Drown #6: homecoming, part 1

October 2084, Keri Riley is 23. Justin Kim and Stephanie Day are 24. Jeremiah Day is 27. Willow is 2, Lily is 18 months.

* immediately prior to this chapter in the timeline would be Keri’s flashback story, “change my world”:  (never mind that I think I wrote that Madison had been up once before in April already—that piece had to be moved in the timeline a bit in revisions.)


Before he left with Keri's family to pick her up at the landing site in South Carolina, Stephanie told him, "I shouldn’t be there. It’ll be weird. It’ll be weird enough for you already."

She was right. It was weird. Medical staff were looking over the newly arrived earthlings, checking vitals, giving them juice to drink out of sippy pouches. The ones who had been up there a year took the longest to check out. They could have one family member present until they were cleared. Keri chose her mom, so Justin waited with Lily and Bryson.

Seeing his wife in the flesh left Justin feeling stumped. She looked exactly the same as when she’d left last year, yet he knew she’d become so much different. There were tiny scraps of some kind of feeling when he first saw her at landing—a thousand feelings battling for his mind and heart. He thought of what Stephanie said to him, “What took you so long?” What ever had him so enamored with Keri that he couldn’t see Stephanie standing right in front of him his whole life? Stephanie hadn’t been the kind of girl a typical teenage boy notices—she was reserved, tall and boxy, hidden under sweatshirts and baggy pants—and maybe he’d been entirely typical to fall for Keri who had sex written on her forehead. Well now he’d grown up and Stephanie had grown up, and he knew that what was hidden underneath all of those sweatshirts and baggy pants was wonderful. Now that she was married to someone else, and so was he. To think it could all be decided and over with before he even turned twenty. That wasn’t fair.

Madison came out. "Three more minutes," she said. "They say she's fine, she might be a little emotional." Madison gave Justin a look that felt like a lecture but she didn’t say anything more.

Then, through the tall panes of glass, they watched Keri stand carefully, holding an attendant's arm even it didn’t look like she needed it and soon brushed it off to walk on her own.

She hugged her father first, who was holding Lily. Then she looked at Lily and held her hands out, but Lily wouldn’t go to her.

"Give her some time," Justin said.


"Hi, Justin," Keri said.

It was the first time their eyes had met since she’d stepped off the shuttle, like they had both been avoiding the inevitable moment. Something else that Stephanie had said to him, "I don’t know how I’ll feel when he gets back," it finally made sense to Justin now. He expected to feel mad or sad, but he couldn’t have anticipated the epic emotional battle of nostalgia and regret and hopelessness and fondness and despair that happened all at once.

Keri opened her arms to him like a peace offering. They hugged awkwardly, but not without feeling. Neither of them tried to kiss each other.

***

Stephanie found it strange to see Justin's house full of so many people. Justin never stayed here, but they stopped by once in a while to make sure it hadn't been broken into or burnt down. It was rather warm for October, and much of Keri's family spilled out of the house onto the deck and lawn, enjoying the fall afternoon. Willow looked for other children to play with. She thought this would be fun, but Stephanie knew otherwise.

"I don't know if we'll have time to play," Stephanie told Willow. "I just want to say hi for a minute."


Justin saw her arrive first, seeing her there across a body of relatives and friends. He smiled, but considering the present company, he didn’t dart across the room to greet her. She understood. However, Lily was not as cognizant of the current social dynamics at play, and the little girl pulled away from her grandmother to run on her nimble toddler legs for the front door.


“Seffy,” she called out, and she ran into Stephanie’s arms.

Everyone had seen it happen. As Stephanie stood up, she could see straight from the front door to the kitchen, where Keri watched Stephanie hug her daughter with a look of ultimate betrayal on her face.


There was no avoiding it. Keri was the only person she'd come here to talk to. Stephanie didn't even have much she wanted to say. Maybe she should have sent a text, but that seemed rude. "I just wanted to stop by for a minute," Stephanie said. "I just wanted to say welcome home. I’m glad you’re here."

"Yeah," Keri said coldly.

Stephanie hadn't assumed that Keri would know, so openly and clearly. Or that everyone knew, like it seemed they did.


She thought it would be rude not to show her face today, but it soon became obvious that her being here at all was probably the rude thing.

She excused herself quickly, grabbed Willow, and she left.

When she got to her car, parked down the street and out of sight of that huge, busy house, Stephanie texted Justin.

Steph: Oh my God, they hate me. 

Justin: It’s okay, they hate me too.

Stephanie's house was so quiet without Justin and Lily here, and after Willow went to bed, she faced a long, lonely night on her own. It wasn't that Stephanie disliked her own company, but she dreaded the idea of what Justin might be doing right now.

“I guess you’ll go have sex with your wife,” Stephanie said to him last night. She’d meant it in a flippant, friendly jab kind of way, but he saw straight through to the worry bubbling underneath. She felt bad then, because she hadn’t meant to give him guilt about it. Keri was his wife, maybe he should have sex with her if he wanted to. Stephanie didn’t love the idea of him and Keri rolling around in bed together, but mostly she worried he might like it too much and decide he didn’t want to leave Keri after all. Because, she realized, she wanted him to leave Keri.

And then she felt like a scathing hypocrite, because she hadn’t yet declared that she was leaving Jeremiah—while over the past few months, her feelings for Justin escaped their tidy box in her heart and blossomed and seeped into every pore of her life, so she didn’t know how she would ever leave Justin, either. What was wrong with her awkward box of a heart?

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Justin told her last night.

