Page 41 of Across the Universe

“Such as?”

It’s Bill’s turn to look away, and he turns his face to the window. “Oh, I would say it was important for me to spend that time one-on-one with each of my kids when you gave me that as an assignment.”

“Right. And what did you discover as you did that?”

“I realized that while I’m a good father in terms of providing and loving my kids, I don’t know them fully as the people they’re becoming.”

Dr. Sheinbaum looks pleased. “That’s excellent, Bill.”

He shrugs. “It is what it is. I always felt like a great guy because I got home in time for dinner and was there to put them to bed when Jo went out for one of her evening walks, but I did it on autopilot. I half listened when they talked about school or their friends, and I didn’t know the ways they were changing.”

“And what ways are they changing?”

“Well, Jimmy is barely a kid anymore. He’s turning fifteen. At fifteen I kissed a girl, spent all my time playing sports, and thought about what it means to be a man. When I took him to the park as part of your assignment, he talked about a lot of things that I wouldn’t have even imagined were on his mind.”

“What’s on a fifteen-year-old boy’s mind these days?”

“Girls, of course,” Bill says with a knowing laugh. “But also the future. He talked about Vietnam and about the ways America is changing… it was eye-opening for me.”

“And your middle child?”

“Nancy,” Bill says with a nod. She’s always secretly been his favorite, though he’d never admit that to anyone. Her singular sense of self and her unwillingness to do things just to please others have always struck him as plucky and amusing. “She’s thirteen.”

“So she’s blossoming into a young woman.”

The phrase makes Bill cringe at the implications, but he looks at the crease on his pant leg again as he nods. “She is. She’s read nearly every book in the library, and she says she wants to be a professor. When I took her out, just the two of us, she wanted to go to a bookstore in Cocoa Beach, so we drove there and I let her browse for hours. After we bought books, we sat at a cafe and she told me all about each of the books.” Bill smiles to himself, remembering what it felt like to listen to his daughter speak so knowledgeably about books. “I really learned a lot about the way her mind works.”

“I love that. And your youngest?”

“Well, if you recall, after the day I took her to the beach, we had a discussion in here about her desire to be an astronaut.”

“Ah, I do remember that.” Dr. Sheinbaum reaches for a mug of coffee on her desk, sips it, and sets it down. “Cold,” she says, making a face. “Go on.”

“I gave it more thought after you and I talked, and I realized that, yes, I do want my daughters to have easy lives, and I can’t apologize for that. I want them to be happy and healthy and fulfilled, of course, but part of being a woman is adhering to society’s expectations of you.”

“And yet you have girls who want to be college professors and astronauts. Does that worry you?”

Bill scratches his neck as he thinks about the question. “Yes and no. It worries me for them because I don’t want them to face adversity their entire lives, but it doesn’t worry me because they’re being raised with a sense of adventure.”

“Tell me more about that.”

Bill gives her a look like he’s about to state the obvious. “I’m an astronaut who packed up my family and moved us across country for the chance to go to the moon.”

“Yes,” Dr. Sheinbaum says expectantly.

“And Jo is not exactly a wallflower. She set up a house here, made friends, got the kids involved in things, and immediately dove into a volunteer position at the hospital. And, as if that weren’t enough, she started writing in her free time.” He stops talking, awed for a moment at the list of accomplishments that he’s able to attach to his wife. “And even in the midst of all that, she never drops the ball. The house is always immaculate, dinner is on the table, and things get done.” Bill shakes his head and then gives a harsh laugh. “I wish I were half the man my wife is.”

Dr. Sheinbaum’s look is almost pitying. “Oh, Bill. You’re just realizing what most men never come to understand: women multitask every day of their lives, and most do it effortlessly. Or it at leastlookseffortless. It’s exhausting, and largely thankless, but womanhood is fraught with the constant choice of responsibility versus self-actualization. It’s a rare woman who can keep both things going, and who can do it all well.”

Bill stays quiet here. He knows that he’s learning things about Jo and about what it means to be a woman, and while he hadn’t come here to Dr. Sheinbaum’s office to learn about the fairer sex or about the pitfalls of womanhood, he’s doing his best to take it all in and let it become a part of his understanding. Knowing how hard Jo works and what things his own girls will face as they grow into their adult selves is something that is important to him.

“Let’s shift gears,” Dr. Sheinbaum says. “Let’s talk about work, since we started with that.”

“Okay.” Bill sits up straighter; talking about work is a more comfortable topic for him. “Shoot.”

“This mission you’ve been chosen for—what is it?”

“I’ll be working with a small team to do the first docking of our ship with a target. Right now there are three of us selected for the mission, but ultimately there will be two in the capsule. So it’s competitive, it’s challenging, and it’s exciting.”

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