Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins Reid - 47

“Houston, do you read? I asked how much time does Lydia have,” Vanessa says from the payload bay. She is counting her breaths to keep herself calm. But the realization that the payload bay doors may not fully close is bearing down on her. How. How. How did we get here? It was only hours ago that Hank and Steve were joking about who had a better barbecue smoker. And Griff had been complaining about drinking breakfast from a pouch. And now everyone is gone but her and Lydia. How?

“If we miss our deorbit opportunity, can Lydia survive?”

Joan does not respond. But Vanessa knows the answer. They all know the answer.

Finally, Joan speaks up. “We do not know if Lydia can survive,” she says. Then, lower, in a tone that feels to Vanessa like Joan is confessing: “But the flight surgeon does not believe so.”

Fuck.

Vanessa slams her hand against her helmet. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

“So Griff is gone,” she says. “And if I spend any more time trying to fix the payload doors, I may lose Lydia, too.”

“Yes,” Joan says. Vanessa can hear how much Joan is straining to keep her voice level. “But we believe it is the only way for you to survive.”

“But we have no guarantee that I can fix the doors,” Vanessa says.

“Understood. But we also do not have firm testing on how many open latches the shuttle can maintain through reentry. And we cannot risk losing you.”

Vanessa shakes her head. How the fuck can this be happening?

“Do you read, Ford?” Joan says, her voice rising. “I said, we cannot risk losing you. ”

“I want to get something very clear,” Vanessa says. “If I stay and try to fix the doors, there’s still an excellent chance the shuttle will not make it. Is that your estimation as well?”

“We believe our best chance of landing Navigator is for you to attempt to fix the doors.”

There’s an excellent chance, Vanessa understands, that she is going to die here in orbit. On the space shuttle Navigator .

She thinks back to every single moment of her teenaged years when she thought she was courting danger, daring God to take her. What a little snot she’d been.

In this moment, she is closer to death than she has ever been. And she wants to fight against it with every fiber of her being.

When she’d been messing with drugs and flying planes too low across the mountains, her mother had once asked her if she was trying to die. She’d sobbed one night at the kitchen table and begged Vanessa to care about her life, begged her not to leave her childless.

Vanessa wishes, so badly, that her mother could see her now. To see and feel how incredible the life is that she has made for herself, and how desperately she wants to live it.

She wants nothing more than to go home. To go home and say she’s sorry to her mother. To find Joan and Frances.

Joan. Joan. Joan. Joan. Joan.

“If I stay to fix the payload bay doors, even if I get them to lie flat, Lydia will almost certainly die,” Vanessa says.

“We understand that. But if you do not fix the payload bay doors, it is most likely that the shuttle will not make it. Which means Lydia will not make it, either,” Joan says. Vanessa admires the strength and directness in her voice.

There’s not really any branch of statistics that can weigh her chances of closing the latches against Lydia’s chances of surviving another rev. There is no concrete answer. Everyone listening knows that.

“Lydia saved me,” Vanessa says. “She saved the shuttle. She tried to save us all.”

“Affirmative,” Joan says.

Vanessa waits and then Joan speaks up again, in a tone softer than she has used all day: “We know. We know.” And then: “But we cannot lose you.”

Vanessa closes her eyes. She can feel her breath quickening. She wants to try to fix the shuttle doors. She wants to get home and smell the dirt and oil of Earth. She wants to find her mother. She wants to see Joan’s face again.

She wants so badly to see Joan’s face again.

Please, God, let her see Joan’s face again.

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