Remember Me (18 page)

With every hour that passed, I could see the damaging effect of my knowledge having an impact on my parents and Stacy.

As the discussions deepened, my mother would have to excuse herself. She just needed to go do something normal. She made supper and then later did the dishes. My sister twirled her hair between her fingers, a sign of nervous tension. Even my father was affected. The weight of what would happen drained him of emotion. I made a promise to myself…this would be the last time I involved any of them in my plans. The cost was just too great for them…and me to pay. I prayed to God that S 131 S

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something good would come from our actions.

My sister would be flying home in three days and would

mail out a letter from her stop-over in Denver, CO. My father was going to drive to Austin, MN to mail out his letter. Mom would stay near home and mail her letter from Cedar Rapids.

I scheduled a flight to New York and would mail mine from there. If anyone tried to draw conclusions, it would be difficult for them to correlate the mailings. We spent the better part of the next day crafting and then officially writing the letter. After some research, we chose four different people associated with the project and addressed the letters to them personally, in care of NASA. Even though our hope was wishful, we sincerely hoped that at least one person would take us seriously. That was if they read the letters at all. I had no idea how many prank letters and threats were routinely received and dismissed.

I decided against traveling to New Hampshire where

Christa McAuliffe lived. Even if my powers of persuasion were enough to make her believe me, someone else would step-in to take her place. Anyway, I knew she was already in Florida.

My only possible chance at stopping her would have to be by convincing her husband of the threat. The best opportunity we had lay in the people behind the scenes. I knew that DNA tracking was still several years away, but to be certain, the paper, envelopes and stamps were handled by my mother, who wore cleaning gloves. She also typed out the letter on an old manual typewriter. She had to rescue it from its resting place in the basement storage room.

Four people from the middle of nowhere, trying to influence the mighty government. It was a plot right out of a motion picture thriller. Where was Robert Redford when you needed him? I had no doubt he would succeed whereas I believed we would ultimately fail. I wasn’t pessimistic by nature.

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In fact the opposite would be truer. It was the odds I didn’t like. I kicked myself time and time again for not remembering about it sooner. If only I had, then just maybe, with more time, I could have found a way to stop a major disaster. I also knew that if we succeeded, it would alter my future. If this created a variant of the original timeline, it would be changed significantly, and I couldn’t fathom what that would even entail.

A unanimous vote in the end sealed our joint conspiracy.

It took me a very long time before I finally consented. I had been the lone dissenting opinion, holding on stubbornly to all of the “what ifs.” My sister finally said out loud what I knew to be true, deep in my heart: “We will all be judged in the end by the collective good and bad wrought from our lives. If we knowingly step aside and allow death to happen when we could have stood in its way, we will be held equally liable for the outcome. If we stand tall and face the insurmountable task, even in failure, we can embrace the eventual outcome with purpose and dignity.”

I don’t know if she was quoting someone famous or if it

was a product of her own conscience, wherever it came from, it bought a solemn moment of silence to all of us. She had hit on the one dilemma I continually wrestled with. It all came down to: “What would my moral responsibility be towards

my situation in this time?” The world I came from had many problems, but it was still basically good. If I followed a path of genuine higher purpose, I could live with the positive changes to this time. I would, and the world as well would have to live with the consequences of my failures. It made one think long and hard about attempting anything heroic.

My sister left Wednesday with her letter and a promise

from me to keep her in the loop from now on. I can’t say I’d ever been very close to my sister growing-up. This relationship was much different for a variety of reasons. Taking the little S 133 S

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brother out of the equation made us more respectful of each other. The Challenger incident was no longer just me attempting to challenge the fiber of decency, but it now included my family too. We had all risen together to acknowledge a moral purpose. It was unspoken, but was visible in our mannerisms and on our faces. Life had all of the sudden come to mean more than work and daily comforts. Each of us, and me to the greatest degree, felt responsible for all those who might get a second chance by our intervention, God willing!

The next two weeks crawled by slowly. The launch had not been canceled, nor had any reports dealing directly with the content of our letter even been written about. For all intent and purpose, it was business as usual. We had no idea if our letters had even been read. They may have caught someone’s attention, but in the end they had probably been trashed. We had probably been delegated to the, “crack-pot” file.

My sister called us the morning of the launch. My parents and I were watching it on the television at their house. I would have to leave within an hour after the event, if it still happened as it did before. Andrew would be coming here to share the news and talk with Mom after the incident. My sister spoke to me over the phone. Her voice heavy with a tone of sadness,

“Andrew, it’s really going to happen isn’t it. I know it, can feel it. I couldn’t even go into work today. I’ve gotten sick twice already, and I haven’t been able to sleep the past couple of nights.”

“Stacy, it’s going to be okay. Remember, it’s already

happened.”

“Not for me! This is awful; I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life.”

“We did what we could under the circumstances we were

given. If there is such a thing as destiny, then it is going to happen no matter what we tried to do.”

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“Destiny? I don’t buy it. Maybe it’s destiny that you are here. Here to undo the wrongs from the last time around. I’m just so angry that I can’t do more to help. Not only that, I can’t stop thinking about all you really know and how it must be driving you insane.”

“You can’t look at it that way. You have to be willing to do what you can and accept the fact that we can’t stop everything from happening. I’ve tossed this around in my head from the day I got here. It took a massive leap of faith for me to even come home to our parents. Maybe you can understand a little better now, why we didn’t tell you about me at the start.”

“Don’t you ever think for a moment that you shouldn’t

have? I’m glad you did. Andrew…I’m happy I got to meet the man you turned out to be. I like him!”