But she felt like she had so much to worry about in so many directions.

She should probably give some attention to her own husband, she thought, and decided to check her email.


Jeremiah sent her a message:

Hey Steph, the funniest thing happened out here. They started streaming Bella's soap! How funny is that? What a small universe. I guess she calls herself Isabelle Gibson now, but she's no different than she ever was. I told the guys, I used to fuck her in college. "No way," they said. "Prove it." So I showed them some old pictures she sent me back in the day when she was just some college tart, pictures nobody else in the universe has, just me. They went wild!

But here's the thing—I told them, "Yeah, I used to fuck her, but she's nothing. My wife is so much sweeter, so much prettier, so much hotter."

You're hotter than Isabelle Gibson, my love, and the whole Europa base heard about it today.

— J 

It was the kind of thing that seemed like it should have been a compliment, but it only left Stephanie feeling cold and slimy. Maybe she was reading into it too much. Her husband's obsession with his ex never really sat right with her. And she didn't know that he'd saved old pictures of Bella.

She wrote back:

I hope you didn't show them my pictures.

He responded:

Of course, not. You're all mine.

Stephanie went back downstairs to her empty living room. She put on the KidToons channel even though Willow was in bed. Something about the vivid colors and upbeat music soothed the cold numbness in her gut.

***

Once all of the party guests had left, Justin and Keri's big, empty, white house felt even emptier and more blank. What ever made them think that they needed all of this space? What would they ever do with it? Certainly neither of them ever intended to fill this house with a half-dozen happy children. In his younger years, Justin used to imagine himself with a large family some day, but Keri never loved the idea of children and he'd long since let that idea slip away.

"Ugh, this house feels so un-lived in," Keri whined. "I hear you don’t spend much time here."

"Who told you that?"

"A little birdie."

A birdie named Madison, Justin thought.

"Hell, you can sit down," Keri said. "I’m not going to bite."


He sat down. It wasn't much different than standing up.


They ate leftovers from the party for dinner and struggled to say anything to each other.

Eventually, they figured they should just go to bed.


She left the bedroom door open. She was just standing there looking at the room, the clean sheets that hadn't been slept on for thirteen months probably smelled stale and dusty.

"So I was going to grab a blanket and sleep on the couch," Justin said.

"Just like that?" She turned around to look at him. "Don't you feel like we should give it one more chance? Didn’t we used to have some fun together?"

"Besides sex?" He had been trying to think of some good times all day. It was a struggle.

"At least the sex was always good," she said.


"Well, I don't know about you," she said, "but I haven't had sex with anyone for the past thirteen months. We’re still married, I’m still your wife. You don’t want to give it a whirl and see what we’re forgetting? Don’t you want some makeup sex?"

"I don’t feel like we’re making up," he said.

It annoyed her that she actually had to make an effort with him. She never liked to be told "no."


"You dick," she said. "It's a shame, though. I kind of like you with an attitude."

"I don't like me with an attitude," he said.

"Do you remember our honeymoon? You were all pouty and I had to put on five different pairs of underwear before you forgave me. I don’t even remember what I did."

He remembered. "The boat," he said. "You thought we could plug it with gum. I told you it wouldn't work. We did it your way and it sank, just like I thought it would. Then I had to carry you across the seaweed and muck because you wouldn't walk in it—you never said, "thank you," by the way. When we got back to shore, you took the first massage. You didn’t even ask if maybe I wanted one first after carrying you through a bog of seaweed because you sank our boat, and you are not a light woman, either. You didn’t say thank you and you didn’t even consider me at all. And then you called me 'emo' and you got mad at me for being upset about it because I was ruining your honeymoon. And that’s a pretty good summary for our entire marriage."


"Jesus Christ," she said. "Do you have to remember absolutely every little thing?"

"I’m going to sleep on the couch now."

He got up and went for the door, but she darted in front of him first. "Calm down," she said. "Let’s just have some angry sex. Some closure sex? It’s been thirteen months and I’m horny as hell."

"I’m not," he said.


"I know you’re not," she said. "Maybe you want to say why?"

He didn’t speak.

"Go on, say it out loud. How is it that everyone knows what’s happening but nobody will say it out loud? Do I need to say it for you? You don’t need any sex because you’ve been fucking Stephanie."

"I’m sorry, Keri."

"You’re not sorry."

"You’re right, maybe I’m not. She makes me so happy. I just can't be sorry for that."

"Did you have this planned all along? You were just waiting for me to leave so you could jump her bones?"


"No, I wasn't," he said. "When I married you, I meant it. But I couldn't keep being the only one who ever meant it."

"You can go sleep on the couch now," she said.


It was a horrible couch. He slept badly when he slept at all, and they’d been arguing so late that soon it was sunrise. Those tall glass windows flooded the room with blinding morning light. It didn't matter, he needed to get up for work anyway.

He made himself a pot of coffee and got dressed for work.


He had a few spare moments, and he wanted to see Stephanie, even if it was only for five minutes. She answered the door in pajamas, her eyes still sleepy, a funny mix of surprise and worry on her face. Seeing her smile in the morning felt like coming home.

"That was the worst couch I ever slept on," he said.

"You slept on the couch?"

"All night. It was a long, cold, horrible night."

She grinned first, then she tilted her head then and made a small frown. "I hope you didn't do that because of what I said. I didn't mean to say that. What if you needed it for closure?"

"I did it because I'm in love with you," he said. "That's all the closure I need."


He took up her hands and kissed them.

"Okay," she said. "I'm okay with that then."

—

footnotes: astronaut recovery room