Houston
Richard turned the key and unlocked the front door. No one had entered Mark's apartment at the residential training facility since he'd left it, a week or so before the launch. It had a closed-up, musty smell. They stood there in the doorway for a few moments. It seemed wrong, somehow, to intrude on their son's personal space without his permission. He'd never know, though. About this, or anything else. It proved to be the wrong thing for her think about, at that moment. .
Oh my god. Mark is dead. And she started to lose it, all over again, setting the packet of mail on the entryway table. Richard didn't say anything. He just held her tight, her tears soaking through his shirt.
Just a month ago, she thought, they'd been making that silly video for Mark, for his birthday on Hermes. Next year, we'll all be together, she'd said. Oh, how foolish she'd been; to sign off without telling him how proud she was of him. All the things she'd never told him; now she was never going to get the chance.
And now, here they were, collecting their son's personal effects.
How could this have happened to us?
And earlier today, the NASA lawyer who had attempted to educate them on the sequence of instructions they would need to follow to have their son, their only child, declared legally dead. What the hell was she supposed to even do with all of that, she wondered.
We can't even think about that right now, Richard had said to the man. I know you mean well, but it's just been a week, and we're just not to that place," he'd managed to get out. Richard was being strong for her right now, but eventually he was going to crumble, too. Then it would fall to her, to be strong for him. That was just the way things worked, with them.
Mark's hazard pay, as they had been informed, could not be released to them, until the powers that be had received a certified copy of his death certificate.
Caroline glanced around the small living room. There were a few framed family photos and things, that would obviously be packed to send back to Chicago, although Caroline wasn't sure she'd be able to look at them. Mark's favorite poster, from his college days, hung on the wall. Caroline had framed it for him herself.
Richard was idly wandering around, looking at things, picking things up and setting them down, when he stopped for a long time, in the kitchen.
Finally, he cleared his throat, pointing to the refrigerator, "Caroline, honey? Who is this? Do you know?"
She went to stand next to him. He was looking at a strip of four black-and-white photos, the kind from a photo booth. The pictures had to be quite recent, she thought. Mark had only had his hair cut short like that for the launch just before he'd gone to Florida.
Mark and a girl, a pretty blonde with a sweet face and an impish grin, were posed together, both smiling at the camera. Caroline took a step backwards, in shock. The girl's arms were around Mark, in the next shot, they were looking at one another, fondly. In one shot, they were kissing. There was no doubt in her mind that they were, or had been, at some point, a couple.
"I've never seen her before in my life," Caroline admitted softly, surprised beyond words. Mark had had a girlfriend? He'd cared about this girl, she could tell. He'd looked so happy. They looked like they were crazy about one another.
Richard chuckled, surprising her. "That guy," he said, face cracking as he laughed out loud, for the first time since they'd gotten the news about Mark. "Holding out on us, looks like."
Caroline couldn't help it, she burst out into shocked peals of laughter, too.
They were surely both losing their minds.
"Had himself," Richard choked out, laughing, "a secret girlfriend," he closed his eyes, which threatened to spill over. "All along!" he gasped. They clutched each other, laughing and crying, at the same time, for several long moments. How just like Mark, to have had someone all along, after all those years of being a confirmed bachelor, and never saying a word about her to anyone, even them. It was like he was trolling them from the grave.
"Oh." Caroline stopped laughing. "Oh no." Her face was serious again, stricken by the thought that had just occurred to her. "Richard."
His head inclined, in immediate understanding. "She must be hurting," he ventured. "They might have broken up, before…" he trailed off. "She ought to be in the loop, don't you think?"
"We can reach out to her. Someone on the crew is bound to know," she said, then. "We'll send Commander Lewis a note and see if any of them can put us in touch with her."
"Poor thing," Richard said, looking at the photo.
But Commander Lewis hadn't known who she was, either. Nor had any of the other astronauts on the crew, when Caroline had urged Lewis to ask them. Mark had kept this girl a secret from even his closest friends? The people he lived with, and worked with, and talked with every day?
Apparently, he had.
Caroline could only assume that the girl must have been married. Mark had surely had his reasons, as hard as it was for her to figure out what they must have been, after the fact.
"Well, perhaps she'll turn up at the funeral," Richard had shrugged. They simply didn't know what else to do about the matter. "I wouldn't want to embarrass her by making their relationship public, if…" he trailed off.
"She didn't want anyone to know," Caroline finished. Her heart ached for the unknown girl.
Mindy had awoken the next day to a nation in mourning.
People at work were busily organizing a candlelight vigil, for Mark Watney, the first person to have died on Mars, when she made the Herculean effort to force herself to go in. The office was the last place she wanted to be, after her near-sleepless night.
I need this job, she'd reminded herself. This baby is counting on me.
The president had issued a proclamation, that American flags were to be flown at half-staff for six days, in honor of their fallen hero. Apparently six days was the official and proper number for a dead astronaut; Mindy hadn't known that, before. She'd have preferred to have learned this fact under different circumstances.
