And that nothing—not even Vanessa not making it home—would ever be able to stop how much Joan loved her.
She should have said that.
Oh, she should have said that.
"Navigator," Joan says, through her tears, standing up. "Navigator,please. Please come in. Please. Please,Navigator." She is begging now. She's not sure whom.
There is silence. Jack touches her shoulder again, but Joan pushes him off.No! No!"Navigator!PLEASE! Do you read?NAVIGATOR!"
Joan's is the only voice that can be heard on the entire floor of this building. Everyone else is looking down, silent.
"Please, Vanessa, don't go."
She listens for anything, a single vibration. Anything at all. The soundlessness feels so sharp it could cut her.
And then she understands what everyone else does.
They are gone.
They are gone.
Vanessa is gone.
Vanessa died somewhere over California, having proven herself to be the exact sort of person she had always hoped she was. And now Joan is left to bear it.
Joan's legs buckle underneath her. She falls to her desk, the ground underneath her disappearing. She cannot hold her own weight. She can feel her heart begin to implode.
But then, in a shock, Joan feels the most perfect peace overtake her.
What a gift. To have known Vanessa, and to have loved her.
The way the universe had developed—the way God itself unfolded—was that Vanessa had been here for thirty-seven years.
But Joan had been given four of them.
She had been given so much of Vanessa when so few ever understood her at all. She had been given that face to sketch for the rest of her life. To spend her days trying and failing to capture her hair.
In this one moment of brilliant clarity—a clarity Joan knows she will lose her grasp on within seconds, and have to fight like hell foryears to come back to—Joan understands that God gave her something spectacular. A love, and a life, beyond the confines of her imagination.
Small, slight, unimportant Joan. Just one person of five billion, on a small planet orbiting a small star, in a humble galaxy, one of billions of galaxies. Joan is so insignificant and yet, look what God had given her. Look at all that God had given her. Look at what no one will ever be able to take away.
Vanessa has gone into the ether.
And it will make Joan even more eager to take each breath.
What a world.
Joan hears a crackle in her headset. She lunges forward.
She watches Jack turn his gaze to the screens. All at once, they begin to update.
"—ston, this isNavigator.Do you read?"
The air rushes into Joan's lungs. "Vanessa? Vanessa, are you there?"
And then Vanessa's voice comes through, loud and clear.
"Houston, this isNavigator.Lydia Danes is alive. I'm about to land at Edwards."
The entire room erupts into such loud cheering that Joan jumps.
"Navigator," Joan says. "We read you."
Vanessa lets out a wild sigh, sharp and whistling.
"Hi," Vanessa says.
Joan takes a breath. "Hi." She closes her eyes and smiles.
Maybe they had not asked for too much. Maybe they would get everything they wanted.