Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I make no money from this work of fiction!
Lunar Landing
At the table during lunch, Candy continued to grumble about the rain falling. "This had better quit by night," she muttered. "I wanted to see the moon when the men landed on it!"
"Sweetie, you wouldn't have been able to see that even if the skies were clear," Carolyn said gently.
"I'm still mad ... I just wanted to SEE it! Blast it all anyway!"
"Candy!" Martha admonished her, surprised. "I've never heard YOU say that before!"
"It just feels like that kind of day!" Candy kicked at the table leg, her lower lip stuck out.
"I can't really say as I blame you," Martha sighed. "It's almost as if someone up there doesn't like us and is making the rain come for spite."
"Captain Gregg wouldn't do that," Jonathan piped up, loyally. "He wants to see the moon tonight, too!"
"Hmm," Martha said.
Carolyn eyed Candy furtively, a little puzzled when the girl didn't deride her younger brother the way she often did at the mention of the Captain. Instead, her daughter almost seemed to brighten. "If he DOES want to see the moon, maybe he can make the rain go away!"
"Madam, I am afraid your daughter endows me with more power than I have," the Captain said, materializing by her side. "When it comes to rain not of my making, that is!" he added hastily.
She merely raised her eyebrows at him, silently challenging his claim. A low rumble of thunder heralded his abrupt disappearance, and the rain suddenly lashed the kitchen window viciously. Carolyn's lips twitched slightly in response to his temper tantrum, and she exchanged laughing glances with her small son.
When lunch was over, Jonathan and Candy both promptly retired to the living room and turned on the television. "The ONLY good thing about the rain is that Mom and Martha won't be bugging us to go outside and play in the fresh air!" Candy confided in her brother.
Jonathan nodded agreement, and settled down on the couch. "How much longer do we have to wait?"
Martha poked her head into the room. "I could use some help with the dishes."
"Where's Mom?" Jonathan asked.
"Upstairs. She wanted to finish her article before starting to watch." Martha replied.
"Oh, all right. We may as well help," Both children dragged themselves into the kitchen.
"Why does time seem to go so slow when you're waiting for something?" Candy asked as she gingerly rinsed a dish in warm water and put it on the drainer for Jonathan to dry.
Martha turned from putting the leftovers in the refrigerator and smiled sympathetically. "It'll start going faster the older you get. Trust me on this."
"Boy, I bet time just whizzes by for Captain Gregg, then," Jonathan grinned. "He's over a hundred years old!"
Martha shook her head and glanced at Candy, waiting to see the girl scoff at her brother as she so often had the past year. Instead, Candy had a peculiar expression on her face, as if she were pondering Jonathan's words and almost half believing them. Snorting, Martha shut the door of the fridge and bustled into the laundry room. Mrs. Muir was already humouring the young boy when it came to his imaginary friend, and now his sister was starting to do the same? In Martha's day, such foolishness was nipped in the bud quickly. Imagine! A GHOST! Well, one of these days, Jonathan would grow out of such fancies, she hoped!
Time continued to drag for everyone in the house, but at last they were gathered in the living room, and at 4:17 EDT precisely, they heard Walter Cronkite repeat Neil Armstrong's historic words. "The Eagle has landed."
"By the powers, I can hardly believe it!" the Captain's voice had a touch of awe in it as he stared at the television screen.
The children were cheering wildly, and Martha was whooping almost hysterically. Carolyn risked smiling at the Captain and saying in an undertone, "Another marvel of this century, Captain. I must admit, though, I'm sure many people can hardly believe that we have put men on the moon."
Finally Candy stopped bouncing up and down. "When are they going to get OUT?" she demanded.
"Candy, you know the schedule. They aren't going to come out for about six hours." Carolyn answered.
"Can we stay up?" came Jonathan's excited question. "Please? It's summer vacation, anyway!"
"Well, all right." agreed Carolyn.
