The Dream Life of Astronauts (26 page)

“We didn't want any.” Martin had always been indifferent about becoming a parent and had left the decision up to Claire, and when she'd waffled on the idea until she was too old to have kids, he'd been relieved.

“It would have been nice to have a grandchild,” Ellie said. “A little Martin Jr. to toss around.”

“That's beside the point.”

“I guess I don't see what the point is, then. When do I get to meet this—” The name was gone from her head.

“Beth,”
Martin said.

“When do I get to meet her?”

“Well, that's just it. I don't think it's going to happen, Mom. Like I said, I've been married for six months, and I haven't been able to bring myself to introduce the two of you—or even tell you about her. And I finally decided there was a reason for that. A good reason.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” she asked. “Of course I'm going to meet her.”

“I don't think so,” Martin said. For all the mental preparation he'd undergone, his hands were shaking. He locked his fingers together to steady them.

“Why not?”

“We don't have to go into that.”

“We most certainly do. She's your wife, for godsake. I'm your mother.”

“And you were horrible to my first wife. You were horrible to Claire from day one, and right up to the end. Horrible.”

“I was
not.
I was
not.
Don't you come here and rewrite history. Not while I'm still around to keep the record straight. I was
not.
”

“You were,” he said, eyes still pink but his voice calm.

“Oh, this just takes the cake!” Ellie said. “You're as stubborn as she was! I've never heard of such a thing in my life.”

“Do you remember,” Martin said, the moment so alive in his head that it might just have happened an hour ago—and, oh, how he'd longed to throw this back in her face for so many years, and how he'd sworn to himself that he never would because the past belonged in the past. Well, the ugly truth was that there was no real divide between the past and the present. The present couldn't be ignored, and the past never went away. They were like twins joined at the hip. “Do you remember when Claire was in the middle of chemo and radiation, the first time she was really sick, and you wanted to come stay with us and help out?”

“Of course.”

“And I came to Garden View and got you and brought you back to the house, and you did nothing but complain? About how messy the place was, and how bad my cooking was, and how
preoccupied
I was?”

The house
was
a mess; she remembered that clearly. But she redirected her thoughts and said, “I was sad. It was a sad time—for all of us.”

“It was. And you stood there in the hallway, asking what time we were going to eat dinner and saying you hoped it was better than what we had last night. I was helping Claire get dressed for her appointment, and you were complaining about the food.”

“I was sad!” she said again. “It was a sad time! Your wife was dying!”

“She wasn't dying at that point. She was undergoing treatment. For all we knew, she was going to beat it and live another twenty years. But, yes, it was a really sad time.”

He was going to cry, she thought. She
wished
he would cry. Comforting him would be easier than listening to him.

“I said, ‘Mom, I'm not thinking about dinner right now.' And do you remember what you said back?”

“It was so long ago,” she said. “I'm tired, Martin. I want to go to my room.”

“You pointed at Claire, my wife, and you said to me, ‘Of course you're not thinking about dinner, because all you care about is
that.
' ”

She should have been keeping a ledger this whole time. From day one of getting pregnant, the diapers, the spitting up, the scabbed knees, all the work she'd done to keep him alive and safe—only to have him zero in on one thing she'd said, one thing he
claimed
she'd said, which she had no memory of saying whatsoever. She should have kept a ledger.

He took his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped it under his nose.

“Why even tell me, then?” she asked. “Why tell me you've married this person, if you don't want me to meet her?”

He wagged his head a little. “I don't know. I guess so I could tell you I was happy.”

“Oh,” she said. “And that's it?”

“That's it.”

“Well, good for you!” she said, raising her voice, nearly shouting. “Martin is happy, hip hip hooray!”

Birds would have taken flight, if there'd been birds. Heads would have turned. But they were alone.

He wheeled her back to her room.

T
he Italian was sleeping. The magazines and the rounded scissors lay on her lap.

Martin brought the wheelchair up alongside the recliner, put its brake on, stood in front of Ellie and held out his hands. Ellie raised her own hands and held on to him as he lifted her and carefully moved her back into the recliner. He asked her if she needed anything.

“Some water,” she said.

He took a cup from the shelf next to her nightstand, filled it at the sink, and brought it to her. She drank down half of it and set it in the cup holder built into the recliner's arm. For a moment he just stood next to her, and fearing he might want to resume their conversation, fearing the conversation itself, she looked out the window and pointed and said, “What
is
that?”

“What's what?”

“That tiny man with the parachute. Out over the water. He goes up and down, up and down, like he can't make up his mind. What's he doing?”

Martin followed to where she was pointing. “Parasailing,” he said. Then he bent down and kissed her cheek.

He stopped at the front desk on his way out and asked the woman there if she knew a Mr. Hollingsworth. She did; she said he was a resident. “This might sound crazy,” Martin said, “but is it possible he's traded some biscuits for my mother's wedding ring?”

She smiled. “Mr. Hollingsworth gives her the biscuits, and she gives him her ring even though he doesn't want it. So he brings it to us. It's happened several times.” She reached over to a table beside her desk and found an envelope with his mother's name written on it. She held it out for him.

“That's okay,” he said. “I'm on my way out. Would you mind giving it to her?”

“I'll make sure she gets it,” the woman said.

He thanked her and walked through the automatic doors into the warm afternoon.

The sun beat down on the back of his neck and his forehead as he crossed the parking lot. For just a moment, he imagined he could smell the stucco and the terra-cotta radiating off the building. She was right about the dermatologist, of course; he would have to make an appointment soon. She was right to question why he'd told her about Beth. She was maybe even right to trade her wedding ring for a box of biscuits, if the ring was always going to be returned. But he was done, he decided. And if it confused her, wondering where he'd gone, even if it hurt her terribly—well, it could only hurt for so long.

To David McConnell

My love and endless gratitude to Fred Blair. Thank you for every moment of this ongoing journey.

Thank you to my editor, Noah Eaker, who is as brilliant as he is kind and who kept at me until I got it closer to right. Thank you to Susan Kamil and Lisa Bankoff for their patience, faith, and devotion.

Thank you to the people (all of them dear friends and fellow writers) who read early drafts of these stories and gave me sharp and insightful feedback: Michael Carroll, Sophia Efthimiatou, John Freeman, Laura Martineau, David McConnell, Keith McDermott, and Bob Smith.

Thank you also to the people who have rallied behind me in more ways than I can count: Nicole Aragi, Nina Arazoza, Maribeth Batcha, Denver Butson, Richard Canning, Lila Cecil, Donnie Conner, Darrell Crawford, Amanda Faraone, Rhonda Keyser, Joy Parisi, Kevin Pinzone, Steve Quester, Anna Schachner, Chris Shirley, Adina Talve-Goodman, Hannah Tinti, Dean Van de Motter, and Don Weise.

Thank you to Ann Patchett for her life-changing friendship and for seeing something in me that I didn't know was there.

Thank you to Edmund White—the hero who became the mentor and loving, guiding presence.

Thank you to my teachers: Sandra McInerney, JoAnn Gardner, Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Robert Early, and—gone but still resonating—Jerome Stern.

And thank you to Beverly Neel, Elizabeth Bles-Webber, Steven Webber, James and Debbie Bles, Patricia Ryan Green, my nieces and nephews, and Fred for teaching me what home is.

The Dream Life of Astronauts

Send Me

P
ATRICK
R
YAN
is the author of the novel
Send Me,
as well as three novels for young adult readers. His stories have appeared in
The Best American Short Stories, Tin House, One Story, Crazyhorse, The Yale Review,
and elsewhere
.
He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. He lives in New York City.

patrickryanbooks.com