Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

Once the arm was complete he would bring it to the ISS. He would install it. He would test it in person aboard the station. That would be his mission. My god. He would at last be going into space. And Barb and Quinn both seemed excited for him this time, Barb even suggesting that they go out to dinner to celebrate and there were days when he felt as if some syzygial moment had come upon him: he was fulfilling his dream, his daughter was happy, his wife loved him. But it was only that span of days, for he was gone again for more work on the robotic arm and when he returned everything had regained its normal silence and distance. Barb wrapped up in her life, Quinn in her own, and these lives separate from his.

Soon after, Barb brought him the brochure featuring the image of a young couple with a blonde child and a red dog with long shining fur, all posed happily on an expanse of green lawn. “The Estates,” the text read. “Your home. Your future. Your family.” He did not know why Barb or anyone else would want to live in a neighborhood comprised entirely of cul-de-sacs, but when he raised this objection she reminded him that he was going to be gone on his mission for six months and he would be home so seldom between now and departure that his opinion was of little import. “Just let me do this,” she told him, and his response was to nod and tell her, “OK, fine,” and then, “Whatever you want.”

She chose a floor plan and a color scheme and five months later they hired another moving company and everything was boxed up and loaded into a truck and delivered to the new house across town and then everything was unboxed and put away in bedrooms still smelling of plaster and fresh paint. One weekend when he was home Barb dragged him through six or seven different furniture stores, asking his opinions of various sofas and tables and chairs and finally purchasing the sofa he professed to like the least, the gray beast that she had subsequently left behind. There had been an argument, of course, but even then he did not know why he had bothered or why she brought him along to the stores if only to ignore every opinion he offered.

Despite this, he thought in the end that the new house might make Barb happy or if not happy then at least content and that it might even make Quinn happy, the two of them settling into a neighborhood so new that much of it remained empty, streets ending abruptly at dirt lots, sidewalks circling empty spaces where houses had yet to be built. She had wanted a new house and it certainly could not be any newer than this.

His last conversation with Quinn occurred the evening before he was to return to Houston for the launch procedure. He had been home for a few days. When Quinn was home she stayed mostly in her room or passed through the house talking on her mobile phone and so he hardly saw her at all even though she dwelled under the same roof. She had her own life of cheerleading, social gatherings, and high school dances and did not seem to notice him unless she wanted something from him. And he did not like to admit it but he was afraid too, afraid of her lack of interest in him, afraid of her silences, perhaps afraid of further pushing away whatever connection they had once shared, and it was this fear that continued to concern him even as the months and weeks and days passed and up until there was simply no time remaining. He had decided that he should talk to her about her future just once more before the mission and actually convinced himself that it was worth at least attempting, as if he might shake her resolve just enough for her to consider her future while he was away, and so, the night before he was to leave, when Barb was out at the supermarket, he walked up the stairs in the house that six months later would be empty of everything except for himself and knocked, waiting for her to say, “Come in,” before opening the door.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she answered. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just stopping by.”

She was silent, looking at him. She was not a girl anymore but a young woman; the skinny gangly child she had once been had faded into some more distant memory and this daughter who looked up at him was a young adult. In his memory she was shining. In his memory she was alive.

He glanced around the room: a white box the walls of which were mostly covered over by music posters. “How’s the new room working out?” he said.

“OK.”

“Did you decide on a color?”

“Not yet.”

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing much.” She waved her mobile phone at him. “Texting.”

“Ah,” he said. “Texting who?”

“Shawn.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s the tall kid?”

“Yeah, he’s the tall kid. I only have one boyfriend.”

“Got it,” he said.

“Don’t be mean,” she said.

“I’m not being mean. Why do you and your mother always think I’m being mean? I’m never being mean.”

“Just don’t be mean.”

It was silent then but for the faint strains of music from the stereo behind her. After a moment he said, “How’s cheerleading?”

“Good.”

“Good game on Friday?”

“Yeah. We did our new pyramid at halftime. Mom said it looked great.”

“I’ll bet it did,” he said. “Did she video it?”

“I think so.”

“Good, I’ll watch it later then.” He stood looking at her and still she did not look back at him. “School?” he said at last.

“Fine,” she said. A pause and then, “How’s work?”

“Hard. We leave tomorrow.”

“I know. Are you excited?”

“Of course.”

“Cool.” A long silence now.

“So,” he said, “I wanted to talk to you about something before tomorrow.”

“Uh-oh.” She looked up at him and then sat up and leaned against the headboard.

“Well, I guess I wanted to know what you had planned. Or if you were thinking about that at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re seventeen.”

“Are you asking me what I want to be when I grow up?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Any idea what college you might want to go to?”

“Probably City. At least for a while.”

He was silent, staring at her.

“What?” she said.

“You can do better than that.”

She did not say anything in response.

“I just want to make sure you’re thinking of your future. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I am thinking of the future,” she said.

“City College is not your future.”

“Says who?”

“Look, honey, I want you to do something. At least go to the university.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. I figured you’d be a math major or something.”

“I probably will be a math major or something.”

“I just want to make sure you have some kind of goal. That’s all.” She did not respond and after a moment he said, “This is important, Quinn.”

“What’s important?”

“This. All of it. The thing you can do.”

“What thing?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You’re gifted.”

“God, when will you stop about that?”

“When you do something about it. Or if it’s not that then something else.”

“Something else like what?”

It was silent again. He could feel the blood pumping in his body, the thrumming rhythm of it. “I just don’t understand,” he said at last.

“What’s to understand?”

“You,” he said. “I don’t understand you.”

“That’s because you don’t talk to me anymore.”

He stood there, surprised and confused, looking for some response but finding nothing.

“I know you’re busy and I know your astronaut stuff is important,” she said at last, “but you can’t blame me for you not being around. It’s not fair.”