I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were getting very white. My grip was tightening on the back of the chair. I could almost feel myself swinging it through the nearest window. I didn't think Captain Harbaugh would approve. I knew that Uncle Ira would be unhappy.
"I made a promise," I said. My throat hurt so badly, I could barely get the words out. My voice was trembling. "I promised Uncle Ira that if he let me have this chance that I would do whatever I had to do to work things out with you. And he led me to believe that's what you wanted too."
Her tone was still too sharp. "If you expected me to be waiting I'or you with open arms-"
"I expected you to shut up and listen," I snapped right back at her. I surprised myself. "I heard what you had to say. Now it's my turn."
Amazingly, she shut. It was an effort, but she shut. She kept her arms folded, she bit her lip, she looked at the rug as if it were the wrong place to be, she turned around as if looking for a new place to stand, then stepped over to the wall and stood with her back against it, still with her arms folded across her chest. She looked at me with eyes like ice and waited.
I took a breath and tried to remember what I had been about to say. I tried to recreate the mood; my voice was strained as I began. "… All the way here, I kept trying to imagine what I could say to you or what you might say to me. I couldn't imagine that you were going to be happy to see me. But neither did I imagine that you were going to be deliberately hostile. But I did think that you would listen to what I had to say. And now the joke's on me. Because I can't think of a single thing that I need to tell you. You don't want to hear my apology. You don't need to hear what I promised Uncle Ira. And there's nothing else for me to tell you. And even if I could think of something else, you don't want to hear it anyway. It wouldn't make a difference, so why bother to say it? So I'll get off at Amapa and catch a plane home. Thanks for the vacation."
I thought I was through. I started to turn away; but abruptly, one more thought occurred to me. I turned back to her. "Y'know-" I added softly, "I thought I had something to offer to this mission. I earned the job of science officer. Instead I got footprints on my back. And yeah, I got mad. But Uncle Ira told me that you really did value my services and that you had a field promotion planned. Okay, yes, I was an idiot. A complete jerk. An asshole. I'm sure you can add a whole bunch of other names that I can't imagine; you always were better at swearing than I was. But I still thought I could make a valuable difference here. Now you're telling me that I can't even do that. So there really isn't any point in my staying."
The whole thing was getting very clear to me now. I faced her directly and spoke as evenly as I could. She met my gaze dispassionately.
"I always thought that you were the one person I could depend on, no matter what. I've depended on your strength and on your maturity and on your wisdom from the first day I met you. I admired you so much. I thought that you knew how to make everything work just the way it should. You were one of my role models, the way you handled yourself and the people around you. I wanted to be like you. And every time you spoke to me, I felt like I was being honored. And every time you told me I had done good, I felt like I'd been kissed by God. I'd have done anything for you. Not just because I love you, but because… just because you're you. And even after we started sleeping together-I was so fucking amazed. The more I knew you, the better you got. And the harder I had to work to keep up with you. To be worthy of you.
"And then you brought in Dwan Grodin, and I thought you had lost confidence in me. I can't tell you how hurt I was. I was so demolished that I blew it. I lost all control. Suddenly, I wasn't good enough for you anymore. I went into the bathroom and cried until I lost my lunch. I haven't cried like that since I don't know when.
"And then Uncle Ira, who was apparently suffering only a mild case of death, came back and explained that you hadn't lost faith in me, that you were just as angry as I was, and I realized just how completely stupid I had been. So, yes, I got on the plane thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you and I could sit down and talk to each other that maybe, just maybe, you might understand and forgive.
"Now here I am discovering that you don't want to understand, you don't want to listen, and you don't want to forgive. And after all my work trying to put myself back together, I'm being ripped apart all over again. And the one person I most need to talk to about this is you-and you're not here for me anymore. And I can't tell you how much this hurts."
"Are you done?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," I said.
"For someone who doesn't have anything to say, you sure have a lot to say." She shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry that you're hurting. This isn't easy for me either. I'm sorry, Jim. I tried, I really did. But we can't just keep putting the pieces back together over and over. It's the same thing every time. Having a relationship with you is like dancing with a time bomb."
She started talking in a voice so filled with fatigue and weariness that it hurt just to listen to her. "You think it's been hard for you?" Her face was drawn and haggard. "How do you think it's been for me. Every time you pull one of your stunts, everybody looks to me. They look at me in the cafeteria. In the hallways. In the briefings. I know what they're thinking. 'What does she see in him? How does she put up with it? Why can't she control him?' Every time you blow up, you call attention to yourself, and that calls attention to me. They all start wondering, 'Is she going to defend him again?' You're undermining my credibility. No. The damage is done. You've destroyed it. Everything I've worked so long to accomplish; my entire career-it's all in shambles, Jim."
Her words were like bricks; hard lumps of pain that she piled slowly, laboriously, one on top of another. I felt like that fellow in the Edgar Allan Poe story who was walled up alive. Only the bricks in this wall were the bricks of my own anguish.
"You've become a spoiled brat, because you know that Mama's always going to be there to pull your nuts out of the fire. But every time I do, I spend a little bit more of my credibility, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, until I don't have any credibility left anywhere. I don't have any more favors to call in. I'm bankrupt. I'm without authority. You've not only demolished yourself, Jim-you've brought me down with you. Do you know how badly you screwed up? We almost had Operation Nightmare canceled because you were the science officer. I had to agree to replace you. Only the fact that you wrote the briefing books on the infestation kept you from being jettisoned altogether.
"And the hell of it is that everybody knows it. There are no secrets anymore, Jim. You're an open book. You and I-we're a goddamn soap opera. Everybody talks about us. I hate that. I don't want people knowing the details of my private life. I don't want people knowing who I sleep with or when or what we do in bed. I don't want everyone peeking over my shoulder. I want my damned privacy back."
She had been standing with her arms folded, her back firmly against the wall; now she let herself sag backward against it in sheer weary exhaustion; her arms fell emptily to her sides.
"We're not even good drama anymore, Jim. We're just another sitcom that should be canceled and forgotten. These people have been preparing for this operation for almost two years, and your little stunt almost flushed all that work down the toilet." There was real regret in her voice. "They're so pissed at you, Jim, that you don't have to jump out of one of those windows. You're likely to get thrown out. Haven't you noticed that nobody has spoken to you yet? Nobody's even nodded hello? You're being shunned. Even if I wanted to try to find a way to work with you, I couldn't. If I tried to tell these people to respect your authority, they'd laugh in my face, and I'd lose the last little shred of credibility and control that I have. I am not in a good position for a commanding officer."