The Astronaut's Wife (7 page)

In the days that followed, those who had been at the farewell party for Spencer and Jillian Armacost would speculate a great deal about the events of
that evening and the words that Natalie Streck had spoken that night. The general consensus was that Alex Streck’s injuries in space had been underestimated by the doctors back on earth and that he had been given a clean bill of health well before he deserved one. The injury, the excitement and yes, even the excessive drinking had contributed to his huge coronary that night.

And whatever Natalie had to say was a result of nothing more than stress and hysteria—after all, the only thing you had to hear about was what had come next.
And besides, look at Spencer Armacost, they said. He sailed through this with flying colors. He and Alex had been through the same ordeal, the only difference was Spencer was a whole lot younger than Alex—and those years made all the difference.
The wags around NASA gave each other slight, knowing looks and winked and said, “See, you leave the agency, you head up north, or out west or to the coast if Boeing is interested in you, and then you make yourself something like a ton of money. You cash in the way Spencer and Jill did. Who could blame you? It was the lifers like Alex Streck and that nutty wife of his... they were the ones you had to worry about...”
They talked about it endlessly—at lunch, or during their morning commutes, at dinner, and in bed with their wives. Do your time at NASA, do what you love for as long as you can... Then, and only then, it’s time for a change. You will have served
your country. You will have served science. But there comes a time when you have to serve yourself. Any damn fool could see that was the wise thing to do. The trouble was Alex Streck hadn’t seen it that way and neither had Natalie. And that was their downfall.
Now Spencer Armacost and his wife Jillian— they knew how the game was played and they got out when it was time to. Get the hell out while you re still sane and can make some serious money. I mean, look at Spencer and Jill, did they play it right or what? I think I’ll give Spencer a call myself when I think it’s time to bail.
He’d never let down a friend. Not a friend from the old days...

The Director himself stood at the podium in the press room. He shuffled some papers for a moment then leaned into the microphone to speak to the assembled crowd of press people. His voice was deep and solemn.

“I have a very brief prepared statement and then there will be time for some prepared questions.”
Sherman Reese stood behind the Director scanning the faces of the cadre of reporters.
The Director got right to the point. “Captain Alex Streck died last night at
8:55.”
He paused a moment to let the words sink in. Most of the reporters in the room worked the science beat or were local Florida reporters. Most of them were on first-name terms with many of the astronauts. The loss of just one of them was like a death in a tight-knit family.
The Director continued. “The cause of death has been determined to have been a massive stroke. Something that the surgeons are calling a severe
insult to the brain. As many of you know, Alex was an asset to this program in ways well beyond his professional expertise. There is no doubt that his loss is a setback for the program itself and an agonizing loss for those of us who knew him and valued him as a friend. There will be a private ceremony—”
Sherman Reese was surprised to see tears well in the Director’s eyes and hear his voice falter. He had never imagined that his boss would be an emotional man.
An eager reporter took advantage of the pause and pounced with a question. “Was Captain Streck’s stroke brought on by an injury he sustained in space during the last mission of the space shuttle
Victory?”
he asked.
The Director seemed to welcome the fact that he could get off the hot seat with some grace.
“I don’t know. I’ll let Dr. Conlin answer. Doctor?” he said, gesturing toward a man in his fifties. “Would you come up here please?”
Dr. Conlin stepped to the podium microphone. “The, uh, post mortem had determined that Captain Streck had an undiagnosable congenital predisposition for stroke,” he said, looking grave. His glasses flashed in the bright television flood lights. “We had no way of knowing that the micro arteries in his brain were weak to begin with. It is a condition almost impossible to detect until there is problem with the patient...”
In the moment of hesitation all of the reporters shouted a dozen variations on the same question.
“What about the injury on the
Victory?
Did that kill him?”
Dr. Conlin nodded. “The injury he sustained outside the space shuttle caused an onset of undetectable bleeding which led to his death by cerebrovascular accident.”
“That a stroke?” someone shouted.
“That is correct,” said the Doctor.
“Is Commander Armacost in any danger?” someone shouted from the crowd.

It was a surprise to hear Spencer’s name mentioned on TV. Both Jillian and Spencer stopped what they were doing and looked at the television set. Both were getting ready to go to Alex Streck’s memorial and were listening to the televised news conference as they got dressed. Jillian was well ahead of her husband. She was wearing a black two-piece linen suit, a skirt topped by a short double-breasted jacket. There was a simple strand of pearls at her throat.

Spencer, by contrast, had just stepped out of the shower, was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and was facing the mirror in the bathroom. Both taps ran in the sink but they could hear the TV over the sound of the rushing water.

“Commander Armacost has been through an intensive array of examinations and tests,” Dr. Conklin answered. “It is the opinion of myself and my colleagues that the commander is no more danger than any one of us.”