"Why does it take so long for them to come out?" Jonathan sighed. "It seems like forever since lunch, and now we have to wait AGAIN? What if I fall asleep before they get out?"
"We'll wake you," Candy promised. "Right, Mom? And me, too, if I go to sleep too? It would be TERRIBLE if we missed them getting out now that we've seen them land!"
Martha shook her head sagely. "We need to live very much in the moment of time in this house! We can't worry about tomorrow's breakfast, or what happened yesterday. You know the saying, Que sera, sera! As long as you get the most out of every moment in the present, you're doing well!"
"I told you I much prefer the present." the Captain said to Carolyn as an aside.
She was vexed to find herself blushing like a young girl, and quickly said to the children, "We won't let you miss it. That's a promise. But don't keep asking when it's going to happen. You already know the answer! Find something to do between now and supper."
"Like what?" asked Candy.
"Look," Martha pointed out the window where a pale glint of sunshine could be seen on the wet grass. "The sun is almost out, so you can go out to play for a while in the fresh air!"
Candy and Jonathan both made faces, but obediently dragged themselves outside and kept themselves busy for a few more hours. Time hung heavily on their hands, however, and it seemed to go just as slowly for Martha and Carolyn. The Captain had vanished, and Carolyn assumed he was working on his sea charts or sorting through the treasures in his sea chest, or maybe even writing about the day's events in his log book.
In the intervening hours between the Eagle landing and the astronauts actually walking on the moon's surface, Carolyn found herself pondering her relationship with Captain Gregg even as she pretended to read her book and absently answered the children's excited questions. She had always prided herself on her sensibility and logic. Yet how logical and sensible was it to fall in love with a ghost? They had lived together for a year now -- no, she had lived in his house. His presence was everywhere around her, overwhelming her day and night. They had shared moments of arguing and of laughter. He was a wonderful companion, and that was enough, wasn't it?
Before meeting the Captain, she hadn't wanted to love again. She had finally managed to pull her life together after Bobby's death, and had made the move to Schooner Bay. Yet it had taken only her first glimpse of the Captain's portrait to send her senses reeling. Her first look into the vividly compelling blue eyes of the truly magnificent Captain Gregg had thrown her world a-kilter once more. Now, Carolyn inwardly acknowledged that when they first had arrived at Gull Cottage, she had been lonely. She had been lonely for what seemed like forever, at least since Bobby's death. And the Captain just happened to be here, and he was a man, or HAD been a man. He was someone who made her remember more of what she had lost than she had remembered until her arrival at Gull Cottage. The Captain had affected her on some level that she hadn't want to admit. She hadn't wanted to feel heat and she hadn't wanted to feel this aching loneliness. She had had love once, real love, and she had truly believed that it only came to a person once in a lifetime. The realization that perhaps love came in many different ways had made her accept that she and the Captain were meant to be together, however much they seemed to be apart right now.
It had taken her quite a bit longer to concede that she really did love someone not of this world, and moreover, someone who probably would never admit aloud his reciprocal love. In spite of his sometimes brusque manner, however, she was aware that he did love her. She recognized the pain she so often felt when she glimpsed the same emotion in his eyes. The words of the poem he had written not long before were proof that he was subject to the same torment she was, every night and every day; the torture of being so close yet unable to touch or even to say the words "I love you." He would not allow himself to do more than long for her from a distance, as she did him. He loved her, and yet he would not admit it aloud. She loved him, and buried the secret inside herself, letting only her eyes do the speaking for her. As she thought of the Captain's "if only" poem again, she found herself wondering if their ability to touch was truly not possible or if he simply thought that it wasn't possible because of his l9th century code of honour.
At last it was getting closer to the actual moment when the two astronauts planned to walk out onto the moon. Again everyone gathered in the living room, all except the Captain. Everyone was in pyjamas and housecoats, and Martha already had her curlers in her hair. She claimed the chair nearest the television so that she couldn't miss a thing. The children were in their usual spot on the rug, their chins propped in their hands and their feet waving in the air. Carolyn had curled up in a corner of the sofa, and Scruffy was snoring beside her.
