In Gravity's Shadow

by David Appell

She would call me at work, in the morning. "Mission Control here," she would tease, "this is an equipment check. . . . Gyroscope?"

I lived to play along. "Check."

"Booster tanks?"

"Loaded."

"Space suit?"

"Check."

"Lose the suit, pal," she said, giggling as she hung up.

After lunch she'd call back, a quick "T minus 5 hours, and counting." Just before it was time to leave she would call to remind me. "Mission Control here. We have clearance for liftoff." I could hear her smiling across the phone. "Please acknowledge."

"Roger, Mission Control. We're entering the capsule now."

We would race to my apartment, but she always won. "All systems are go," she'd say as soon as I got in the door. The countdown would resume in my bedroom. "Ignition sequence on," I said, touching her skin; "main engine start," she replied, pulling me on top of her.

Slowly the guidance arm would release and the launch tower would separate, and a noise would grow in my ear as our giant ship rose slowly into the sky. It would gather speed as I felt its power, as I let its noise wash over me. "Oh God," she would say with her eyes closed. The ship would rise higher as we expended our fuel, would move faster and faster, taking us away from the earth. It shuddered and shook until I thought we could go no further, and she would softly scream as her main tank fell away and the booster rockets took over, as her nails dug into my back and I searched for oxygen in the side of her neck. Then a supernova would explode somewhere over us, rushing outward at the speed of light, its radiation flooding throughout the universe.

Finally its brilliance would fade away and we would be left floating in each other's arms, drifting through the heavens, marveling at the wonders of the cosmos. "Thanks, flyboy," she said once when she could talk again. "The stars were certainly beautiful today."

But gravity pulled her back to her marriage. I always feared it would, even while I hoped to cheat the very thing that holds the world together. The air is so very thin in a high-altitude orbit, and gravity pulls on everything. She drifted between us, our own little solar system, with love as the only force that mattered. I wanted her badly, and when I began to need her she jettisoned. We separated and crashed back to earth. I was left to bob in the ocean, searching for a rescue ship, while I watched her paddle ashore and crawl onto the beach. I saw her get into the car with him and drive away.

She hadn't been happy for two years, she had told me. You deserve more, I said, hoping it would be me. People don't change, and life is so very short. But in the end they were just words, left to drift in the dark corners of the universe where love goes when it dies.

We tried to stay friends, meeting for lunch. She smiled, sweetly -- of course she still cared. She said she felt badly for everything that had happened, but this was how it had to be for now. I tried to pretend we were just human. She said they were working on it, but nothing seemed to have really changed. I told you so, I said, and tried to believe that it helped. My jokes had a bitterness to them -- I wanted her to hurt too, I wanted her to lie awake in the middle of the night and stare into the blackness. I wanted to show her I didn't care anymore -- but after all, I really was only human.

The last time we spoke she called me early one morning at work, like she used to. She was quiet. "What's the matter?" I asked, with a glimmer of hope that I was not proud of. Finally she said, "I went to the doctor yesterday."

I didn't catch on at first. "Aren't you feeling well?"

"I'm OK."

"What, so did you go for a physical?"

"No."

The next question came out automatically, like I was reading off a list. "You pregnant?" I almost meant it as a joke.

"Yes," she said sheepishly.

A dizzy feeling came over me, like when you enter another dimension and everything you know looks different. I saw the last star in the galaxy of Hope go dark. It had been too long since we had flown together for it to be mine.

"I haven't told anybody else yet," she said, as if it were a consolation prize.

I was silent. Finally I asked, "Why not?"

"I'm scared."

Welcome to the universe, I thought to myself. There was a long, awkward pause.

"Why didn't you tell your husband first?"

She waited. "I don't know," she said, sounding far away. "I've been asking myself that ever since yesterday."

I saw a black hole not far away, huge and dark, swallowing everything. Finally I said quickly, "I have to go."

"Right," she said coldly as I hung up.

The universe is expanding all the time. Sometimes I think it will never be large enough to hold everything we dare to ask of it.