Page 7 of The Light Year

The children step back from their fathers then, and Jo and Barbie walk over to the steps of the airplane, where bags are being unloaded and set on the tarmac nearby.

"Hi," Todd says, opening his arms for his wife. Barbie nearly falls into them as Jo stands on tiptoe to wrap her arms around Bill's neck.

"Hey," Barbie sobs, burying her face in Todd's chest. She puts her hands to his shirt, grabbing onto his lapels as she tries to hide her tears.

"Oh, come on now," Todd says in a husky voice. He's never liked to see her cry, and the heightened emotion of this journey has them both in tears. "We're good--everything is fine."

Barbie shakes her head, her face still pressed against Todd's powerful chest. "But you weren't saying anything," she murmurs, her sobs coming out as brief hiccups now. "You were up there, and I could hear Bill, but I didn't hear you, and..."

"And you thought the worst." Todd puts his hands on her arms and gently pulls her back so he can look at her tear-stained face. The kids are now whooping and running around under the airplane, dodging the pilots as they stand around talking in the waning light. "It's understandable that you were worried, Barb, but this is my job. Every time I go up there, you have to know there's the chance something could go wrong."

These words are not what Barbie needs or wants to hear, and she heaves with another oncoming sob.

"Oh, girl, come here." Todd pulls her close again, tucking her blonde head under his chin and wrapping his arms around her. He holds his wife tightly as their three boys shout with joy, chasing one another around on the tarmac. A few feet away, Bill and Jo are talking seriously, and their three kids are inspectingthe airplane, climbing up the steps that the flight attendant has invited them to take so they can go inside and see the cockpit.

Barbie forces herself to inhale deeply and then release. She does this three times and calms her entire body. Her head clears, and her shoulders relax.

"Dad!" Heath says, running up to them and skidding to a stop next to Todd. "Can we have cheeseburgers for dinner? Can we go to the drive-in?"

Todd is rubbing Barbie's back in slow, lazy circles, and she steps back from him now, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands as she laughs at their son’s excitement. "You boys want the drive-in?" she asks Heath. He nods eagerly. "Okay, get your brothers and we'll go."

When Barbie looks back at Todd, he's observing her. "You okay?"

Barbie is not okay, but she knows that, for his sake, she has to be. She gives a firm nod. "Never better."

There will be time later—when the kids are asleep and Barbie has gotten used to Todd being with her again in the flesh-—for her to ask questions and to understand what happened up there in space. But for now, she has all her boys with her, and she's prepared to enjoy it.

Todd smiles at her. He's clearly pleased that she's ready to get this show on the road. "It's burger time, boys!" he shouts at his sons, who take off running toward the car, little Huck lagging behind as he tries to keep up with his brothers.

Todd loops an arm around Barbie's waist and they follow their boys into the sunset.

It had been terrifying. And almost impossible for Barbie to imagine. Over the early days of Todd’s return, he’d been giving her bits and pieces of what happened on Gemini, and Barbie could only listen to so much before covering her eyes and her ears and shaking her head as she fought off tears.

She loves Todd so much, and she can’t stand thinking of him unconscious or in pain.

“Barb,” he says one morning, standing next to her at the kitchen sink as she slowly rinses dishes in her robe. “I’m still having some troubles with feeling dizzy.”

Barbie shuts off the water, sets the dish on the rack, and turns to look at Todd as she dries her hands on a dishtowel. “Dizzy?”

Todd puts his hands to his head. “I wake up at night and my head is spinning. I get up and every morning I feel like I’m going to black out.”

“Have you told anyone?”

“No way. I don’t want to be pulled from the program.”

The boys are in the front room, playing relatively quietly as Barbie cleans up after breakfast. She puts a fist on one hip as she frowns up at her husband’s face. “You know you can’t justnotsay anything. You need to address this.”

Todd’s head hangs and his shoulders roll forward as he leans against the counter. “I know. I just hate going to the doctor.”

Barbie knows this. She has known Todd for so long that she can predict his every response, and the minute he said he felt dizzy, she knew it would be like trying to coax one of the boys into going to the doctor.

"I'm setting it up," Barbie says, turning her face up to his to kiss him. "Go get ready for work. I'll try to schedule it for as soon as possible."

Once Todd is out the door with his coffee in a thermos and his lunch in a metal pail, Barbie gets Heath and Henry out the door--to second grade and kindergarten, respectively--and settles Huck down with a box full of blocks and trucks. She pulls out a Stardust Beach phone book and selects a doctor, then calls and makes the appointment for Todd. Her greatest fear was that he wouldn't come home, which had been downgraded to the idea that he might come home hurt, and now she's just worried about the long-term effects of his trip to space.

A knock on the door pulls her away from the kitchen, and Barbie opens it to find Carrie Reed on her doorstep.

"Hiya," Carrie says, grinning at her. "Have you had long enough to re-feather your love nest now that your man is back?" she teases, waiting to be invited in.

---