Up and Down (42 page)

Every show unfolded in pretty much the same way. After a melodramatic introduction usually delivered by unseen vocal talent that sounded like the movie trailer guy (you know the voice: “In a world, caught between good and evil, in a time just after lunch …” etc., etc.), Landon and the commander would come out to thunderous applause. The host would welcome them home from orbit. A clip of the surgery would be played to the dramatic ooos and ahhhs of the studio audience. Landon would be modest about her role in kind of an aw-shucks way. Quintessentially Canadian, you might say. The host would then pile on a little too much praise. I would watch as Landon’s irritation would start to crack her polite veneer.

“Look, I’m a doctor! I took the Hippocratic oath. He was sick, so I treated him. That’s what doctors do. End of story!”

A version of that line would usually find its way into the interview if the host pushed Landon a little too far. The commander would then leap in and guide the conversation to calmer waters. It actually was great
TV
, even though Landon tired quickly of the spotlight.

My
TK
colleagues in Toronto toned it down when we finally arrived back in Canada about ten days after touchdown. Landon was itching to get back to Cigar Lake, so Amanda kept the media interviews to a minimum. Landon was approaching overexposed already, courtesy of her American media tour the previous week. On our first day back north of the 49th, there was a major
CBC
interview that aired in prime time, and a two-page
Globe and Mail
spread. On day two, Landon and I flew up to Ottawa for her – private – meeting with the prime minister and a photo opp. We both sat in the gallery for Question Period that day and the Speaker introduced Landon, sparking a standing ovation from all sides of the House. She stood and gave a little wave, then sat back down in the hopes of abbreviating the applause. It didn’t really work. The Prime Minister’s Office wanted to do much more to recognize Landon’s adventure. She politely but firmly declined. It was time to go home.

Because I was accompanying Landon Percival,
the
Landon Percival, I was permitted to go through security with a dummy boarding pass and escort her to Air Canada’s Maple Leaf Lounge where business class ticket holders awaited their flights. Many heads turned and a few fingers pointed when we entered, but beyond that, we were left alone. We were in Canada, after all.

“What am I going to do without you looking out for me?” Landon said as she sank into a chair.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” I replied. “You don’t need anybody. You’re the most independent, self-sufficient person I’ve ever met. You built your own human centrifuge out of a snowmobile engine, a wooden propeller, and a sailboat mast. I’m still trying to get my toaster to pop up at the right time without setting off the smoke detector. Would you consider moving in with me?”

She found the grace to smile.

“I’ll visit sometime, but it’s time for me to get back home. Hector will think I’ve completely given up on him, and he needs me.”

We sat for a few moments in silence. I really wasn’t sure what I was doing or how I was feeling. This was the end of something that had dominated my life for the previous several months. I barely knew where I was, let alone what was next.

“Is it all settling into perspective yet? Are you feeling yourself?” I asked.

“I don’t think I’ll ever feel quite the same again,” she said, then paused. It was a softer voice that continued. “When you look down on the blue Earth magically hanging in the blackness, your own country moving across your field of view, you are changed. It is inescapable.”

I just nodded and held my tongue, not wanting to sully the moment with what would surely be an inadequate response. Fortunately, she carried on.

“You know, I’ve never credited Eugene Crank with a great deal of emotional depth, but he was very moved by the experience too. I really think it changed him. It was a different person wielding
that homemade suction tube.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you changed him as much as the mission.”

“Air Canada flight 156 with service to Calgary and then on to Vancouver is ready for pre-boarding at gate 124,” said a woman’s voice over the speakers in the ceiling.

“I’ll walk you to the gate.”

“I’ll walk myself to the gate. Let’s say goodbye here without the crowds.”

She moved in with open arms and held on tight for longer than your garden-variety farewell hug.

“You’re back now, so take care of that new woman of yours. You both work too hard, so you need your time together or you’re not really living,” she said in my ear. Still she hung on to me. “You went out on a very thin limb so I could make it onto that shuttle. It never would have happened otherwise. You put your job on the line for someone you barely knew. Well, that kindness is part of me now, and I’ll be passing it on. That’s what you do with kindness. I am more grateful than you can ever know. Thank you. And come and visit Hector and me.”

She pulled back, grabbed her small carry-on bag, and walked quickly out of the automated sliding doors. There was no time to respond. She was gone. I sat there for a few minutes as people came and went. I shoved a couple of packages of smoked almonds into my pocket and headed for the car. I love smoked almonds.

A few hours later, Amanda and I met Lauren in one of my favourite restaurants in Toronto. I’d wanted Lauren to meet Amanda. They both looked very relaxed and happy. Since I’d returned from Florida, I’d not spent a single night in my own condo. I seemed to have moved into Amanda’s. It was nice. The dinner went well. Lauren and Amanda seemed to hit it off well, which was a gigantic relief. I’m not sure how I’d have felt had they not gotten along.

