Page 41 of The Launch

“She’s been resting while a doctor looks after her,” Vance says. “And now she gets to come home to us. So let’s tell Mrs. Booker thank you for watching you these past couple of days, and you two gather your things so we can go home and get ready for Mama’s homecoming.”

The twins race off to get their toothbrushes, favorite dolls, and nightgowns, and Jo sends her three kids through the gate and into the backyard to hose themselves off before going into the house. She and Vance are in the driveway alone as she pulls a cooler and the sandy blankets from the back of her station wagon and sets them on the grass.

“How is she?” Jo asks him gently.

“Mild concussion, and she doesn’t remember falling into the pool at all. The brain swelling was minor and seems to be diminishing quickly, so I would consider us lucky and in good shape.” He blows out a breath and leans against Jo’s car. “I have a lot on my plate at the moment, Jo. I don’t mean to bend your ear about it and take advantage of your hospitality, but…” Vance digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and rubs them. “I want her to get well is all. I’m sure Bill wouldn’t understand because he’s got you and his life is all squared away, but sometimes things are really messy.”

Jo leans against the car right next to him so that they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder. She looks out at the street they live on, squinting as a woman two doors down walks to her mailbox, flips open the little door, and slides out a stack of envelopes. The woman raises a hand at Jo and smiles. Jo waves back—this is Marianne, wife of one of the Project Mercury astronauts, and while they don’t know one another well yet, she’s been nothing but friendly. Marianne stops to pick up a piece of mail that slips from her hands, then disappears back into her house, closing the front door after her.

“Listen. Vance.” Jo crosses her feet at the ankles as Hope and Faith come out with their overnight bags in hand. “You’re going to be okay. And no one’s life is perfect, so please don’t think that you’re alone in the messiness of marriage and family, okay?”

Vance turns just his head and looks down at Jo, who is about six inches shorter than he is. “You think?”

Jo gives him a nod as she pushes away from the car with her hip. “I don’t just think—I know.” She gives him a close-lipped smile as the girls bombard their dad, clearly ready to go home and get back to their own routine.

Vance prompts the twins to say thank you to Jo for her hospitality, and she ruffles each of their heads in turn. “Anytime,” Jo says, meaning it. She shoots Vance a meaningful look. “And if you need anything at all, you’ve got my number.”

Jo watches as Vance pulls away with his girls in the backseat, wondering how things will go as Jude comes home and recovers. She’d like to spend more time pondering it, but Bill will be home from Arizona tomorrow, and she has her own messy, imperfect family stuff to worry about at the moment.

SEVENTEEN

bill

The afternoonwith Margaret is nothing short of exhausting. As soon as she’d recognized Bill, Margaret had traveled back in time and started imagining that they were still in high school. Rather than correct her, Bill had gone along with the farce, hoping that she’d come around on her own and start living in reality again.

“You’re late—again,” Margaret fumes now, folding her arms across her chest. She looks at him the same way she had when they were teenagers and he’d shown up at her house later than they’d planned. “It’s like you don’t even want to see me. Are you here because I’m forcing you to be?”

Yes, Bill thinks.There is no way I would have left my job and my family and flown halfway across country for any other reason than because you’re forcing me to.

“No,” Bill says, holding up both hands defensively so that she can see his palms. “I’m here because I wanted to see how you are.”

“See how I am? I’m hurt, Bill Booker,” she says, turning back to the window. “You said you’d be here to meet my grandparents, and you missed the whole thing.”

Bill knows instantly that she’s skipped back in the timeline to a day when he’d promised to come over to her house while her grandparents were visiting, but he’d been unable to make it, and Margaret was furious when he finally did show up. It looks like they’re about to relive that moment.

“You have my most sincere apologies, Margaret,” he says. This is not how their original argument had gone, but Bill wants to diffuse the tension as quickly as possible. “I did not mean to miss them.”

“And yet,” she says, spinning around wildly, her hair catching on the stiff white fabric of her pressed and starched hospital gown. “Here you are, showing up without flowers, without any real excuse, and now I’m just embarrassed in front of my family. Is that how you want me to feel? Embarrassed?”

Bill shakes his head sadly. The day this had actually happened, he’d been the one who was embarrassed. Ashamed of where he came from. “No,” he says. “I don’t want that.”

“What happened?” Margaret’s eyes soften and she rushes across the room towards him. Instantly, one of the men against the wall steps forward to intervene, but Bill shakes his head to stop him. He’s not afraid of Margaret physically. “Why didn’t you come?”

Bill swallows hard as she stands so close to him that her breath is on his neck. She looks up into his face. Margaret is still tiny—barely five feet tall and weighing no more than a hundred pounds. Her eyes and hair have a wildness to them that they didn’t have when she was younger, but she is still the same woman Bill married all those years ago. At least somewhere deep down she is.

“I didn’t come because my dad got drunk again and he hit my mother. I couldn’t leave her there until he took off to find some place to cool down.” This was the absolute truth of the situation, but it was something he had not shared with Margaret the day ithad happened. He’d been seventeen and proud. He’d also been fearful that Margaret and her family would see him as some kind of no-good bum from a bad family. He’d stayed with his mother, holding her as she cried in his arms, and waited for the sound of his father’s truck roaring down the dirt driveway. When the coast was clear, he’d left, driving straight to Margaret’s to try and smooth things over.

Margaret takes a step back, blinking at him now. “Your dad was…drunk?”

Bill nods. He’d never shared with her that his father was an alcoholic, nor that he hit Bill’s mother. They’d grown up in a time when family business was family business, and you kept your problems inside the four walls of your own home.

“He was drunk,” Bill says now, holding Margaret’s disbelieving gaze.

“So you still want to marry me?”

It’s Bill’s turn to just stand there wordlessly. He isn’t sure whether carrying on this façade is a good idea anymore. “Margaret,” he says, putting both hands in his pockets as he takes one almost imperceptible step back from her. “I just?—“

In a rage, Margaret flies at him, hands pounding his chest as she wails. Instantly, the two guards have her by both arms and Bill is being shown out of the room and into the hallway. The door closes behind him, but through a tiny rectangular window, he can see Margaret flailing savagely against the grips of the two large men. Her screams are still audible even through the thick door.

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