Lunar Landing
 

Susan G.

At the table during lunch, Candy continued to grumble about the rain
falling. "This had better quit by night," she muttered. "I wanted to see
the moon when the men landed on it!"

"Sweetie, you wouldn't have been able to see that even if the skies were
clear," Carolyn said gently.

"I'm still mad ... I just wanted to SEE it! Blast it all anyway!"

"Candy!" Martha admonished her, surprised. "I've never heard YOU say
that before!"

"It just feels like that kind of day!" Candy kicked at the table leg,
her lower lip stuck out.

"I can't really say as I blame you," Martha sighed. "It's almost as if
someone up there doesn't like us and is making the rain come for spite."

"Captain Gregg wouldn't do that," Jonathan piped up, loyally. "He wants
to see the moon tonight, too!"

"Hmm," Martha said.

Carolyn eyed Candy furtively, a little puzzled when the girl didn't
deride her younger brother the way she often did at the mention of the
Captain. Instead, her daughter almost seemed to brighten. "If he DOES
want to see the moon, maybe he can make the rain go away!"

"Madam, I am afraid your daughter endows me with more power than I
have," the Captain said, materializing by her side. "When it comes to
rain not of my making, that is!" he added hastily.

She merely raised her eyebrows at him, silently challenging his claim. A
low rumble of thunder heralded his abrupt disappearance, and the rain
suddenly lashed the kitchen window viciously. Carolyn's lips twitched
slightly in response to his temper tantrum, and she exchanged laughing
glances with her small son.

When lunch was over, Jonathan and Candy both promptly retired to the
living room and turned on the television. "The ONLY good thing about the
rain is that Mom and Martha won't be bugging us to go outside and play
in the fresh air!" Candy confided in her brother.

Jonathan nodded agreement, and settled down on the couch. "How much
longer do we have to wait?"

Martha poked her head into the room. "I could use some help with the
dishes."

"Where's Mom?" Jonathan asked.

"Upstairs. She wanted to finish her article before starting to watch."
Martha replied.

"Oh, all right. We may as well help," Both children dragged themselves
into the kitchen.

"Why does time seem to go so slow when you're waiting for something?"
Candy asked as she gingerly rinsed a dish in warm water and put it on
the drainer for Jonathan to dry.

Martha turned from putting the leftovers in the refrigerator and smiled
sympathetically. "It'll start going faster the older you get. Trust me
on this."

"Boy, I bet time just whizzes by for Captain Gregg, then," Jonathan
grinned. "He's over a hundred years old!"

Martha shook her head and glanced at Candy, waiting to see the girl
scoff at her brother as she so often had the past year. Instead, Candy
had a peculiar expression on her face, as if she were pondering
Jonathan's words and almost half believing them. Snorting, Martha shut
the door of the fridge and bustled into the laundry room. Mrs. Muir was
already humouring the young boy when it came to his imaginary friend,
and now his sister was starting to do the same? In Martha's day, such
foolishness was nipped in the bud quickly. Imagine! A GHOST! Well, one
of these days, Jonathan would grow out of such fancies, she hoped!

Time continued to drag for everyone in the house, but at last they were
gathered in the living room, and at 4:17 EDT precisely, they heard
Walter Cronkite repeat Neil Armstrong's historic words. "The Eagle has
landed."

"By the powers, I can hardly believe it!" the Captain's voice had a
touch of awe in it as he stared at the television screen.

The children were cheering wildly, and Martha was whooping almost
hysterically. Carolyn risked smiling at the Captain and saying in an
undertone, "Another marvel of this century, Captain. I must admit,
though, I'm sure many people can hardly believe that we have put men on
the moon."

Finally Candy stopped bouncing up and down. "When are they going to get
OUT?" she demanded.

"Candy, you know the schedule. They aren't going to come out for about
six hours." Carolyn answered.

"Can we stay up?" came Jonathan's excited question. "Please? It's summer
vacation, anyway!"

"Well, all right." agreed Carolyn.

"Why does it take so long for them to come out?" Jonathan sighed. "It
seems like forever since lunch, and now we have to wait AGAIN? What if I
fall asleep before they get out?"

"We'll wake you," Candy promised. "Right, Mom? And me, too, if I go to
sleep too? It would be TERRIBLE if we missed them getting out now that
we've seen them land!"

Martha shook her head sagely. "We need to live very much in the moment
of time in this house! We can't worry about tomorrow's breakfast, or
what happened yesterday. You know the saying, Que sera, sera! As long as
you get the most out of every moment in the present, you're doing well!"

"I told you I much prefer the present." the Captain said to Carolyn as
an aside.

She was vexed to find herself blushing like a young girl, and quickly
said to the children, "We won't let you miss it. That's a promise. But
don't keep asking when it's going to happen. You already know the
answer! Find something to do between now and supper."

"Like what?" asked Candy.

"Look," Martha pointed out the window where a pale glint of sunshine
could be seen on the wet grass. "The sun is almost out, so you can go
out to play for a while in the fresh air!"