"Isn't the moon great, Mom?" Candy asked. "It's so beautiful when it's full and you can see it across the water."
"Very romantic, too," Martha said, dryly. "I vividly remember sitting out in the moonlight a few months ago and having the dear deluded dentist tell me he could see the moon reflected in my teeth!"
Carolyn chuckled. "Well, it certainly CAN be romantic, but I must say I admire your restraint, Martha! I'd have slapped him for that, I think!"
"Not worth the energy, Mrs. Muir." Martha sighed. "Well, I'm used to waiting now, and it's not such a bad life. Some day my prince will come, either here or in the life to come!"
Jonathan jumped in quickly before any more 'mushy' talk could happen. "The moon's only a quarter full tonight, and you can only see it once in a while because the clouds are still there."
Just then the television began acting up again, fading in and out, and making strange sounds.
"Oh no!" everyone cried out.
"Mom, didn't you get it fixed yet?" wailed Candy.
Carolyn jumped up and began fiddling with the buttons. "Yes, it IS supposed to be fixed! Oh, blast!"
"Hurry, Mrs. Muir, it's almost time!" urged Martha.
"Never fear, dear lady," came the Captain's smooth voice, and Carolyn felt the knob twisting of its own accord under her fingers. She snatched her hand away with a little gasp, feeling a strange tingling wash over her. "I shall see what I can do with this newfangled invention!" he continued. "Ah, there we are!"
"Yay, Mom, you fixed it!" cheered Candy.
"You and the Captain!" added Jonathan wisely.
Carolyn retreated to the sofa and sat down by Scruffy. The Captain materialized in the other corner and the little dog awoke from his nap with a yip of fright and jumped down and ran out of the room. The Captain scowled as he watched the animal disappear, then his face smoothed out when he realized Carolyn was looking at him and mouthing her thanks for the help with the television. Neither adult realized that Candy had looked around sharply when Scruffy had jumped down. The girl saw her mother smile at the empty end of the couch and speak inaudibly before looking back towards the television.
Since it wasn't yet time, Candy got up and snuggled next to Carolyn for a moment on the sofa before whispering, "Is he here?"
"Is WHO here?" Carolyn whispered back, feigning ignorance. When had her daughter begun to believe in Jonathan's 'imaginary' Captain?
"Captain Gregg." was the impatient reply.
"I ... oh, look, Candy!" Carolyn thankfully pointed to the television. "The hatch is opening!"
Instantly Candy scrambled back down to the floor beside Jonathan, her question forgotten.
Neil Armstrong, the commander of this mission, was the first out the door. Before he reached the bottom rung on the ladder from the spaceship, he reported that the surface looked like very, very fine grains of powder. At 10:56, as his left foot touched the surface of the moon, he said solemnly, "That's one small step for man." As his right foot touched the powdery surface, he added, "One giant leap for mankind."
There was complete silence in the Gull Cottage living room as everyone almost held their breath at the wonder of the moment.
Armstrong described the surface as he moved. "It's fine and powdery - I can kick it up with my toe. It is like fine charcoal." He stepped out of camera range momentarily to collect the first prized sample, then came floating back into range in the light gravity of the moon, "like a floating ghost," said the announcer.
"I beg your pardon?" Captain Gregg growled. "I certainly never FLOATED in my entire afterlife!"
Armstrong made his way back to the bottom of the ladder to help Buzz Aldrin come out the hatch and down the ladder.
"Is his name really BUZZ?" asked Jonathan.
"I heard that his name was Edwin, but his sister nicknamed him Buzz, and the nickname stuck, so he legally changed it." Martha said, never taking her eyes off the television.
As Aldrin eased out of the Eagle, he said, "Making sure not to lock it on my way out! That's our home for the next few hours and I want to make sure to take care of it." When he was standing beside Armstrong, he looked around in awe. "Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation."
