Page 22 of The Launch

Bill’s expression softens as he walks over to his wife, putting both hands on her waist. “Jojo, you’re not a fish out of water. You are a wonderful, caring, sweet woman, and everyone who meets you sees that. You’re already making friends here, and accomplishing good things. I’m proud of you.”

Jo’s stubborn attitude melts somewhat as Bill pulls her closer. He lowers his face so that their lips are just inches apart, and Jo relaxes into his arms. “Thank you,” she says, growing inexplicably teary-eyed. “It’s nice to be seen.”

“I do see you. This has been?—”

“Mommy?” Nancy calls from the front room. “Can we watch one more show?”

Bill shakes his head at Jo and whispers, “No, let’s put them to bed and go up on the roof. You want to?”

Jo steps out of his grasp as Nancy pokes her head into the kitchen. “One more show, Mommy? Please?”

“No, sweetheart, not tonight. Dad and I are going to team up and get everyone into bed.”

“Awww!” Jimmy calls out from the front room; the other two are clearly listening to see if there’s any chance of more television. “Come on, Mom!”

Bill clears his throat. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it, amigos,” he says in a gruff voice. “First one into pajamas with their teeth brushed gets to choose which parent tucks them in.”

Jo smiles because Bill will be the one the kids angle to have as the parent who puts them to bed. She also knows he’s done this on purpose, perhaps to give her a break from the bulk of the child-rearing duties for one evening, but also possibly to butter her up so that they don’t turn out the lights and immediately fall asleep with their backs to one another, as they’ve been doing lately. While Bill shepherds and cajoles the children, Jo takes two bottles of beer out of the fridge and slips a bottle opener into the pocket of her skirt.

“I think we’ve done it, boss,” Bill says twenty minutes later, after a whirlwind of giggles, toothpaste, and bedtime stories. “What do you say we make for the stars?”

Jo carries the beers, one in each hand, as she follows Bill out to the pool deck. He pulls a ladder from the side of the house and sets it against the ledge of the roof, then tests it to make sure it’s stable. Bill holds the end of the ladder steady and takes the beers from Jo.

“Up you go, Mrs. Booker,” he says, easily gripping the necks of both beer bottles in one hand as he holds the ladder with the other. He’s got a handsome, impish grin on his face—it’s the same one Jo fell in love with all those years ago, and it charms her still. She can’t help but smile back at him as she mounts the ladder, holding on with both hands and carefully placing each flat-shoed foot on a rung before moving up to the next.

Going up on the roof together at night after the kids are in bed has long been a favorite thing for Jo and Bill, but they have yet to ascend to their roof here in Florida. This one is slightly pitched and has a different tile from their roof in Minnesota, so Jo looks around, trying to find a place to sit comfortably.

“Here,” Bill says, his head appearing above the ladder. He hands her the beers. “Be right back.”

A minute later he returns, handing Jo a heavy quilt. Bill climbs the rest of the way up and spreads the blanket out forthem, then takes the beers so that Jo can fish the bottle opener from her skirt pocket. The bottle lids make a satisfying pop as Bill frees them, and they clink their beers together wordlessly, looking up at the clear sky above. It’s mid-July, and the moon is full and bright.

“We came here for this,” Bill says reverently, watching as the lights of the sky twinkle and dance above them. “Look right there.” He points at a spot off in the distance. “That’s the Summer Triangle: Vega, Altair, and Deneb. This little trilogy is only visible on clear summer nights, and if you look really closely, you can see some of the other stars in their constellations. They’re faint, but you’ve got Cygnus the Swan,” Bill says, pointing at one corner of the Summer Triangle. “There’s Aquila the Eagle, and over there is Lyra the Harp.”

As always, Jo is dazzled by her husband’s brilliance, and she wishes that she knew something,anything, as intimately as Bill knows the stars. Instead of speaking, she sips her beer slowly, not wanting to get dizzy while she’s up on the roof.

“Everything might feel vast right now, Jojo, and home might seem far away,” Bill says softly, “but when you look at the scope of the heavens, you realize that we’re not that far from anyone we love.”

Jo turns to look at her husband. His skin is smooth, but the curves of his jaw and cheekbones are sharp. “Do you miss it, too?” she asks, watching him carefully. “Do you miss Minnesota?”

Bill glances at her. “I do. I miss it. That’s where the kids were born, and there’s always comfort in what’s familiar. But I can be at home anywhere, Jo—any place that allows me to be with you, Jim, Nancy, and Kate. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he says, shaking his head as he searches her eyes with his. “A family and a home. And you give me that.”

Jo gets a twinge of guilt as he says this; shewantsto feel the same, but it’s simply taking longer for her to assimilate. She’s always been a creature of habit, and leaving her parents and siblings and friends behind for this strange paradise has felt like a radical change. She swallows hard before speaking. “I know, Bill,” she finally acquiesces. “Home is where we all are, and this is really a beautiful house. A wonderful community.”

He’s still watching her, looking hopeful as she speaks. “It is,” he agrees.

“The other wives are all great. Well, Judith is proving to be a bit of a mystery,” Jo says, biting her lip as she looks up at the Summer Triangle once again. “Bill,” she says in a serious voice. “Last month, when we were at Carrie’s house, I caught her pouring herself more vodka in the kitchen.”

Bill frowns. “Pouring it…like, secretly?”

“Yes! I went into the kitchen and found her there. I think I startled her.” It’s Jo’s turn to frown. “And then we had a slight disagreement another day when we were at Barbie’s pool with all the kids. Or rather,” Jo says, correcting herself as she fans her skirt out around her knees, “it wasn’t so much adisagreement, as her telling me that our only purpose as women is to—oh, never mind.” Jo waves a hand and wrinkles her nose slightly. “It was just women talking. I don’t want to weigh you down with things that aren’t worth repeating.”

Bill is still watching her, but this time with a puzzled look. “Everything okay between you ladies?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Jo says with a reassuring smile. “And now that I’ve been volunteering at the hospital for three or four weeks, I think I’m really hitting my stride. I won’t say that I’m entirely at home yet, but I know where everything is in Stardust Beach, I have friends to meet up with, and when I go to the hospital, I feel useful and needed. I’m not as unhappy as I was, Bill.” Jo reaches over and puts her hand on her husband’s thigh,squeezing it as she watches his face. “I’m still homesick, and I wish like hell we were back home and camping at Clear Lake right now instead of melting in this humidity, but things are okay. I promise.”

Bill visibly relaxes; the tension has been palpable since they arrived in May, and between his long hours at NASA and the physical distance between them in bed at night, Jo has felt increasingly as if she were living at the beach with a stranger. She closes her eyes and leans in closer, turning her face up to Bill’s for a kiss, which he obliges. Their lips touch tenderly, and Jo feels something stir in her; she puts a hand to his cheek and deepens the kiss as the moonlight falls on their hair and skin.

Bill pulls away first, but not abruptly. Instead, he kisses her closed eyes, her forehead, her nose. “Did I tell you about the solar eclipse yesterday?” he asks with a boyish eagerness that makes Jo laugh as she accepts the kisses he’s planting all over her face.

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