Still Wishing You Were Here

From theme prompt: March to your own drummer

Mitch looked up from his tray of tasteless sustenance and shivered. The usual daytime (if you could call it daytime) winds howled outside their living quarters, rattling the metal door that protected them from the unforgiving elements.

“Beth.” He looked at his wife sitting silently, her food untouched. He could see she was somewhere else, somewhere deep in her subconscious, totally lost in her own imaginary world — the new world surrounding them, this new real world, completely lost on her. He reached across their makeshift table and gave her shoulder a good shake.

“Beth,” he repeated.

“What?” She blinked. Then sighed. She knew. She had done it again. Gone into the make-believe world she’d created in her own head — the one where she still lived. Where she laughed and giggled. Where she was healthy and full of life.

“Please, Beth.” His eyes pleaded. “You can’t keep going there. It’s not reality. I — .” He couldn’t finish his sentence. How could he tell her that he was afraid of losing her too? Would it make any difference in the telling?

“You what?” She was afraid of his answer but she needed him to finish the sentence — to share his pain. He’d become so distant.

Mitch took a deep breath. “I, I need you here — with me. To build a new life together, like we’d dreamed. I know we both wish our little girl was here. But she’s not. She’s — ”

“Yes,” Beth interrupted. “A new life. Together. With her! But like you said — she’s not here!” Beth’s voice howled too, with pain. She grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself and stared at Mitch. “Say her name. You haven’t said it since the day you and the captain placed her in that casket, that metal, lonely, pod, and propelled her out into space. And that was weeks ago.” She looked up and out their one window situated at the apex of their little domed house. “She’s out there. Floating. Forever floating.” She turned back to Mitch. “And you can’t even say her name. It’s like you’ve forgotten her.”

He reached out to touch her hand but she pulled it down onto her lap. “Zoe,” he said quietly. “Zoe Anastasia Jacobs.” Then he looked up and out the window. “And she was all that, wasn’t she? So full of life. So much promise in our future here. Together.” His eyes began to swell with tears. “Yet, when I close my eyes — ” he paused, the words stuck in his throat, “when I close my eyes, all I see are memories of her with us back on Earth. I see her in the park, dancing along with total abandon, her face to the sky in search of butterflies. I see her at the pond feeding every, single, duck, not caring that her shoes were muddy and soaked. I see her in my dreams, both at night and during the day.”

This time Beth reached out her hand and caressed Mitch’s arm. “I thought I was all alone in my pain. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because.” Mitch rubbed the tears off his cheeks with the back of his hand and looked back at Beth. “Because I blame myself for what happened. For wanting to go on this adventure, to start a new life on this harsh planet. Zoe,” he repeated, “with only a handful of other children. What was I thinking?”

“No, Hon, No.” Beth now put both her hands on Mitch’s forearm. “It was a decision we made together, remember? And Zoe was as excited as we were. Maybe even more so. It was all she could talk about for the months before we left.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he whispered. “But — ”

“Nobody knew her heart was weak. Even with all the medical tests we had to take, the doctors didn’t catch her bad heart. If anyone’s to blame, it’s the doctors.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Outside, the gale began to lessen. Neither of them moved. Neither wanted this bubble of hope to pop.

“But,” Beth finally said, “I don’t want to blame anyone. It doesn’t work.” She gave Mitch a half-smile.

“Then what do we do? How do we process this pain?” Mitch cupped her hands in his.

“This, together, is good. But processing it all? I don’t know.” Beth’s smile widened. The glint in her eyes that Mitch so loved returned. “But I do know one thing.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“There’s no one I’d rather process my pain with. I need you and you need me. That’s the only moving forward I can think of.”

Outside, the wind was silent.

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