Page 37 of The Light Year

“I understand that you lost your temper and punched my wife’s brother at the New Year’s party. I know you got shippedoff to therapy and had to spill your guts to some lady shrink.” Todd’s voice is even and it sounds edgier than Bill has ever heard it sound. “And whatever the hell has been going on with you and Jeanie Florence isn’t exactly top secret.” Todd puts his cigarette to his lips and takes a long pull on it, then exhales smoke up towards the ceiling as he narrows his eyes at Bill. “But tell me more about you.”

Bill’s face goes slack and heat creeps up his neck. Just the mention of Jeanie is enough to push his buttons, so he makes an effort to close his mouth, to neutralize his features, and to change the subject.

“You’re calling me an ass,” Bill finally says, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “And I deserve that.” He nods at Todd’s cigarette. “You got another one of those?”

Todd pulls the pack and his lighter from the breast pocket of his jacket and sets them on the table with a loudthump. There’s no way he’s lighting Bill’s cigarette, so he looks at the band on the stage and at the gleeful children as Bill pulls one from the pack and flicks the lighter.

Once Bill has done a full inhale and exhale, he speaks again: “Tell me about you, Roman. I want to hear how your year has been—other than the obvious.”

Todd sits back in the chair and cocks an eyebrow at Bill. “You’re asking me to tell you my troubles so that yours sound smaller? Or maybe misery just wants company?”

“Sure,” Bill allows. “Maybe both. What do you have?”

Todd crosses one leg over the other and looks up at the extremely high ceiling of the hangar. “Well,” he says, thinking about it. “First of all, my year started with you punching my brother-in-law at a work party, and I had to deal with the fallout from that. My wife was not pleased.”

Bill makes ahmphsound, but doesn’t apologize for punching Ted Mackey.

“Next, I waited on pins and needles to see if I’d get chosen for the docking mission, and when I did, I had to deal with how it felt to beat out Vance, who is arguably my best friend at NASA. We always know that’s a chance, that we’ll knock a buddy off a mission, but it still doesn’t feel good, and then you’ve got all the inferiority stuff that plays in your brain.” Todd circles a hand in the air as he talks, cigarette smoke wafting upwards as he does. “So I went up to space, excited as all hell, and nearly died. Came back feeling like I was on a boat that was constantly pitching and rolling. That went on for a couple of months, so thanks for asking,” Todd says curtly, grinding his cigarette into the ashtray and then sitting back to look right at Bill. “Saw some doctors, lost some time at work, ended up looking like a jackass who can’t handle space.”

“Oh, come on,” Bill says, ready to argue this point. “That could have happened to anyone.”

Todd holds up a hand. “But it didn’t. It happened to me, and you’re asking about me. I did the physical therapy and somehow avoided surgery, thank god, but I still wake up some mornings feeling like I don’t have my sea legs. No one knows that, by the way, not even Barbie,” he says, giving Bill a sharp look.

The band starts to play “Winter Wonderland.”

“I’m sorry, Todd,” Bill says sincerely. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“Well, most of us can’t see past the end of our own noses, and I would say that you’re particularly bad at it, Booker.” Todd laughs at his own joke. “The only thing you can see beyond the tip of your own schnoz is Jeanie Florence.”

Bill taps his cigarette in the ashtray as he composes himself. Hearing--yet again--from a coworker about Jeanie is making him incredibly uncomfortable. And yet, he knows he's not in a position to dispute the allegation, or even to be angry at Todd for making it.

"Jo and I have been seeing my therapist together," he says instead, surprising himself as the words come out of his mouth. He puts the cigarette to his lips and inhales again as he narrows his eyes. "You're a military man yourself, Roman. And now you're an astronaut. We've been through a lot of the same things--as well as some things that don't overlap."

As he says this, he's thinking of the daughter he and his first wife, Margaret, had lost in the middle of their pregnancy. He's also remembering the long years of worrying that he'd done the wrong thing by committing Margaret to a mental facility and ultimately divorcing her. He'd done as right by her as he could, given the fact that he himself was a young man then, with a whole life ahead of him, and when she'd died by her own hand, it had taken yet another toll on Bill and on his psyche.

Todd is listening; he nods, but says nothing.

"I would also be willing to bet that your life hasn't always been a bed of roses," Bill goes on. His gold watch taps against the glass ashtray on the table and his eyes never leave Todd's face. "There have most likely been things that have happened, or choices you've made, that have left their mark. None of us are perfect. And none of our choices are perfect, either."

Todd clears his throat and nods again. "Fair enough."

"But I want you to hear it from me directly: Jo and I are addressing these issues, and I'm doing my best to be the kind of man I can look at in the mirror each day. It's not always easy, and I've done plenty of things I'm not proud of, but..." He pauses here, looking at the women on the dance floor with their children. "All I can say is that I'm trying."

Todd nods and taps the table lightly with his knuckles as he stands. "That's all anyone can ask for, Bill." He stands there a moment, giving Bill a look that's somewhere between admiration and pity, and then he walks off, leaving Bill to smokethe rest of his cigarette as his eyes skim the room, searching for Jeanie Florence.

“I think your mind is somewhere else,” Jo says to Bill in Dr. Sheinbaum’s office. “Or maybe it’s your heart.”

Bill can feel the brittle tension between them as they sit on the couch, facing Dr. Sheinbaum, who is behind her desk.

“Bill?” Dr. Sheinbaum prompts, waiting for his response.

“I’ve had a hard year,” he offers as an excuse. “My mind has been all over the place. You know that, Dr. Sheinbaum.” Bill looks at his therapist, hoping she’ll corroborate this and help him move to safer ground.

Jo turns her head to him. There is hurt on her face. “Bill,” she says softly. “You can’t be married to someone for fifteen years without knowing them at least a little. And I know you a lot.”

He can’t deny that this is true; Jo does know him, perhaps better than anyone. They don’t just share a house and a bed and a few kids—they share a life and their hearts. He’d abandoned his responsibility to stay married to Margaret to be with the gorgeous creature sitting next to him on the couch, and as he looks at her now, he feels the full impact of shirking his responsibilities to Jo in order to indulge in his feelings for Jeanie.

Bill reaches over and takes her hand, feeling inspired in the moment. “Let’s go away together,” he says earnestly as the idea builds momentum in his head. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. I’ve got time I can take at work, and we need to reconnect. Just you and me, no kids.”

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