"It has a stark beauty all its own...like the high desert country in the United States," Armstrong agreed.
"I think I want to be an astronaut when I grow up," Jonathan announced. "I want to see that with my own eyes, not just on television."
"Me too," said Candy. "And I'll get there first, because I'm older."
"Will not!"
"Will, too!"
"Children! Are you ready for bed?" Carolyn interjected, and they subsided instantly.
As the two moonwalkers moved about the forbidding vacuum of the surface, it was mentioned that from the moon, the sun appears the size of a dime, the sky is inky black and temperatures range from 250 degrees above Fahrenheit in the sun to 250 below in the shade.
Aldrin went right to work setting up a solar wind experiment while Armstrong pulled out the American flag. The inhabitants of Gull Cottage watched eagerly as the flagpole was stuck into the surface.
"That is so neat," sighed Candy.
"It is not often I find myself without words to adequately describe my feelings, madam," the Captain said, solemnly, "but this is one such occasion."
It was while the two moonwalkers posed by the flag they had implanted on the moon that the President of the United States telephoned them from the White House. About an hour after Armstrong stepped upon the moon's surface, President Nixon spoke to the two men. "This certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made," he said. and, with emotion apparent in his voice, added, "For every American, this has to be the proudest day in our lives...because of what you have done, the heavens have become part of man's world..."
Armstrong and Aldrin stood beside the Lem without moving as they listened. "For one priceless moment in the history of man, all the people of the earth are one," Nixon said.
"It's a great honor and a privilege for us to be here representing the United States," Armstrong replied.
Shortly after that, the astronauts began loping, kangaroo-like on the surface, demonstrating the ease with which they could move in the one-sixth gravity. They put on a spectacular live television show for millions for viewers on earth. As they ran on the surface, the powdery moon soil could be seen, on television, puffing up around their feet. Although Armstrong, with his spacesuit and pack would have weighed 300 pounds on earth, he weighed only 50 on the moon. At first, the astronauts had reported that the lunar surface appeared to be of volcanic material, but later Armstrong corrected himself, saying that it was peppered with "little impact craters, as if b-b shot had hit the surface."
"The rocks are rather slippery," Aldrin reported.
"We have to be careful leaning in the direction you want to go," Armstrong said.
Aldrin picked up a rock from the surface and said, "Neil, didn't I say we'd find a purple rock?"
"Yep," Armstrong agreed.
They stopped by one of the four legs of their lander and Armstrong unveiled a plaque attached to the leg of the lander and read the inscription aloud, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969. A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
All of the scientific experiments were judged a success. The earth tremor recorder even picked up the astronauts' footfalls and transmitted them back to earth. The reflector placed to catch a laser beam from the earth, to measure movements of the earth, the moon and the continents, worked on a test. The solar wind experiment, designed to soak up particles shot from the sun, was rolled up after two hours to be carried back in the Eagle.
At 1:09 a.m. as Armstrong started back up the ladder, Aldrin reported: "We got about 20 pounds of beautifully selected if not documented rock samples."
Martha chuckled. "He's talking about one of their last assignments, which was the assembling of a number of stones with careful documentation of where they were found," she explained to the children. "They obviously don't like having to keep things tidy and in order any more than you do!"
The two astronauts flawlessly completed their scientific tasks and clambered back into their space ship after two hours and seventeen minutes on the lunar surface. The two moonwalkers had ventured no farther than 275 yards from their spaceship. After the two had clambered back into the Eagle, Carolyn sent the children to bed, telling them they would be able to watch the Eagle blasting off to rejoin the command module the next afternoon."Those two men are going to get some sleep now, and I think it's time you did, too. You're both almost falling asleep on the rug there!"
"Aww, Mom," grumbled Candy mechanically, then her face split in a giant yawn.
Jonathan said nothing, only sleepily trailed his sister up the stairs. Martha yawned and announced she was hitting the hay, too.Carolyn locked the front door, then went upstairs to tuck her sleeping children into bed. She went into her own room and stood there for a moment, feeling too restless to sleep although she knew she should retire as well.