Candy and Jonathan both made faces, but obediently dragged themselves
outside and kept themselves busy for a few more hours. Time hung heavily
on their hands, however, and it seemed to go just as slowly for Martha
and Carolyn. The Captain had vanished, and Carolyn assumed he was
working on his sea charts or sorting through the treasures in his sea
chest, or maybe even writing about the day's events in his log book.

In the intervening hours between the Eagle landing and the astronauts
actually walking on the moon's surface, Carolyn found herself pondering
her relationship with Captain Gregg even as she pretended to read her
book and absently answered the children's excited questions. She had
always prided herself on her sensibility and logic. Yet how logical and
sensible was it to fall in love with a ghost? They had lived together
for a year now -- no, she had lived in his house. His presence was
everywhere around her, overwhelming her day and night. They had shared
moments of arguing and of laughter. He was a wonderful companion, and
that was enough, wasn't it?

Before meeting the Captain, she hadn't wanted to love again. She had
finally managed to pull her life together after Bobby's death, and had
made the move to Schooner Bay. Yet it had taken only her first glimpse
of the Captain's portrait to send her senses reeling. Her first look
into the vividly compelling blue eyes of the truly magnificent Captain
Gregg had thrown her world a-kilter once more. Now, Carolyn inwardly
acknowledged that when they first had arrived at Gull Cottage, she had
been lonely. She had been lonely for what seemed like forever, at least
since Bobby's death. And the Captain just happened to be here, and he
was a man, or HAD been a man. He was someone who made her remember more
of what she had lost than she had remembered until her arrival at Gull
Cottage. The Captain had affected her on some level that she hadn't want
to admit. She hadn't wanted to feel heat and she hadn't wanted to feel
this aching loneliness. She had had love once, real love, and she had
truly believed that it only came to a person once in a lifetime. The
realization that perhaps love came in many different ways had made her
accept that she and the Captain were meant to be together, however much
they seemed to be apart right now.

It had taken her quite a bit longer to concede that she really did love
someone not of this world, and moreover, someone who probably would
never admit aloud his reciprocal love. In spite of his sometimes brusque
manner, however, she was aware that he did love her. She recognized the
pain she so often felt when she glimpsed the same emotion in his eyes.
The words of the poem he had written not long before were proof that he
was subject to the same torment she was, every night and every day; the
torture of being so close yet unable to touch or even to say the words
"I love you." He would not allow himself to do more than long for her
from a distance, as she did him. He loved her, and yet he would not
admit it aloud. She loved him, and buried the secret inside herself,
letting only her eyes do the speaking for her. As she thought of the
Captain's "if only" poem again, she found herself wondering if their
ability to touch was truly not possible or if he simply thought that it
wasn't possible because of his l9th century code of honour.

At last it was getting closer to the actual moment when the two
astronauts planned to walk out onto the moon. Again everyone gathered in
the living room, all except the Captain. Everyone was in pyjamas and
housecoats, and Martha already had her curlers in her hair. She claimed
the chair nearest the television so that she couldn't miss a thing. The
children were in their usual spot on the rug, their chins propped in
their hands and their feet waving in the air. Carolyn had curled up in a
corner of the sofa, and Scruffy was snoring beside her.

"Isn't the moon great, Mom?" Candy asked. "It's so beautiful when it's
full and you can see it across the water."

"Very romantic, too," Martha said, dryly. "I vividly remember sitting
out in the moonlight a few months ago and having the dear deluded
dentist tell me he could see the moon reflected in my teeth!"

Carolyn chuckled. "Well, it certainly CAN be romantic, but I must say I
admire your restraint, Martha! I'd have slapped him for that, I think!"

"Not worth the energy, Mrs. Muir." Martha sighed. "Well, I'm used to
waiting now, and it's not such a bad life. Some day my prince will come,
either here or in the life to come!"

Jonathan jumped in quickly before any more mushy' talk could happen.
"The moon's only a quarter full tonight, and you can only see it once in
a while because the clouds are still there."

Just then the television began acting up again, fading in and out, and
making strange sounds.

"Oh no!" everyone cried out.

"Mom, didn't you get it fixed yet?" wailed Candy.

Carolyn jumped up and began fiddling with the buttons. "Yes, it IS
supposed to be fixed! Oh, blast!"

"Hurry, Mrs. Muir, it's almost time!" urged Martha.

"Never fear, dear lady," came the Captain's smooth voice, and Carolyn
felt the knob twisting of its own accord under her fingers. She snatched
her hand away with a little gasp, feeling a strange tingling wash over
her. "I shall see what I can do with this newfangled invention!" he
continued. "Ah, there we are!"

"Yay, Mom, you fixed it!" cheered Candy.

"You and the Captain!" added Jonathan wisely.