“Thanks sis, and for the record; I always wanted a younger sister! I’ll talk to you later after it’s all over. Say hi to Carson for me.”

“How did…”

I cut her off and said, “Bye Stacy.”

I put the phone back in its cradle. Stacy’s voice was still talking as I hung it up. Two hours to launch time. I went for a walk. I had to get away from all of the happy excitement on television surrounding the event. My mother had already cried her eyes to a deep shade of red. It didn’t go unnoticed by me or my father. It bothered me that my presence here was making them so miserable. I know they all wanted to be a part of what was going on; doing what was noble and right. But at what cost was I willing to let them help bear my burdens? The knowing was far worse than the outcome. They now had a personal interest where none had been present before. It was taking its toll on them. If I let it continue, it would only consume them.

The only option I saw ahead was to keep what I knew to myself, and to leave my family out of it. Ignorance truly was bliss.

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The cold air helped to revive me, and by the time I was

halfway around the block, I no longer felt the cold. My head rolled like a violent sea with all the burdens of humanity crashing against the shore. I could never truly be successful on this path I had started down. For every good deed I did, I wondered if it would be balanced out by some new bad event. Just like Yin and Yang. The world survived and in some strange way grew more resilient every time a major disaster took a shot at it. People came together to help their neighbors and the strangers affected. Lives were changed, many for the better, even after the suffering was accounted for. It wasn’t true for everyone, and maybe those were the people I was here to help.

I could prophesize myself to death or into the depths of insanity. My gut told me that it would have been much safer if I just found a cave and hid away. I just couldn’t believe my being here would ever amount to any real good. The pessimist in me was working overtime. My glass had always been more than half-full. For the moment, however, I felt like my glass had a small crack in it. The water had started to leak out from inside. The opportunities I faced would add more water into the glass. As the pressure of rising water pushed against the crack it might soon buckle under the tension, until the glass shattered entirely. I was the glass and the cracks were already starting to show.

I braced myself for what was surely to come. I opened the front door of my parent’s house and made my way directly to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee. Dad called out to me from the living room, “You think that we still have any chance of success?”

I thought carefully before I answered him, focusing on

choosing the right words, “I believe in miracles, but I give us only a slim chance at best.” I took the last half-cup of coffee from the cold pot and added it to the cup I’d been drinking S 136 S

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from earlier. I stuck the whole thing in the microwave and hit the button for one minute. The coffee heated to luke-warm. I didn’t want to wait for it to be hotter and drank it all in one shot. I was looking for quick gratification. It tasted like “the hair of the dog,” one of my father’s favorite sayings, meaning it had an awful strong taste to it.

The launch was being broadcast live by CBS and CNN.

I felt the growing nausea rising within me. Jubilation would soon turn to horror. The world would soon be interrupted by the “Breaking news, a special report.” I remember so clearly what feelings I’d had nearly twenty-five years ago. I had been so excited to see the lift-off. Like so many others, the launch had become even more special because of Christa McAuliffe’s noteworthiness. I was one of the excited spectators who

watched, along with Tami. We sat at the kitchen table while Sam played on the floor nearby. My excitement quickly evaporated as it turned into concern at what I was watching. I heard the announcers in the background explaining what was going on during the early phase of the lift-off. I fixated on the plume of smoke coming from the rising shuttle as it first appeared and then expanded. When it eventually split off in two separate directions, I began to wonder if something was wrong.

My mind said, “No,” as I went from elation to devastation.

I registered what I saw, but the hope within me would not allow me to comprehend it. I wanted to believe in miracles even as I witnessed the certainty of what was transpiring. To live this event for the second time—knowing more than anyone else what the outcome would be, did not ease the rising sickness in my stomach, or the panic stabbing deep into my heart. I desperately wanted to believe our letter campaign had been successful. It hurt much worse this time around. I had gone from spectator to participant. It had now become very personal. A better man could have prevented what was going S 137 S

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to happen. I prayed for those on board the shuttle and for my parents and sister. I also couldn’t stop the rationalization in my mind that I was most certainly not a better man, and I let God know it! It was ten-forty and the moment of truth had arrived.

I sat down on the couch in between my parents. My mother instantly reached out to take hold of my hand. Looking at her, I could see the pain that was so obvious in her body language and on her face. I tried to be a comforter to her, but she was doing her best to try and comfort me. The three of us waited in silence, alone with our own personal thoughts and prayers.

Shortly after ten forty-five, the beeping sound announcing the “Special Report” broke the silence of the room. My mother’s grip on my hand tightened. My father shifted himself on the couch, straightening himself up to be in more of an alert posture. I prayed. We listened to the warning of what we were about to see. My mother’s hand clutched mine in a vise-like grip. I heard my father inhale and exhale. He was doing his best to curb the panic attacking at his insides. Me: I felt the bitter regrets of failure, as I knew with certainty the outcome would be the same as it had been before. I was numb, mentally and physically. There wasn’t any better way to describe it.

The lift-off was normal, and the voices in the background commentated on the shuttle’s flight trajectory. At roughly seventy-three seconds, an increased plume of fire could be seen.

A few seconds later, two distinct plumes of smoke and burning fuel could be seen in the camera footage. For those watching, it still hadn’t registered yet what was happening or the severity of what would come. As the smoke made the so familiar “Y”

pattern, I had to get up from the couch and leave the room. I was going to be a total mess, and I wanted to be alone when it hit me.

My mother now used her free hand along with her other

one to cover her eyes. She began to sob uncontrollably, and S 138 S

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my heart constricted as I heard her cry. My father slid over on the couch and put his arm around her. He did his best to comfort her. I walked away towards the kitchen, the tears already streaming down my face.