"Captain?" she finally said aloud, and he materialized at her side.
"Aye, madam? Should you not be asleep?"
Her smile was faint. "Yes. But I don't think I can."
"I see. Might I suggest a walk outside, then? The wind is blowing up more rain, but ..."
"I'd like that, Captain," she interrupted him, slipped on her shoes and went to the door immediately. "You will join me, won't you?"
"I shall. Madam!" Now he sounded rather horrified. "You cannot go out in your night clothes!"
"It's the middle of the night, Captain! Who do you think will see me? We'll walk down the cliff road away from Schooner Bay, so we won't pass any houses."
He said nothing, but his frown continued to darken his face as she crept down the stairs, quietly unlocked the door and slipped out of the house. At the gate, she turned to look at him. "Would you rather walk on the beach?"
"Not with you in that flimsy outfit!" he growled. "At least up here you can hide in the trees!"
Carolyn chuckled again, and wrapped her robe tightly about her, tying the belt again. "And they will provide shelter if the rain you predict DOES come."
They began to saunter along, their eyes mostly on the sky as they watched the clouds drift across the moon. They talked quietly about what it must have been like to walk on the moon, what a miracle it was that the two had even made it that far, and how the adventure wouldn't be over until all three astronauts were safely back home on earth. The faint light from the moon wavered in a path across the water of the bay, and Carolyn commented that it seemed to bring sky and sea and land together.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" she said. "People have been dreaming for years of going to the moon, and now, almost miraculously, we have done it. Astronauts must love what they do very much to risk so much, I think."
"Life's pleasures are built on love and simple daydreams." he said, and his velvety-smooth voice made her quiver with a longing to touch him and find HER life's pleasure of love and daydreams.
A low rumble made her almost stumble, and she looked at him inquiringly. Once again he was scowling moodily, although this time his gaze was on the distant waves.
"Captain?" she dared to ask.
He sighed, then turned to her. "My dear, you are a lady. I am ... was ... I AM a mere spirit now, but I was and still am gentleman, and yet ..." He paused.
Carolyn waited a moment, then asked, "Captain, what exactly are you talking about?"
"This is our own earthly miracle on such a historical night as this," the Captain said finally, staring down at her intently, his love for her obvious as she searched his eyes with hers.
Wordlessly they exchanged promises of love and fidelity; without physically touching, they caressed each other tenderly; for endless moments they remained motionless yet soared together as far away as the moon itself. Then the wind came up, and suddenly Carolyn realized that the wetness on her cheeks was more than tears of happiness. The rain began gently, then grew heavier. Laughing, the two retreated into the trees, Carolyn hoping the branches overhead would shelter her somewhat. Loathe to go back to Gull Cottage and end the tryst, Carolyn settled down as close to the trunk of the tree as she could.
"I'll dry," she said. "And it may stop raining soon, anyway. It might just be a shower passing through. It's not very heavy yet. Captain, I didn't think you would get wet."
He stared at her. "Of course I can get wet!"
Still she puzzled over the conundrum. If he was not flesh and blood, if he was an illusion as he insisted, how could raindrops be running down his cheeks and into his beard? How could he have gotten so bedraggled the time he was trying to fix the young eloping couple's car, and ended up pulling out most of the wires trying to stop the horn he had inadvertently set off? Had Jonathan ever touched him? Why could she not touch the Captain when he could touch Scruffy? She thought again of the strange tingling when their hands had inadvertently met over the television button. Had that been merely the electricity from the television, or had it been the Captain she had felt? "Talk to me, Captain," she commanded boldly. "Tell me some stories of your times at sea, the nights on watch when you could see the moon and the stars. Tell me your thoughts."
"I shall do my best, madam, although I must admit that some thoughts cannot be shared with anyone of your sex. It could get blasted lonely out there."
"It can here, too," was her soft rejoinder.