She could have gone her whole life without learning it at all.
NASA hadn't lost an astronaut in over thirty years; the last time had been the Columbia disaster, the same year Mindy had been born. For most of the employees of NASA, this was their first and only experience with such a loss, and they were reeling from it. They took it personally, very personally, that their astronaut, who had been counting on them to keep him safe, was dead. They were all in mourning, whether they'd personally known Watney, or not.
The director of NASA, Mr. Sanders, sent out a company-wide message by late that evening, encouraging the employees to attend the vigil, and Watney's upcoming state funeral in Washington, DC, if they wished. Time off would be granted, regardless. Mindy wasn't scheduled to work that night, anyway.
She tried to decide if she had any business even going to Mark Watney's funeral; and she'd decided, after some consideration, that she did. They'd been friends, after all. In another time or place, she thought, they would have gone on to become good friends. They'd made a baby together. If he hadn't died, he might have been.. family, of a sort. She would go, she decided. It seemed only right that she go, and pay her final respects.
On the level of pure vanity, Mindy wished that she had thought to go shopping, before she'd randomly jumped on a plane and flown to DC. She'd grabbed the first black article of clothing from her closet that she'd laid eyes on, and tossed it into her overnight bag, without even noticing that it was the same dress. The little black dress that she'd worn to the Pre-Launch party.
It was not turning out to have been a wise choice. For one thing, the dress was sleeveless, and it was now November. For another thing, the dress no longer fit her. She'd barely been able to zip it up. It was strained around her middle, and it was uncomfortable and not flattering. It made her feel ungainly and fat. She looked, for the first time, undeniably pregnant, at five months along. She had, at least, thought to bring a jacket, but she'd bought it in Texas, naturally, and it was unlined. She was shivering, as she sat outside on a folding chair, during the graveside memorial.
Director Sanders had given Mark a lengthy eulogy, and the other members of the Ares III crew had given a short one. But theirs had resonated more strongly, for her. She had a lot of admiration for Commander Lewis, in particular; Lewis had given the impression of someone truly staggering under the loss of her crew member.
And then, she realized that the grey-haired couple talking to the President, there; those must be Mark's parents. Oh, those poor people, she thought. His mother, in particular, looked like she was barely holding herself together.
Now was certainly not the time for her to talk to them about the baby. Dear God, no. She would feel like a monster for making this an even more stressful day for them.
Her heart ached for them; they looked like nice people. Maybe she would contact them, though, someday. When they'd had some time to heal. She would have originally left that decision up to Mark, but now…
She'd come here today to pay her respects, but now that the moment had arrived, she found that it felt a little silly, to have any final words to say to Mark's empty coffin. He wasn't here. She glanced to the sky, where her eyes automatically searched the blue horizon for that hateful speck of red. It was too early, and too overcast, to see it.
Fuck you, Mars, she thought, as she laid her bandaged fingertips against the cold metal where Mark did not rest. She felt a jolt, suddenly, and she looked down. It was the baby, choosing this moment to give his or her first kick of agreement, apparently.
The memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that NASA had planned and executed so quickly was a ridiculously grand production with so much pomp that Mark would have hated it, Caroline was certain.
American flags fluttered at half-mast, as Sanders, the director of NASA droned on and on.
"Our nation was blessed to have Mark serving in our space program. His loss will be deeply felt, but the men and women of NASA will soldier forth, onward and upward, unbroken in the mission of their agency. In doing so, they honor the legacy Mark leaves behind, and they ensure that his sacrifice was not in vain."
Spoken like a politician hoping to score some funding, Caroline thought, cynically.
Annie Montrose, whom they'd met before on happier occasions, guided them into the receiving line, where the President of the United States was one of the first dignitaries to file past.
Mark's crewmates aboard the Hermes had recorded a short eulogy of their own, for their fallen crew member; and seeing the incomplete crew, without Mark, had been more than she could could bear. She didn't bear them any anger, it wasn't that. She knew that what had happened hadn't been their fault.
He hadn't suffered, they'd told her. Lewis had said that it all happened so fast. He'd been dead before he'd hit the ground. Just one of those things. Caroline tried not to think about it, but it was hard, after seeing the crew. Impaled, the official report had said. By the antenna, at high velocity, it would have been like a hot knife through butter. She closed her eyes, but she could still see it. Her boy, alone on the surface of Mars, for the rest of eternity.
"The First Lady and I are so very sorry for your loss," the President was saying, sincerity written across his lined face. The president sure wears a lot of makeup, Caroline noted, trying not to smile at the absurdity of it all.
Richard shook the President's hand, and then gently tucked her hand under his arm. She got the idea, and looked at him, grateful. Always looking out for her; he'd made it so that she could just nod and smile, while he would handle the heavier burden of actually shaking hands and speaking to people.
He knew that she was just about to her breaking point.
