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Sergei looks around in the hallway, hoping to spot Margo. He is not searching for her as he usually is at the beginning of each conference, carefully inspecting every corner of the lobby for the red hair he has missed so much. He is searching for her lazily, almost out of habit. They are way into their annual IAC evening already, and they have already shared a meal at an Italian restaurant nearby.
Unfortunately, she received a call from Emma on their way back, just as they neared the entrance of the hotel. She left him ten minutes ago at the bar, promising that she would be back as soon as she could and that the first round would be on her as an apology. In a fortunate coincidence, he had received a call of his own shortly after, so he did not have much time to miss her just yet.
The barman is placing his order in front of him when he hears her voice behind his shoulder.
“Should I be worried about Mars?”
She points towards his drink as he raises his eyebrows quizzically.
“Double Macallan. You’re celebrating something.”
He smiles at how well she knows him. He has not planned on sharing this with her, unsure of whether the confession would be welcome, but he does not want her to think he is playing dirty in their race for Mars.
“Actually, I just received a call from Anya - my former wife. She gave birth to her first child this week.”
She shoots him an apologetic glance, as if she immediately regrets her words.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
He interrupts her, brushing away her apology.
“As you accurately noticed, I am celebrating.”
She orders a Macallan of her own and props herself up in the seat opposite his.
“Marriage was that bad, huh?”
They are at this time of the night when they allow their discussion to toy with the personal, both having already had enough drinks to stop worrying about professionalism and simply enjoy each other’s company. His favorite time of the night. He shakes his head. “Anya and I were good together.”
She cautiously raises her eyebrows. He knows that she is waiting for him to continue if he wishes to, but that she will not push. It is how they both are, whenever their conversation broaches personal subjects. Always a listening ear, treasuring the glimpses the other accepts to share with them, yet never demanding. He decides it is time for him to share this one piece with her. Among other things he will not try to name, they are, after all, friends. He just has to be careful as to how much he tells her.
“She was a friend of my sister Alina, a few years younger than me. We got along very well – almost never argued –, she didn’t blame me for my time at work and she was very pretty… Everything a man should look for in his wife, according to the Soviet Union. We got married in 1982. My career path was clear then, and we agreed not to try for children until after I made Director of Roscosmos, as long as it did not come too late.”
He takes a sip of his glass and pensively leans into the back of his chair, reminiscing his life with Anya.
“I thought that this was what happiness was like.”
“It wasn’t?” She asks, curiously. He realizes that she might not have a reference point for the traditional pursuit of happiness, married to her work as she is. He takes another sip of his glass, carefully searching for the appropriate words. Words that would say enough for her to understand his marriage, yet not too much for her to understand… other secrets. He takes a deep breath.
“I met someone else. Someone who made me feel a… a spark, I would say. I did not have this with Anya. I do not think she had this with me either.”
He looks into her eyes, searching for her reaction. She is listening quietly, a glimpse of curiosity into her eyes. So, he proceeds.
“I had made an oath to Anya and I am not one to break promises. But this spark, it would not go away. One day, I realized that there had been someone else in my mind for almost as long as I had been married. It was like a… a wake-up call, as you would put it. You see, even without cheating on her, my heart had already broken my promise to Anya. It was not fair to her.”
She gives him a small, encouraging smile, and relief washes through him. It is a smile that says she approves of his decision, that she acknowledges his will to be true to his promise and understands his choice to ultimately break it at the same time.
“So, I left her.” He shamefully drops his gaze as he remembers Anya’s crying that day. “I hurt her… Very much. This was around the time I became director. She was hoping we would try for children soon, only for me to tell her that I was giving up on our life.”
He pauses to meet her eyes again. She is carefully waiting for him to proceed, her face undecipherable.
“It was a difficult year. She resented me a lot, and I could not blame her. Her pain was that of losing her husband, but also that of losing her prospect of having children with me, perhaps ever, given the time she had lost waiting for me.”
He empties the rest of his drink there. This is not something he is proud of. “Being a mother was important to her. For the longest time, I felt guilty for selfishly giving up our life to chase down… sparks."
He lets a relieved smile make its way into his features as he recalls his previous discussion with Anya.
“But now, she has not only told me that she has a child, but also that she has found such a spark with her new husband. So, I am celebrating.”
