Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

“So it was dangerous.”

“I guess so.”

“Then why did you say it wasn’t?”

“Because it didn’t seem any more dangerous than anything else we do.”

“Why not?”

“There are lots of things that help an astronaut stay safe in space.”

“Like what?”

“How long does this report have to be?” he said.

“Five paragraphs,” she said.

“She wants to be a reporter,” Jennifer said.

“She’ll be good at it,” he said. He turned back to Nicole. “Do you want to know what the windshield wiper maneuver was for?”

“I already know. I looked it up online.”

“Oh.”

“It’s where you had to have the robot arm carry you over the whole space station and drop you off on the other side to fix some thingie. It said you were really high up and it was great.”

“That’s right,” he said. He realized that his fork, bread, and plate explanation likely seemed silly and foolish.

“So what’s the dangerous part then?”

“Well, you’re only separated from space by the suit you’re in,” he said. “If something went wrong you’d lose your air and that would be that.”

“You mean you’d die,” she responded.

“Yes, I mean I’d die.”

“But that doesn’t happen very often really.”

“No, I guess not,” he said. “Not ever actually.”

“But people die sometimes when they take off.”

Jennifer’s voice came from the end of the table, “Sweetheart, maybe Captain Keith doesn’t want to talk about that.”

“It’s OK,” he said. “I don’t mind. Yes, once the shuttle exploded during takeoff and once it broke up when it was coming back to Earth.”

“Did you know those people who died?”

“Some of them.”

“Were they your friends?”

“No, but I knew some of them in the second one. They were already astronauts, so they were a bit further along than I was.”

“What do you mean?”

He was silent, thinking. Then he said, “What grade are you in?”

“Fourth.”

“They were like sixth-graders.”

“You mean they picked on you all the time?”

He smiled. “No, I mean they were people you could look up to. They were already doing what I wanted to do. They had experience and were going into space already. I wasn’t even training for a mission yet.”

“Were you sad when they died?”

“Would you be?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my answer then.”

The evening had gone like that, or at least the question-and-answer-session portion of it had gone that way and he did not know if it was Jennifer’s presence, her tangible sexuality, that had calmed him or Nicole’s direct and logical questions but he had ceased thinking of Quinn and of Barb. In the light of the dining room, the sense of physical similarity he thought he had recognized when she had been at his sliding glass door dissipated and as the evening continued his comparisons of them stopped altogether.

Jennifer said very little during dinner, instead only staring at him and occasionally commenting on her daughter’s precocious behavior. “She’s like that,” Jennifer would say. She had taken a microscopic slice of lasagna and did not eat the bread at all, and Keith realized only later that he had eaten half of the lasagna tray on his own and most of the bread as well and was uncomfortably full. Since returning to the cul-de-sac he had subsisted primarily on fast food and TV dinners. It was taking its toll on him and he knew it; the lethargy he felt could no longer be attributed strictly to his postflight fatigue. He had not done any serious exercise since he had returned to the cul-de-sac and had not even given it much thought until now, seated across the table from Jennifer and catching her unmoving eyes. He should join a gym. He wondered what gym Jennifer went to. He could feel himself stir when she looked at him, when she did not break eye contact, a fact that was itself surprising.

When dinner was over, Jennifer announced it was Nicole’s bedtime and Keith had expected the stubborn obstinacy that had sometimes accompanied his own daughter’s bedtime at this age, but Nicole merely stood and thanked Keith and walked up the stairs. The room was immediately quiet. Keith looked down at the tabletop, then at Jennifer, who was staring at him yet again, then back to the tabletop. His plate was gone and there were no more questions. A wave of fluttering in his chest like the scrape of wings. He tried to think of something clever to say but no words would come to him.

“Thank you for doing that for Nicole,” Jennifer said.

He looked up at her, relieved that she had said something and that it was no longer up to him to begin. “It’s no problem,” he said. “She’s a surprising little girl.”

“I sure think so.”

“It’s true.”

“I hope she wasn’t too much.”

“No, it was fine.” He waited for her to say something more and when she did not he rose to his feet. “Thanks for dinner,” he said.

“Oh, stay a little while longer,” she said. “We grown-ups haven’t had the chance to talk. At least stay long enough to have a glass of wine.”

He glanced around the room, knowing that he wanted to stay but then again that he did not want to stay. Perhaps he had misread the entire evening. Still her eyes were on him, but what kind of sign was that?

“Look, I’m not very good at this,” he said at last.

“Good at what?”

He paused before answering. Then he said, “If you tell me to stay I’m going to think that’s what you want me to do.”

She smiled. “I’d like you to stay. What do you want to do, Astronaut?”

“I want to stay,” he said. There was no hesitation in his answer.

“That doesn’t sound very complicated,” she said.

“It’s not,” he said.

“Good. So you sit and I’ll uncork the wine.”

He nodded and sank down again, folding his hands before him on the tabletop as she rose to her feet.

“So there was some talk about you at the homeowners association last night,” she said. “Everyone’s really interested in the return of the astronaut. They all want to meet you.”

“Who does?”

“Everybody. They also complained about your car.”

“They complained about my car?”

“Yeah, they want it washed. I told them to leave you alone. Nicely, of course. You don’t want to make enemies of your neighbors.”

“They want to meet me and they want me to wash my car?”

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“Glad I wasn’t there,” he said.

She laughed. “They’re just busybodies. They want the gate put in but there’s just no money for that right now so there’s nothing else to talk about. They complain about the foreclosures and the fact that half the development is still just dirt after three years.”

“It’ll get done, I’m sure,” he said.

“Oh, I know it will get done. Just doesn’t leave much for the busy-bodies to talk about except who needs a car wash.”

“I guess so,” he said. He could think of nothing more to say and certainly did not want to continue a discussion that involved the admittedly filthy rental car in his driveway. These were the moments he dreaded in any conversation. The lulls. The spaces he was supposed to fill in. He tried to smile. Then he said, “You know my wife and I are split.”

“I know,” she said. Her back was to him and, as she reached up to an upper cabinet to pull down a wine bottle, her top slid along the curves of her body. “Barb and I talked a few times,” she said. She pulled two bottles down and turned toward him again. “We went to the same gym.”

“I need to join a gym,” he said. “My trainer in Houston would be disappointed if he knew I wasn’t working out.”