He hesitated at that, then cleared his throat, obviously deciding not to speak of that any longer. Instead, he launched into a rousing tale of his shipboard life. A few questions from Carolyn brought forth another spate of words, and Carolyn leaned back against the tree and listened, oblivious to the dampness seeping through the very pores of her skin.
When she realized the rain was not going to quit and that it was soon going to be dawn, she reluctantly got to her feet and together they made their way back to the house. Carolyn was completely soaked. Coming up to the front door, laughing quietly as she dodged the large drops coming off the eaves onto the steps, she put her hand to the door and sobered when she realized that it was locked.
"Oh NO!" she gasped, turning the knob both ways, unable to believe that Martha had locked her out.
Then the Captain smiled. "Allow me, my dear," he said smoothly as he opened the door for her.
Carolyn stepped into the house. "Thank you, kind sir." Then she smothered another chuckle. "I'm dripping all over the floor! What will Martha say?"
The light suddenly turned on, and Carolyn was caught, feeling like an animal frozen in the headlights of a car. Martha stood in the kitchen door, a glass of water in her hand. She exclaimed, "Mrs. Muir! You are soaking wet! I just got up to get a drink! I thought you were in bed and asleep HOURS ago! Either you're up awfully early or you never went to bed at all!"
"Well, I ... I couldn't sleep." Carolyn said. "I decided to go out for a walk."
"In the rain? I could have sworn I heard you moving around upstairs! But you were out walking in the rain?"
"It wasn't raining when I left. I guess I got caught in it. I just went out to look at the moon again ..."
"I haven't been able to sleep for all the excitement either, so I know I never heard you leaving ... It has been raining for THREE HOURS, Mrs. Muir!"
"Really? That long? Fancy that!" Shaking her head, and feeling the raindrops spray out off her hair, Carolyn squelched her way rather unsteadily up the stairs, ignoring Martha's openmouthed stare of amazement.
Martha locked the door again, muttering, "Something strange is going on here. How did she get in through this door? I KNOW I checked it just a minute ago, and she can't tell ME the doorlock is broken. I fixed it myself last week." She looked at the wide, wet path up the stairs, knowing water from Mrs. Muir's slim body could not have wet that much area. "I will NOT try to reason this out, since I'm sure there's no logical answer anyway! WRITERS! I guess some people are affected by moon madness more than others! If I didn't know any better, I'd start to wonder if maybe Jonathan is right about the Captain's ghost haunting this place and Mrs. Muir into the bargain!"
After her late night, Carolyn found herself moving languidly through the following morning. Still, she couldn't help but be caught up in the excitement as the time neared for Aldrin and Armstrong to take off again from the moon. Hints of possible trouble kept anxiety at a high level. Nobody had ever blasted off from the surface of the moon before, and if there was some kind of failure, there were very few options open for the two men who were now almost four hundred thousand kilometres from Earth.
"I expect you two will find this commonplace in years to come," Martha commented to the children, "but I find it tremendously exciting! Just think, they've been up there for almost twenty-two hours!"
"Now the entire world has to hold its breath again, waiting to see if the Eagle will be able to get off and rejoin the Columbia orbiting some sixty miles overhead." Carolyn said tensely.
At last the ascent stage blasted off, and Jonathan, Candy and Martha cheered wildly. Carolyn closed her eyes in a moment of thankfulness for the completion of the first part of the homeward journey.
"My dear," the Captain's voice was quiet in her ear, and she turned to him with a full heart, "this truly has been history in the making. A heavenly miracle indeed. Up there they have left only the foil-wrapped structure of their lander to remain as mute evidence, along with the footprints, that on Sunday, July 20, 1969, man first landed on the moon and walked its dusty surface. I do not think I can conceive of anything as wonderful as this ever in my life or since."
Carolyn, thinking of the incredible love she shared with this very special person, only smiled in response. Their love was every bit as miraculous as the lunar landing, in her humble opinion!