His story now complete, he gazes up to Margo and he notices the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. Her eyes tell him that she is happy for him to have lost such a burden, and it makes his chest warm. He also spots a cautious interrogation behind them, as if there is still a truth in his words that she hopes to unveil, but that she is afraid of what she might find there at the same time. This other secret hidden in his story. He feels his pulse quicken as he wonders if she will be so bold as to ask.
“What about you? From what I understand, you have also given up your chance to have children. Is she worth it, this someone?”
His pulse increases even more, and he is grateful that there are no heart conditions in his family. He choses his next words carefully, although he cannot prevent his lips from curling up in a gentle smile.
“No regrets. I do not see her often, but I hope that she enjoys my company as much as I enjoy hers.”
As he spots the shy sparkle of hope briefly lighting up her cautiously guarded eyes, he knows he has either said too much, or not enough. He could tell her the truth right here and then. Tell her that she is the one who has been filling his thoughts. That it was her Anya paled in comparison with. He can almost see in her eyes that his confession would be welcomed. But they are walking a dangerous line, one they cannot cross without destructive consequences. So, he buries the bravery fighting to escape the boundaries of his heart deeper, and takes the coward path instead. He deflects.
“And you? You do not have regrets? About not having children, or not having ever married?”
He feels a pang of shame in his heart as he witnesses disappointment flashing into her eyes, before they settle into quiet acceptance. They dance closer with this dangerous line every passing year, yet both understand that they cannot cross it.
She shrugs. “I never found someone who made me want all that. I didn’t really look for one this much either. When I look back, I think it’s a good thing. I don’t think I would be where I am today if I had someone holding me back.”
“In America, having a partner stalls your career?”
“For a woman trying to make her way in a male-dominant environment twenty years ago, yes it would have. I’ve always felt complete with my work. In the few… adventures I’ve had, I always made it clear that NASA was my priority from the beginning. Yet, they all ended up trying to compete with my job for my time. That’s usually when I cut them loose.”
He chuckles lightly. Any man trying to get Margo Madison to choose him over her work is a fool.
“So, no regrets then?”
There is a moment of silence during which she pensively watches the amber liquid in her glass. She seems to be hesitating to share more. He remains carefully silent, hoping that he has not outstepped her boundaries, that she will trust him with this other thought in her heart. She inhales deeply and takes a sip of her glass before proceeding in quieter voice.
“I don’t think I would have been cut out to be a mother, even if I had the opportunity. You know, with my family and all that.”
His heart constricts in his chests as he recalls what she has told him of her family in the course of their discussions. A distant father, wrecked by the part he played in humanity’s worst creation. A depressive mother, trying her best but unable to show her the love a child needs. And a mentor who closed his eyes on the worst genocide the world has ever known, because there is always a cost to progress. She had told him at the IAC three years ago, after one too many drinks. He had felt utterly privileged to be on the other end of her confession, fully aware of the vulnerability she must have felt and the trust it must have taken her to share such a past.
“But, when Aleida was a kid and I was tutoring her, her father got deported to Mexico. She came straight to my office, completely lost. She told me that he had made arrangements for her to stay with the family they shared their apartment with, but that she didn’t want to stay with them.”
She pauses then, her forefinger pensively tracing the edge of her glass. He knows that they have met when Aleida was still a teenager, but that she lost sight of her for a while. She has never been keen on unveiling the reason behind this, and he has always known better than to ask. He quietly waits for her. She meets his eyes before carrying on.
“She asked if she could stay with me instead.”
He guesses the next part when she drops her eyes to her hand toying with her glass once again, apparently afraid of his judgement. Still, he waits for her to tell him.
“I lived in my office at JSC, and I had just sold my parents’ house back in Huntsville. So, I refused.”
She stops her motion and straightens on her chair, but does not dare to meet his eye just yet.
“That was the last time I saw her for nearly a decade. When she came back into my life, I learned that she eventually could not stay with this family. She had to survive on the streets for years.”
Her voice breaks under the weight of the memory. She briefly closes her eyes with a painful sigh.
“So sometimes, I wonder. If I had someone, a home outside of JSC… maybe I would have been able to take her in when she asked, all those years ago. I would have been a poor substitute for a parent, but at least she would have had a roof over her head. That’s my one regret.”