“Couldn’t you have said the same thing about
Captain Streck?” yelled one of the journalists. “After all, he underwent a series of tests after the explosion in space, too. Maybe you could have missed something in him, too.”

Spencer looked into the mirror and caught the eye of his wife standing behind him. “Seems like they’ve got me dead and buried already,” he said with a crooked grin.
“The press loves a story. Particularly if it’s got a nice juicy dead body in it...” She put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sure you are just fine, Spencer.”
“Sure I am,” he said. He picked up his razor and examined his beard in the mirror.
On the television set Dr. Conlin was assuring everyone that, indeed, Commander Armacost was in fine fettle. “Commander Arrnacost is considerably younger than Captain Streck,” the doctor explained. “And had no predisposition to stroke, as far as we can determine. There’s no family history, no history of sustained elevated blood pressure, no blood gas irregularities..
_.“
Spencer seemed to have lost all interest in having his health discussed on live national television. Instead, he swathed his face in shaving cream. Then he picked up his razor and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time and was not quite sure how he was supposed to use the thing Slowly and tentatively he raised the blade to his skin, hesitated a moment, then drew the blade across his chin. Instantly a minute line of blood appeared in the froth of the shaving cream.
Jillian saw him do it and she went to him and took the hand that held the razor in her hand and examined it closely. Blood dripped from the blade.
‘Spencer..
_.“
Her voice was full of concern. “‘You’ve cut- yourself, honey.”
“I’m okay,” Spencer said. “Really, it’s nothing. The television just threw me off a little. That’s all.”
“‘Let me do it, Spencer,” said Jillian. She tried to take the razor from his hand.
““I’m okay, Jillian,” Spencer insisted. ““Please, just leave it alone. I can handle it.”
With her free hand she dabbed at the blood on his chin with a piece if tissue paper. Then she looked into her husband’s eyes, a quizzical smile on her face. “I think I see the problem here... Spencer, you are right-handed,” she said.
They both looked at the razor. Spencer was holding the blade in his left hand.
Jillian took it from him. “Let me,” she said very softly, as if she was talking to a child. “It’s okay, let me do it, honey. Please..
_.“
And slowly, Spencer opened his left hand and allowed Jillian to take the razor. Slowly, gently, as if dealing with a spooked horse, she raised the blade to his neck and ran it over his skin.
Spencer’s eyes looked sad and closed to the world around him. “Alex is dead,” he whispered. Suddenly he looked like a little boy who had lost his best friend. Bereft and lost, foundering at sea in a ocean of melancholy emotions.
Jillian knew that look and was just as heartbroken for her husband. “I know,” she said. There were tears welling in her eyes now. “I know, Spencer.
_{. .“}
She looked at her husband in the mirror, but he looked past her, staring into at his own reflection, gazing into his own eyes as if looking into the workings of his own mind.

Jillian and Spencer had never thought that the Strecks were particularly observant Jews, but Natalie was insistent that the instant she returned from the cemetery where Alex had been buried the seven days of shiva had to begin. The week of mourning was intense and the rituals had been followed to the letter. Natalie had covered all the mirrors, drawn the drapes to darken the entire house and had served the “seudat havrach” meal to the members of the immediate family.

By the time Jillian and Spencer arrived the Strecks’ relatives had been joined by a number of men and women from the NASA program, as well as other friends and neighbors. Men and women clad in funereal black stood around the Streck room feeling self-conscious and talking in hushed tones.

Periodically the front door opened, admitting along with guests harsh shafts of bright afternoon sunlight. Spencer and Jillian entered on a blade of light, shutting the door quickly to restore the crepuscular gloom of the room. Nan threaded her way through the crowd and hugged Jillian tight and long.

“You okay?” Nan asked.
Jillian nodded. “Yeah. It’s hard, but we’ll be okay. It’s hard to believe he’s gone.” Spencer pointed to a small clutch of NASA people standing in a corner. “I’ll be over there,”

Spencer whispered and made his way across the room.
“Where’s Natalie?” Jillian asked Nan.
“Upstairs,” Nan replied. “She’s been asking for you. She wanted to make sure you were here

Jillian nodded and walked toward the staircase. As she climbed the steps she looked down on the crowd of mourners. Her husband was already talking to a knot of NASA tech types and did not see her. She noticed that Sherman Reese was looking up
at
her as she climbed. She assumed that the Director must be around there someplace. One did not travel without the other.

The door to Natalie’s bedroom was half open and
Jillian pushed it aside. It was gloomy within, but
Jillian could make out Natalie, prone on the bed.
She was dressed in her black dress and even still
had her black high heels on her feet.