The day wore on, interminably, she could have been standing there for three hours or three days, she honestly couldn't have said which. She just had to get through this, somehow, without completely falling apart. Today, and tomorrow, and forever, she supposed. Mark would be gone forever. She'd best get used to it.
Mark's other co-workers, from NASA and Northwestern, were filing past now, and a number of the people who had worked with him during training in Florida, and Houston. People he'd known from his Peace Corps days. A couple of the guys he'd played Dungeons & Dragons with, in college, had made the trek to their friend's funeral; Caroline made a special effort to speak with them. Look them in the eyes, at least, the people who had been close to her son. The people who would miss him the most.
She found herself looking into a very familiar face, suddenly.
"Richard!" She blurted out. It was the girl from the photo; even the dress was the same. The only thing that was not the same, was that the girl from the photo was… Caroline's eyes widened, as Richard took the girl's hand in his and didn't let go of it for a long time.
"We'd like to speak with you," he told the girl, in a low voice. She'd wavered for a moment or two, stunned. She'd nodded, finally.
Caroline excused herself from the receiving line. Dear god, she thought, give me the strength. The girl from the photo, the one who'd made her boy happy, appeared to be having a baby.
How long has that girl been on her feet today, she wondered, as her motherly instincts kicked in, and without Caroline even realizing that she was doing it, she'd taken the girl by the elbow and guided her to a row of empty chairs.
"Sit with me," she sat down and gestured to the seat next to her. She had to be certain that she wasn't misinterpreting things, but she didn't want to say things the wrong way. She wasn't sure how to begin. "Let's talk," she suggested.
"Maybe I should go," the girl gestured over her shoulder, helplessly. "I don't know why I came." She looked as though she were about to cry, herself.
"Oh, no, please stay and talk with me, just for a minute," she pleaded. "And my husband will want to speak to you, too, I'm sure. You knew our son?" The question had come out sounding like less than a question, and more like a statement.
"Yes, well," she stumbling over the words, nodding. "Well, no." She shook her head, then. "Sort of. I guess." Caroline smiled, in spite of herself, at the indecisiveness. She dug through her purse for her phone, remembering suddenly, and pulled up the picture from the photo booth, the one that she'd sent to Commander Lewis in hopes of identifying her.
"We found this." she held the screen out, as the girl stared at it, transfixed. "On his refrigerator. What's your name?" she asked, kindly.
"I forgot we took these," she said it so softly that Caroline wasn't sure she'd even been meant to hear. "And I'm Mindy," she said, still looking down at the photo.
"Did you two work together?" she prodded.
"Yes. Sort of. Well, no. Not really. No." Caroline smiled again at the ambiguous answer. "That is," she stammered as she continued, "I mean, that we both work for NASA, but not doing the same thing. So no, we never met."
Caroline smiled, then, amused, and held up the phone and pointed to the picture again.
"Oh. That." She smiled, sheepishly. "Well, we never met at work, I meant. It was the pre-launch party."
Things were starting to click now. That would have been practically the very night before Mark had gone into quarantine. Oh. Well, that put a different spin on things, didn't it.
"So," And honestly, she tried to say it tactfully, but as soon as she'd said it, she knew it was what Mark would have called an epic fail. "You only knew him the one night?" Holy hell, she hadn't meant to say those two words together, damn it, as she tried to confirm what was becoming more and more evident. "I mean, you…" She glanced down at Mindy's waistline, not wanting to speak the words.
"Yep," she nodded, ruefully. "Just the one night." She was blushing furiously. Caroline tried to put herself in Mindy's shoes. She must be mortified, poor thing.
Richard had finally reached the end of the receiving line, and he was making his way to them, now. He looked dazed, as he sat down across from Mindy and shook her hand once more.
"I'm Mark's dad," he introduced himself, and he glanced at Caroline, eyebrows raised.
Caroline introduced them. "Richard. And I'm Caroline, I'm sorry I didn't say so before, I was just…" she trailed off. "This is Mindy," she continued. "Mark's umm…" Richard's eyebrows went further together, until they had formed a near-perfect bushy grey unibrow. "Mindy is the girl from Mark's picture," she finished, lamely.
She looked at Mindy, apologetic at being unable to better sum things up.
"It's okay," Mindy smiled, sheepish, "this whole situation is well into the uncharted weirdness territory, it's all good."
"Mrs. Watney?" It was Mitch Henderson, standing nearby. "If you and your husband are ready, the limo is waiting to take you back to the hotel." He glanced at Mindy, with a slight look of curiosity, as though he recognized her from somewhere.
"We'd like to talk with you some more," she said to Mindy, standing up. "Make plans." Mindy visibly stiffened. "Why don't you ride back with us?"
"Oh, I don't know," she hedged. "I don't want to be in the way," she ventured.
Not taking no for an answer, Caroline said, "Nonsense, we insist."
She wasn't feeling anywhere close to acceptance over Mark's death. Not even close.
But it couldn't be denied that it was good to feel like she suddenly had a new purpose in life.