Chapter 7. Anne
Voyager has returned to the Alpha Quadrant, at least three decades ahead of schedule.
And just a few weeks too late to bring me my husband.
Starfleet had sent officers to our home to deliver the news of Joe's death. It was the scenario that every military spouse tries not to imagine but recognizes instantly: two crisply-uniformed lieutenants appearing unannounced at the door, wearing matching black armbands and somber expressions.
It felt unreal. All that registered with me, at first, was the thought that once again there would be no more letters. And no three-minute video call next month.
I had lived without these things from Joe in the years after Voyager went missing; I could do it again, my brain numbly reasoned. I had thought him dead before; I could learn to do so again.
Of course, I was in shock.
Still, I think I had never fully expected him to come home, not even after contact was re-established. They'd had decades more to go. They were alone out there, and so very far away. I had had to be practical, to focus on getting my boys raised, on what I could control. Joe … hadn't been dead to me these last years - I still loved him, still sought to know and support him as best I could across the light-years - but my heart wouldn't let him be truly alive to me, either.
I had meant to think about that at some future time, to cross the bridge of ... resurrecting our marriage when there was more reason to anticipate it coming to pass. I'd had vague imaginings of grey hair and half-grown grandchildren at a disembarkation ceremony.
Thus an announcement from two black armbands didn't seem to change any of the salient facts on the ground too dramatically.
Like I said - in shock. The mind is slow to grasp that which it cannot see. It could all have been some perverse misunderstanding. Some part of me was withholding judgment as the rest of me went through the prescribed motions.
But then Starfleet had arranged for my family to view a recording of the memorial service held on board, delivered during the next day's Pathfinder transmission. It was a thoughtful gesture; I never learned who had created and edited the recording.
Watching Joe's service - seeing his casket - hearing the words of his captain and the tears of his crewmates - at that moment I realized the awful measure and finality of my husband's death, and knew myself a widow in truth.
And then, on a second viewing of the service, late that night alone in the bedroom that I still thought of as "ours," I got my first good look at the woman Joe had loved on Voyager.
His letters had spoken of Samantha Wildman and her daughter Naomi often enough that I'd had my suspicions. I wasn't surprised when I began hearing the rumors from a few trusted friends among the Voyager crew's families - the Delaneys, Sue Nicoletti's mother. They just felt I should know. I didn't confront Joe. When I was imagining gray hair and half-grown grandchildren as the setting for our long-distant reunion … it just didn't seem important. He would tell me, or he wouldn't. He would divorce me from the Delta Quadrant, or he wouldn't. There seemed to be little I could do and no pressing reason to force the issue.
But when the truth really sank in, that he was gone, not just far away, and that … another woman and her child had stood by his casket, instead of me and my boys … suddenly, somehow, it mattered very much. And I desperately needed to know more.
When my terminal beeped that morning, an incoming call with a Starfleet logo, I expected to be hearing from another bureaucrat, handling details about survivor benefits. I smoothed my hair, reached for a PADD to take notes, and accepted the call.
Captain Kathryn Janeway gazed out at me from the terminal.
"Mrs. Carey. Thank you for receiving my call." Her voice was even more raspy than normal, if normal was what I'd heard in other transmissions before today. I wondered if she had slept since Voyager's dramatic arrival in the Alpha Quadrant a day and a half ago.
"Captain Janeway. I … wasn't expecting to hear from you. Congratulations on your successful return to the quadrant." My face felt stiff, and I hoped it didn't appear that way. I was dimly aware that my pulse was racing.
She swallowed. "I wanted to offer my personal condolences in real time without any further delay. I will of course plan a personal visit to you when I am at liberty to do so, but there may be weeks of debriefings first, and I didn't want to wait to speak with you. I … very deeply regret … that we weren't able to …"
Her lips were trembling. I could see that the formidable Captain Janeway was on the verge of crumbling under the strain, the events of the past hours and weeks surely catching up with her as I watched in slightly horrified fascination. I knew the feeling. I interrupted her.
"Thank you, Captain. I appreciate the gesture, very much." And then an idea sprang full-blown into my mind, which had been worrying away for weeks at the problem of Joe's death, and of his life aboard Voyager. And to spare her from continuing her speech, and to spare me from having to listen to it, for the first time in my life I dared to tell my husband's commanding officer what I wanted done for me.
By that evening, I was on a shuttle headed on an intercept course to meet Voyager. We arrived while Voyager was still three days out from Earth. Commander Chakotay was in the transporter room when I was beamed aboard with a handful of Starfleet officials. Security officers escorted them to meet with the captain, while Commander Chakotay received me.
"Mrs. Carey, welcome aboard, and please accept my sincere condolences on your recent loss."
"Thank you, Commander. It's a pleasure to meet you; Joe always spoke highly of you."
"I'm gratified to hear that. He was a first-rate engineer and a good man. His good opinion meant a great deal to me."