She finally raises her eyes again to meet his. His heart constricts once again as he takes in the moist in them. He does not need to ask to know that she has never told this to anyone, that she might have just trusted him enough to share what is likely to be her darkest secret. He wishes he would be able to make that regret go away. To hug her and whisper in her ear that this does not cast any shadow on how much he values her. As Irina’s face briefly flashes into his mind, he realizes with a pang of guilt that his own secrets are way darker than hers, that she is so much more innocent than he will ever be. He sadly thinks that he would never deserve her, no matter how much he wants her.
It registers with him that he has stayed silent for too long when she leans back into her chair and carefully clasps her hands on her lap. He curses himself internally. She must think that he is judging her for what she did. But how could he?
He lays his hands on the table before them, hoping to convey his openness upon hearing such a secret, and he gives her a reassuring smile.
“That is a huge request to make to someone. You cannot blame yourself for a choice you made without having all the information.”
She bites her lower lip and drops her gaze, unconvinced. He wishes that she could see herself the way he sees her. So very perfect, even in her flaws.
“And you cannot know what would have happened. From what you have told me, she is happy with her life as it is today. And you are also responsible for this, Margo.”
She inhales deeply, uncomfortably shifting her weight in her chair.
“I know that. I just… I just wish this had never happened to her.”
It occurs to him that he disagrees with her. She would have made a great substitute for a parent, given how much she cares for the younger woman. He tries a light joke to chase the sadness in her eyes away.
“Also, you know, she would likely have ended up with a… jackass – is that the word? – instead of Victor, given the poor example your low-standard boyfriend would have set for her.”
For a second, she doesn’t react and he feels helpless at his failure to lighten her mood. Then, her eyes dart up, and a bright sparkle lights them up when they meet his. A second later, she leans forward and bursts out laughing. His heart feels warm at the music reaching his ears. He happily accompanies her, delighted that she allows him this brief duet.
When she calms down, it registers with him that the motion has left her hands resting on the table just before his own. He cannot tear his eyes off them. He has briefly brushed them many times in the course of the years, usually passing on a glass or a file. And he has only truly felt them in his twice, yet he distinctly remembers the softness of her skin. It occurs to him that while the warmth of her palm against his has printed itself in his hands forever, he does not know how her fingers feel. Even when he had held her hand, they had always been joined together, politely resting against the back of his where he could not properly feel them. He wonders if the tip of her forefinger is softer than that of her ring finger, if her pinky would bend more delicately than her middle finger if she were to wrap them around his. He knows that he is not supposed to know how they feel. That, much like their lives, they are only supposed to skim occasionally. But he finds that he cannot stop himself from wanting more.
They are so close to his that he can almost feel the heat radiating off of them. He would only have to lean forward slightly to brush them with the tip of his own. Perhaps, if he is lucky enough, she would even let him intertwine them with his. He is brought out of his reverie by her soft voice.
“I missed you.” It is so quiet that he first thinks his mind is creating an illusion. But then he meets her gaze, and the light he finds there chases away the shadows previously clouding his mind. Maybe it is not about deserving her. Maybe it is simply about making her happy. She smiles tenderly, and he finds himself beaming at her in return. He is rarely privileged enough to witness such a full smile from her. So, he tries to memorize the way the light in her eyes slightly alters their blue, to map out all the dimples created by the wide curve of her lips. Oh, how he wishes he could lose himself in her smile forever.
“I am sorry, we are now closing but you may bring your glass with you.” They are startled by the waiter announcing the end of the service to the nearest table. Time to go.
He regretfully watches her smile fading away as she returns hiding behind a professional face, mindful of the other attendants they could encounter in the lobby. He has decided he would not speak after her confession, afraid he will shatter the proximity of their souls she has just allowed. So, he watches her, waiting for her clue. She seems lost in her thoughts for a second. Then, she takes a deep breath and stands lazily. He mimics her and they silently make their way to the elevator, drinks in hand.
This is the moment he both looks forward to and fears every year, for it is the only moment they are truly alone. Fifteen seconds, pregnant with all the possibilities his heart longs for, before the familiar ding of the elevator reaching her floor crushes them with a harsh reminder of their reality.
And every year, as they wait for the elevator, he is struck more intensely by the same painful thought. He doesn’t want their time together to end. And as she exits the elevator, he sees the same thought dancing in her eyes, more clearly with each passing year. Yet, they both stand true to their truth. They cannot be. Their lives are not supposed to intertwine, only to occasionally brush once a year.
