could dislodge that glob and hit one of your crewmates. We kept a towel on us during our workouts to soak up the perspiration. Tom wiped his across his forehead. “On my downtime.”
And he was working out. I understood that. Anton would laugh at us. He felt it was almost unfair that we had to strap ourselves down a couple of hours a day and force our bodies to move as if we were on Earth. But working out had been a part of my daily routine for as long as I could remember, and as much as I loved zero gravity, a workout was still one of my favorite ways to channel my thoughts and balance my mood.
“I’m just finishing up though. You’re a little early.”
It didn’t surprise me Tom was aware of my schedule. I knew his too.
“Did you send the video?” he asked as he unclipped the harness that pulled him down onto the treadmill.
“Yeah, all done.” I held on to a handrail with one hand, video camera in the other.
“Good. Because as much as what we’re doing up here matters, it matters because of everyone down there.” He pointed toward Earth. “You’re focused and you’re competent, and I’m glad to have you on my crew, Ortiz. But I still don’t know what’s driving you. Me, I love being an astronaut. I’ve dreamed of being an astronaut since I was a kid. That love never went away, but I do this now because I love my family, and what we do up here creates progress down there. We’re mapping out the future for my kids’ kids and their kids’ kids, and that matters to me. What matters to you?”
I answered automatically despite his seemingly out-of-left-field question. “Keeping my crew safe, helping my team, while we do all that.”
“And that’s admirable. But is it enough? We’re here for another sixteen weeks. Will your reasons be enough when you haven’t had a shower for a hundred and eighty-two days? When you haven’t had a fresh meal? When you’ve had to pee into the funnel for the eight-hundredth time? When you miss sex? And good coffee?”
I was confused but not irritated or defensive about his questions. I’d been training for this mission for the last three years and was used to having my decisions and opinions overanalyzed and questioned and discussed by many people at Mission Control. However, everything he’d asked was situational, and I’d been trained to deal with them. “I don’t understand.”
“My mind is always on my crew and my tasks,” Tom elaborated. “But my love for my family and what I’ve left behind on Earth are what drives me to remain focused.”
The light bulb went off. “I’m not the only unmarried, childless astronaut who’s ever come up here, Tom.”
“No, and those men and women live and breathe being astronauts and have done so since they could say the word. You, Ortiz, considered this career late in the game in comparison. And like I said, you’re doing great. I’m thankful you’re part of my expedition . . . but I guess what I’m trying to say is that for the rest of us, this is a ride we never get off. We go back to Earth, we stay in Houston, we travel to Star City, we train for the next mission. If that’s what you see in your future too, then this conversation is moot.”
The conversation wasn’t moot.
The next mission.
It was something I hadn’t thought about, being so focused on the first one.
Surely if this was a ride I didn’t want to get off, I’d have thought about what came afterward more?
My commander gave me one of his looks that said everything without saying anything, and I watched him float by me out of node 3, now feeling a little irritated with him.
I set up the video camera, attaching it to the wall in front of the ARED machine, then I pulled the harness down and belted it around my waist. Pulling the bar and attached arms of the ARED over my head, resting the bar across my shoulders to hold me down in place, I wrapped my hands around it like it was a barbell. I paused before I started to do squats. Tom’s words rang in my ears.