His demeanor was solemn, but warm. He inquired after my sons and asked about our domestic situation and future plans, as he escorted me to Joe's quarters. I had asked to see where my husband had lived and to have a chance to look through his personal effects, and to meet with crew members who had known him well. The commander apologized that Chief Engineer Torres was not able to meet me upon arrival, as she was recovering from childbirth, but he promised that she would visit me in Joe's quarters later that day.
"I sent the captain a list of the crew I hope to speak with. Did she share it with you?" We were outside the door to Joe's quarters.
He nodded, took a deep breath, and then said, "Let's discuss it inside." He entered a code and the doors slid open. I looked up at him pleadingly, suddenly sharply aware of what awaited me across that threshold. "Shall I give you some time alone first?" I nodded mute assent, then stepped into Joe's quarters.
Half an hour later, Captain Janeway walked in to find me sitting at Joe's desk, studying a model of Voyager in an old-fashioned glass bottle. Its missing nacelle had been placed next to it, precisely aligned with the model's orientation. I now cradled the nacelle with my fingertips, imagining Joe's strong and capable hands having done the same, sitting in this very chair.
I slowly lifted my gaze to the captain's face. "We have a drawerful of Joe's model spacecraft at home. Our boys make them too. But they've never done an Intrepid class. I wouldn't let them, while Joe was serving here. It seemed … trivializing."
She smiled at me, and while her grief and fatigue were visible, her pride and relief were as well. This was not going to be another scripted black armband conversation. I was suddenly very glad I came aboard.
I needed to hear about Joe's last away mission, the story of his murder. She walked me through it, adding details that had not been in the official summary report. She carefully recounted the Emergency Medical Hologram's efforts to resuscitate Joe and explained why the physical damage and the type of energy weapon, combined with the effects of transport at the moment of death, had made it impossible. These were hard things to hear, but necessary for me to understand. I was grateful for her unflinching directness, and told her so.
"In that case, Mrs. Carey … let me be direct about another matter."
I raised an eyebrow and waited.
"Ensign WIldman is on your list of crew you'd like to meet with. Why?" She had her no-nonsense poker face on, as if I were a raw cadet who needed to be intimidated into being truthful.
"I know about their affair. I want to meet her." My voice was patient, calm.
She didn't try to pretend shock or denial. "But why do you want to meet her? I won't subject a member of my crew to harassment."
"Captain, I'm not going to harass anyone. I just … want to talk to her. To ask her about Joe." My voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Only if she's willing, of course. Please."
Janeway studied me a moment longer, then said simply, "She's willing." She tapped her comm badge and summoned Ensign Wildman.
When Samantha arrived, the captain excused herself and left us alone.
We begin with awkwardness and formalities, unavoidable but thankfully soon over. After our first pause, Samantha takes a deep breath and says, "He was always coming home to you. Always. I need you to understand that."
Her face is open to mine. I do believe her, because her face is so guilelessly open and because what she says affirms the trust I always had in Joe's fidelity, his unshakeable commitment to our marriage.
"I don't think I ever really doubted that. Not even when I heard the rumors." At that, her eyes drop, and I see her swallow.
"We knew from the start that we couldn't keep it a secret. We didn't try to; we just … didn't flaunt anything, I guess. Out of respect for you and for my husband, and out of our own natures." She looks up at me again. "But rumors? If people are … sneering at him, now that he's gone …" Her cheeks are going pink - not with shame, I think, but with righteous anger.
"No. I don't think so. Mutual friends thought I should know, when they first heard talk of it, that's all. No one has mentioned it to me since he died. Out of respect, I suppose." I hasten to add, "I'm not angry, Samantha. Not with you, not with him. I just ... need to know, what happened, what you knew of him. I'll never get to know him again. Please. Just … tell me."
And she does. She begins with, "It was missing you and his children that drew him to me and Naomi, of course." And then she tells me the stories of their time together.
At the end, she says something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
"Joe gave me so much. Gave me things I didn't know how to receive, and helped me see how to do that too." She is looking straight into my eyes now. "I always knew that you had to be … a really wise and whole person, for him to know what he did, to give what he did. I owe you so much."
At the end, I confess my sins to her.
"I really wanted to hate you. I really did. I looked you up, I read about your work, your background." She gives me a sharp look, then masks it. "Once when I was feeling really angry, really … abandoned, I thought about contacting your husband. Misery loves company, or maybe I wanted revenge."
At the end, we forgive one another.
"I'm glad that he didn't stay alone. To have been alone and then died the way he did - " My voice breaks there. "I couldn't have borne that. I'm glad he had you. I'm grateful to you for giving him a family, here on this ship. I'm grateful."
"I am so, so very sorry, that we had to come home without him, that you don't get him back now. I'm so sorry, Anne."
At the end, we are both on our knees, clutching one another and weeping.
