“Anyway, I could bore you for hours about the work I’m doing up here, but I have to get to node three. That’s where we do our mandatory workouts. It’s part of our daily routine to strap ourselves into the stationary bike or the treadmill. There’s also the ARED, which is a special machine they built so we can do the equivalent of weightlifting and squats. . . . It’s my time to work out, and NASA wants me to film it for social media. But I just . . . I wanted you to know I’m okay. I’m better than okay. I might even get to do my first space walk soon. So yeah . . .” I trailed off awkwardly, wondering how to end the video. The disconnection from Darcy suddenly felt more about emotion than the 240 miles between the ISS and Earth’s surface.
“I hope you’re well.” I winced inwardly at how formal I sounded. “That your parents are well and that the case is going great. Let me know how it’s going. Send a video back if you have time. But if you do, send it to KateD—all one word—at NASA dot gov. She’ll pass it on in a format that’s easier to download. I miss your gorgeous face. Talk soon, Darce.”
I reached out to stop recording. I emailed the video to Kate, who would pass it on to Darcy for me. While we could email and talk on the phone to everyone outside of NASA via a satellite relay with Mission Control in Houston, our connection was slower than on Earth, so it was just easier to send bigger data files directly to NASA to pass on or upload to our socials.
After stowing my laptop securely in my sleeping pod, I used the handrails to pull me out of node 2 so I could head to node 3 to work out. To do so, I had to pass through the US lab. It was then I remembered Darcy had asked me in her last email if I was lonely, and I hadn’t answered her question in my video. It was something I think many people assumed about being up in the ISS. I didn’t have time to feel lonely. I asked Tom about it, and he said he’d never felt less alone than when he was on the station. Maybe that should have been my immediate answer.
I hadn’t lied when I said I missed her. Yet, the truth was I didn’t miss her the way Tom missed his wife, Pam, and his kids. Sometimes I caught the guy rereading their letters that one of the crew handed to him hours before launch. I wondered what she and the kids said that held him so transfixed and brought peace to his eyes.
I wondered why I didn’t feel envious that I didn’t get that from Darcy, until I thought of my father and felt a cold splash of reality I’d rather ignore.
My father, Javier Ortiz, co-owner of a multi-industry corporation in Manhattan, eschewed the concept of love. Not just romantic but familial too. Even when my mother was alive, the son of a bitch.
The only affection I’d ever seen my father dole out was to my late brother, Miguel, and some offhand tenderness to my mom when he was in the mood.
There was no affection between us like there had been between him and Miguel.
Although, there was pride. I think he was finally proud of me. Pride wasn’t love or affection, but it was better than nothing, and Javier Ortiz was openly proud that his youngest son was an astronaut. Not just any astronaut, but one of only fourteen Latinx astronauts in the history of NASA.
“My father, ladies and gentleman,” I muttered to myself as I pulled myself into the training station.
Tom was already inside running on the treadmill. “They scheduled you in here too?” It was unusual for us to be scheduled for a workout at the same time.
My commander didn’t shake his head as he ran. Sweat was a problem onboard the space station. With no gravity, sweat expanded across our bodies in wet globs. Any sudden movements could dislodge that glob and hit one of your crewmates. We kept a towel on us during our workouts to soak up the perspiration. Tom wiped his across his forehead. “On my downtime.”
And he was working out. I understood that. Anton would laugh at us. He felt it was almost unfair that we had to strap ourselves down a couple of hours a day and force our bodies to move as if we were on Earth. But working out had been a part of my daily routine for as long as I could remember, and as much as I loved zero gravity, a workout was still one of my favorite ways to channel my thoughts and balance my mood.
“I’m just finishing up though. You’re a little early.”
It didn’t surprise me Tom was aware of my schedule. I knew his too.
“Did you send the video?” he asked as he unclipped the harness that pulled him down onto the treadmill.
“Yeah, all done.” I held on to a handrail with one hand, video camera in the other.
“Good. Because as much as what we’re doing up here matters, it matters because of everyone down there.” He pointed toward Earth. “You’re focused and you’re competent, and I’m glad to have you on my crew, Ortiz. But I still don’t know what’s driving you. Me, I love being an astronaut. I’ve dreamed of being an astronaut since I was a kid. That love never went away, but I do this now because I love my family, and what we do up here creates progress down there. We’re mapping out the future for my kids’ kids and their kids’ kids, and that matters to me. What matters to you?”
I answered automatically despite his seemingly out-of-left-field question. “Keeping my crew safe, helping my team, while we do all that.”
“And that’s admirable. But is it enough? We’re here for another sixteen weeks. Will your reasons be enough when you haven’t had a shower for a hundred and eighty-two days? When you haven’t had a fresh meal? When you’ve had to pee into the funnel for the eight-hundredth time? When you miss sex? And good coffee?”
I was confused but not irritated or defensive about his questions. I’d been training for this mission for the last three years and was used to having my decisions and opinions overanalyzed and questioned and discussed by many people at Mission Control. However, everything he’d asked was situational, and I’d been trained to deal with them. “I don’t understand.”
“My mind is always on my crew and my tasks,” Tom elaborated. “But my love for my family and what I’ve left behind on Earth are what drives me to remain focused.”
The light bulb went off. “I’m not the only unmarried, childless astronaut who’s ever come up here, Tom.”
“No, and those men and women live and breathe being astronauts and have done so since they could say the word. You, Ortiz, considered this career late in the game in comparison. And like I said, you’re doing great. I’m thankful you’re part of my expedition . . . but I guess what I’m trying to say is that for the rest of us, this is a ride we never get off. We go back to Earth, we stay in Houston, we travel to Star City, we train for the next mission. If that’s what you see in your future too, then this conversation is moot.”
The conversation wasn’t moot.
The next mission.
It was something I hadn’t thought about, being so focused on the first one.