“Natalie?” Jillian spoke into the shadows.
“Jillian?” She slurred the single word. Jillian took a step closer and saw an open vial of sedatives on the bedside table. It was only natural that she take something. She sat down on. the edge of the bed and brushed a. loose strand of hair from Natalie's eyes.
“How are you holding up?” Jillian asked. “I know it’s going to be hard
_{. . .“}
Natalie did not answer Jillian’s questions, not directly anyway. “They talked to him, Jillian. They talked to him all the time. They talked to him every night.”
Jillian touched Natalie’s cheek and gently wiped away a tear. She said nothing, knowing it was better to let Natalie speak even if little or nothing she said made any sense.
“I couldn’t understand them,” Natalie continued. Her eyes were fixed on some point far off in the distance, some place beyond the confines of that gloomy bedroom. “I couldn’t understand them, Jill, not while Alex was alive. I couldn’t
_{. . .}
but now I do.”
“Who talked to him, Natalie?” Jillian asked quietly. “Who talked to Alex?”
Natalie’s eyes closed as the drugs and the exhaustion kicked in. “Who talked to him?” she murmured. “They did, Jillian. They did. They talked all the time
_“
Suddenly Jillian felt terribly afraid and she shivered as if a chill had just come over her. “Who are they, Natalie?” she asked urgently. “Tell me who they are.”
Natalie said nothing. But as she slipped into her drug-induced sleep she pointed at something on the far side of the room. Jillian followed the direction and saw that Natalie was pointing at a simple, cheap radio. Jillian looked from the radio and then back to the slumbering Natalie..
“Natalie?” Jillian asked.
But she was out cold. Jillian looked back to the radio and then began to walk from the room. Then,
very distinctly, she heard Natalie’s voice out loud:
“It’s not a dream, Jillian.”
She turned but Natalie’s eyes remained closed, her chest rose and fell and she had not stirred.

Spencer was engaged in an odd, rather guarded conversation with Sherman Reese, a discussion that was wholly out of place in a bereaved household. Reese had not wanted to bring it up at all, not while shiva was being sat for Alex Streck, but with the Armacosts’ imminent departure he took a chance and expressed his fears to Spencer there and then and the hell with the consequences.

Spencer had not been happy to be approached like this, and he had a hard time getting a handle on exactly what it was that Reese was getting at. It seemed to involve further medical exams—in search of God knows what—even though Spencer had been officially separated from NASA and honorably discharged from the armed forces.

“I assure you,” Reese was saying, “this will hardly take a moment of your time, Commander, and it could be quite important. For the future of the program and the agency.” Reese knew there was no better way to get an old astronaut to cooperate than to run the old space program flag up the mast.

But it did not work with Spencer Armacost. At least, not this time, anyway.
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Reese,” said
Spencer evenly, “but I have been poked with more than enough needles to last me a lifetime, you understand. And your superiors have given me a clean bill of health. That’s good enough for me.”
Reese nodded vigorously. “I know they have, Commander. I know they have. It’s probably nothing at all, but I think it would make sense to have—”
Spencer’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Reese with a certain amount of suspicion. “Tell me, do your bosses know that you want to ‘do this? Does the Director know? Or is this a purely extra curricular activity on your part, Mr. Reese?”
Reese looked at the floor and shook his head slowly. “No one knows about this. No one but me. And now you, of course.” He looked up and directly into Spencer’s eyes. “And I’m sure I can count on your discretion in this matter, can’t I?”
“Of course,” said Spencer with a thin smile..
As he spoke the lights in the house blinked off and then after a second or two blinked on again. There was a loud, fast zapping noise and the acrid smell of smoke from an electrical fire.
“Fuse?” someone wondered aloud. There were a couple of seconds of silence, which was immediately dispelled by the loud, high-pitched sound of a little girl screaming. She was upstairs.
Jill dropped the glass in her hand and dashed for the stairs. The screaming was coming from the bathroom at the end of the hail. She pushed open the door and saw a little girl—maybe eight or nine years old—standing in the doorway. She was frozen in place by fear, staring at something horrible at the far end of the bathroom.
Natalie Streck was standing in front of the sink, both faucets gushing water into an overflowing basin, water splashing to the tile floor. Both of Natalie's hands were in the sink, her hands wrapped like claws around the cheap radio, the one from her bedroom. The radio that she said had spoken incessantly to her dead husband. It was as if she was trying to drown the thing.
A power cord led from an electrical outlet into the sink. Natalie’s body was trembling, her hair on end, a crackle and fizzle at the corners of her mouth, her eyes wide. Natalie was dead, electrocuted by the radio that she said had killed her husband.
Almost in a trance, Jillian took a step closer to the horrible sight. The little girl continued to scream. But Jillian heard her name loud and clear over the shrieking of the child.
“Jillian! Look out!” Spencer grabbed her and pulled her back from the pool of electrified water in the middle of the bathroom floor. She had almost stepped in it and joined her friend in a horrible death. It had been so close and she had not even realized it.
Natalie still stood, her dead eyes staring into the mirror. The little girl continued to scream. Jillian gaped at the scene. It would be a long time before she forgot those eyes and the sound of that scream.