It was quiet in the restaurant, and our booth made it feel like an intimate and safe enclave. Amanda and I were seated on one side of the banquette, Lauren on the other.

“So tell me more about your mother,” asked Amanda. “I’m so sorry I never met her.”

Lauren smiled and told a couple of funny stories about our mother that made us all laugh. She finished by telling Amanda about the special phrase she and Mom had shared.

“Whenever we said good bye, whether I was going off to summer camp as a kid, or back to my own apartment after Sunday dinner at home, she’d always say ‘Be kind.’ Short and sweet. ‘Be kind.’ It was our special line.”

Amanda nodded, then looked my way.

“Was there a phrase you had with your mother too?” she asked.

“Oh yeah. We each had one. My mother would always say to me ‘Use your head, but follow your heart.’ ”

The word “heart” sounded like it had been uttered by someone else. It struck me like lightning. All of a sudden, I was weeping.
No, not just weeping, it was more like blubbering. I was a mess in three seconds flat. Lauren reached out and took my hands. Amanda had her arms around me in an instant. It was an awkward position, being embraced by the person next to you while someone else holds your hands from across the table. But I didn’t really notice. I was too busy having some kind of a breakdown. The privacy of the booth meant that only the surrounding five tables stopped what they were doing and stared. The other nine parties in the room were oblivious. Our waiter was headed over but pulled a U-turn back to the bar when she saw my meltdown.

About ten minutes later, I started to feel more like myself, and the crying jag faded into that periodic sniffling and spasmodic inhalations that I remembered as a kid.

“What the hell was that?” I mumbled when I eventually found my own voice again.

“It’s called grief,” replied Amanda, still with one arm around me. “And it’s about time you released some of it.”

Lauren just smiled and squeezed my hands.

I was weeping again in the car on the way home without even realizing it. I even turned on the windshield wipers, thinking that would improve my impaired vision. Amanda made me pull over. She drove the rest of the way. I cried again in bed that night. Amanda just held me without saying a thing. I had never really known the true meaning of the word catharsis until that night. When the tears stopped, I actually felt amazing.

Amanda whispered in my ear at about 3:00 in the morning after I’d been quiet for a while.

“I like that you can cry.”

I hoped not to make a habit of it.

“Welcome home, stranger,” Diane said as I settled in a chair in front of her shiny sci-fi desk.

“Well, it’s nice to be back.”

It was Friday morning. I’d spent the first hour after arriving at the office fist-bumping or high-fiving pretty well all of my colleagues. It wasn’t my idea. They just kept interrupting me in my cubicle as I tried to hunker down and start writing the Citizen Astronaut program wrap-up report. When the last of them had smacked my pink and swelling hand, I was summoned to the corner office. Diane was wearing a rather sedate pair of glasses, at least by her standards, encrusted with enough sparkly rhinestones to do retinal damage to anyone trying to make eye contact with her. If she’d been in direct sunlight, she might well have been able to set me on fire just by looking my way. Mercifully, she removed them and laid them on her desk when she noticed me averting my eyes.

“Well, you pulled it off,” she said. “There were plenty of moments in the last couple of months when I thought it was going south, but each time you somehow pulled it back.”

“Kind of you to say, but I was really just hanging on for dear
life. Landon made my job easy. She is one amazing woman.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. We thrust you into a very difficult situation and you delivered time and time again. We’ve never seen so much media coverage. You kept yourself and
TK
out of the news. Not only did you keep Dr. Percival out of trouble, she’s now a national treasure in two countries. Kelly Bradstreet is singing your praises and that makes the New York bigwigs happy. And the whole emergency surgery thing was pure genius. Kudos on that little gambit.”

“Well, um, I admit that Kelly and I were working overtime to keep the story hot for the media, but my influence does not extend to the commander’s inflamed appendix, as much as I’d like to claim the credit for it. That little medical situation was pure serendipity. Fortunately, Landon made the most of it.”

“Kidding. I was kidding. But by all accounts, you did a great job. And you led the entire firm in the
PROTTS
race over the last fourteen weeks.”

“Hey, that’s great news,” I replied. “What exactly is the
PROTTS
race?”

“It just means that you billed more hours in the last three months than anyone else in the entire firm, worldwide.”

“So does my picture hang in the lobby of the New York office for a week?”

“No, but your productivity bonus at year-end will probably pay for a lightly used Beemer. That is, if you’re still here,” she said staring down at me. She was no longer smiling.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry, I really like it here. I have no plans to leave,” I replied.

“Oh, it wouldn’t be up to you. Based on your performance on the Citizen Astronaut program, I’m torn between promoting you and firing your ass.”