The Astronaut's Wife Read Online Free Page A

mission was good for her. “What? You don’t think I could be gay? I could be gay. I know if l really tried. . .“ Nan stood up straight squaring her shoulders against some formidable challenge. “Okay, Jillian, that’s it. It’s official. You have a gay sister, From now on I want you to—” Then she yelped in alarm. “Jesus Christ, Jillian! Be careful.”
Nan was gaping at her sister’s slim hands. The silver blade of the chef’s knife had sliced deep into her left index finger. Blood was spilling out among the green and yellow of the vegetables.
But Jillian did not appear to have noticed. “What?” Nan yelped. “Jill, what?” Jill did not respond. Rather, she was staring at the mute screen of the television set. Nan followed the line of her gaze and saw still pictures of two men, two men identified by the television network as Commander Spencer Armacost and Captain Alex
Streck. At the top of the screen were the words:
Special News Report.
For a moment time seemed arrested. There was no sound. There was no movement. It was as if for that split second both women had become as still and as inert as statues, their bones and joints frozen. The spell on Jill broke first.
“Oh my God . . .“ Jillian gasped. Then she pushed past Nan to raise the volume on the television set. But she was a second too late. They had missed the story.
”...his has been a special report,” said the deep-voiced announcer. “We now return you to the program already in progress.” h a matter of seconds a midday talk show blared from the screen.
“Jill! What’s going on?” Nan yelled.
Jillian did not answer. She twisted the knob on the set, running madly through the channels, but there was nothing more about her husband, just regular programming—the game shows, the cooking shows, the soap operas seeming all the more inane when contrasted against the dread that had suddenly filled her body.
“Jill? Jilly?” said Nan. Jillian did not appear to have heard. She was still desperately turning the channels when the doorbell chimed. Both Jillian and Nan froze.
Jillian knew exactly what was happening. “Oh God,” she whispered. “It’s them.”
“It’s who?” demanded Nan.
“NASA . . . they probably have a trauma team or an honor guard or something. This is it.”
“Jill, you don’t know—”
But Jill had raced to the front door and thrown it open. Standing on the step was a middleaged man m a well-cut gray suit—the NASA uniform— and with a particularly sheepish look on his face. He seemed to have trouble looking Jillian square in the eye and he shuffled his feet nervously.
Jill had met most of the Victory team at one time or another, but she had never seen this man before. In her fear and anxiety she felt a deep, irrational loathing for this anonymous man, a warm body on whom she could vent her wrath.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m Sherman Reese, Mrs. Armacost,” he said softly. “I’m from NASA. It’s about your husband.”
Jillian’s anger had flared up for a moment and now had burned itself out. She slumped against the door frame, her pretty face pale and drawn as if the last few minutes of her life had exhausted her, had drained her of her entire reserves of energy and strength. Blood was dripping from her finger like a leaky faucet.
“What has happened?” she asked. Her throat was tight, her voice harsh and dry.
“We’d like you to come down to the—” Reese started, but was interrupted.
From inside the house Nan shouted, “Jill— there’s something on TV about Spencer!”
“We have a car waiting,” said Sherman Reese softly. He took her arm gently, as if to guide her toward it.
“Jill?” Nan called from inside the house. “Jilly, I think you better come and see—”
As if suddenly afraid of Reese, Jill backed away, as if by not seeing him she could turn back the clock by those few minutes needed to set the world right again. There would be no NASA man at her door, no sinister NASA car