But this time, she doesn’t press the button for her floor after he presses the one for his. Before his mind can even start processing this, he realizes a little too late that his body has decided that its rightful place must reflect the closeness of their minds, that it is unfathomable to be apart from her earlier than the ding of the elevator. When she does not pull away from him, he takes a second to ponder what has just happened. His heart skips a beat as he realizes that today, she is rejecting the inevitable end of their evening as much as he is.
His eyes land on her left hand rigidly pressed against the length of her body, as if to prevent it from accidentally brush his side. Like him, she longs for their lives to do more than skimming. He is certain of it now. He takes in the carefully hidden regret on her face. He realizes with a pang of sadness that he cannot give her that. But perhaps, he can give them a taste of what it would be like.
So, against his better judgement, he unflexes his right arm, hoping that she cannot hear the loud thump of his heart in his chest. He feels a blissful shiver run through his spine as the backs of their hands lightly touch, once, twice. Emboldened by her not backing away, he allows his pinky to reach out and delicately brush her middle finger. When he feels her forefinger joining their dance willingly, he allows his thumb and pinky to wrap themselves around her ring finger, finally intertwining their hands.
And when she smiles, he forgets altogether that this is only supposed to be about her fingers. He desperately wants to kiss her. He was a fool to think he could contain this intertwining to their hands. For it is their lives he wants mingling. He wants to make this smile stay on her lips forever, to witness this delighted light in her eyes every day. He finds himself questioning the very purpose of his life. Maybe it should not be about going to Mars. Maybe it should be about making her happy. He knows it feels right in his heart.
As he is about to lean towards her smile, he hears the dreaded ding and feels the elevator abruptly coming to a halt.
For a second that seems to last forever, he helplessly witnesses her immediate retreat. Then, he comes back to his senses and imitates her, restoring a cautious gap between them.
“Dr. Nikulov. Miss Madison.”
They are greeted by name. And then the intruder hits the button for the ninth floor, crushing the remaining hope in his chest. He cannot help but let out a disappointed sigh. On his right, Margo is quietly fidgeting, probably wishing the floor would swallow her whole. He hates himself from bringing that on her. The awkwardness of this moment will likely haunt her for years. And he hates the coldness of his hand, brutally snatched away from the warmth of hers.
There is another ding. They have reached his floor.
It takes a second for his body to take its first step towards the exit. It doesn’t want to leave her side any more than his hand wanted to be free of hers. As he finally steps outside, he cannot help but look at her. She is still fidgeting, failing to appear casual. He doesn’t know what he is hoping for. There is no way she will exit the elevator with him, he knows this. But he wishes they had more time. He always does.
“Goodnight.” He meets her eyes, and the resolve he finds there mirrors that of his heart. Their lives are not supposed to mingle, no matter how much his heart wishes so. Still, he cannot help but watch her one last time, desperately looking for the faintest ghost of the smile he has just witnessed, for the light her eyes have just adorned. When he finds neither, he gives up.
“Goodnight.” He says quietly.
As she avoids his gaze, he defeatedly thinks that perhaps this interruption was for the best. The consequences of their getting closer would be their downfall. Still, he cannot get rid of the bitter taste of disappointment in his mouth. It could have been the taste of her lips he was bringing back to his room.
That night, in the privacy of his bed, he wonders what life would have been like, had they both been born American. They would have likely been rivals at first, an obstacle in the other’s path all the way to the top of NASA. Then, they would have inevitably ended up working long nights together, for it is what they do. And he would have been mesmerized by her mind.
She would have made flight director before him, for he has always known her to be the smartest of them both. But he would have invited her to dinner to celebrate, and this would have been his own win. They would have spent the evening smiling, laughing, and hopefully more. He dares to think that eventually, they would have built a life together, for she would trust that he would never make her chose between him and her work. And when Aleida would have asked Margo to stay with her, they would have taken her in, for they would have already owned a home with an office that could easily be converted into her bedroom. They would have kept working long nights, they would have kept laughing, and Margo would have kept tutoring her, for parenthood wouldn’t have been so scary together, and Aleida only ever needed love and a roof over her head anyway. Margo would still have become the head of NASA, and he would have been content to simply work with her every day, for all he ever needed was his work, and her in his life. Perhaps Aleida would even have met Victor anyway, and he would have happily become Tío Sergei.
Tightening his covers around him, he cannot help but smile at how much he likes the sound of that.