Carolyn retreated to the sofa and sat down by Scruffy. The Captain
materialized in the other corner and the little dog awoke from his nap
with a yip of fright and jumped down and ran out of the room. The
Captain scowled as he watched the animal disappear, then his face
smoothed out when he realized Carolyn was looking at him and mouthing
her thanks for the help with the television. Neither adult realized that
Candy had looked around sharply when Scruffy had jumped down. The girl
saw her mother smile at the empty end of the couch and speak inaudibly
before looking back towards the television.

Since it wasn't yet time, Candy got up and snuggled next to Carolyn for
a moment on the sofa before whispering, "Is he here?"

"Is WHO here?" Carolyn whispered back, feigning ignorance. When had her
daughter begun to believe in Jonathan's imaginary' Captain?

"Captain Gregg." was the impatient reply.

"I ... oh, look, Candy!" Carolyn thankfully pointed to the television.
"The hatch is opening!"

Instantly Candy scrambled back down to the floor beside Jonathan, her
question forgotten.

Neil Armstrong, the commander of this mission, was the first out the
door. Before he reached the bottom rung on the ladder from the
spaceship, he reported that the surface looked like very, very fine
grains of powder. At 10:56, as his left foot touched the surface of the
moon, he said solemnly, "That's one small step for man." As his right
foot touched the powdery surface, he added, "One giant leap for mankind."

There was complete silence in the Gull Cottage living room as everyone
almost held their breath at the wonder of the moment.

Armstrong described the surface as he moved. "It's fine and powdery - I
can kick it up with my toe. It is like fine charcoal." He stepped out of
camera range momentarily to collect the first prized sample, then came
floating back into range in the light gravity of the moon, "like a
floating ghost," said the announcer.

"I beg your pardon?" Captain Gregg growled. "I certainly never FLOATED
in my entire afterlife!"

Armstrong made his way back to the bottom of the ladder to help Buzz
Aldrin come out the hatch and down the ladder.

"Is his name really BUZZ?" asked Jonathan.

"I heard that his name was Edwin, but his sister nicknamed him Buzz, and
the nickname stuck, so he legally changed it." Martha said, never taking
her eyes off the television.

As Aldrin eased out of the Eagle, he said, "Making sure not to lock it
on my way out! That's our home for the next few hours and I want to make
sure to take care of it." When he was standing beside Armstrong, he
looked around in awe. "Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation."

"It has a stark beauty all its own...like the high desert country in the
United States," Armstrong agreed.

"I think I want to be an astronaut when I grow up," Jonathan announced.
"I want to see that with my own eyes, not just on television."

"Me too," said Candy. "And I'll get there first, because I'm older."

"Will not!"

"Will, too!"

"Children! Are you ready for bed?" Carolyn interjected, and they
subsided instantly.

As the two moonwalkers moved about the forbidding vacuum of the surface,
it was mentioned that from the moon, the sun appears the size of a dime,
the sky is inky black and temperatures range from 250 degrees above
Fahrenheit in the sun to 250 below in the shade.

Aldrin went right to work setting up a solar wind experiment while
Armstrong pulled out the American flag. The inhabitants of Gull Cottage
watched eagerly as the flagpole was stuck into the surface.

"That is so neat," sighed Candy.

"It is not often I find myself without words to adequately describe my
feelings, madam," the Captain said, solemnly, "but this is one such
occasion."

It was while the two moonwalkers posed by the flag they had implanted on
the moon that the President of the United States telephoned them from
the White House. About an hour after Armstrong stepped upon the moon's
surface, President Nixon spoke to the two men. "This certainly has to be
the most historic telephone call ever made," he said. and, with emotion
apparent in his voice, added, "For every American, this has to be the
proudest day in our lives...because of what you have done, the heavens
have become part of man's world..."

Armstrong and Aldrin stood beside the Lem without moving as they
listened. "For one priceless moment in the history of man, all the
people of the earth are one," Nixon said.

"It's a great honor and a privilege for us to be here representing the
United States," Armstrong replied.

Shortly after that, the astronauts began loping, kangaroo-like on the
surface, demonstrating the ease with which they could move in the
one-sixth gravity. They put on a spectacular live television show for
millions for viewers on earth. As they ran on the surface, the powdery
moon soil could be seen, on television, puffing up around their feet.
Although Armstrong, with his spacesuit and pack would have weighed 300
pounds on earth, he weighed only 50 on the moon. At first, the
astronauts had reported that the lunar surface appeared to be of
volcanic material, but later Armstrong corrected himself, saying that it
was peppered with "little impact craters, as if b-b shot had hit the
surface."

"The rocks are rather slippery," Aldrin reported.

"We have to be careful leaning in the direction you want to go,"
Armstrong said.

Aldrin picked up a rock from the surface and said, "Neil, didn't I say
we'd find a purple rock?"

"Yep," Armstrong agreed.

They stopped by one of the four legs of their lander and Armstrong
unveiled a plaque attached to the leg of the lander and read the
inscription aloud, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon
the moon, July 1969. A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

All of the scientific experiments were judged a success. The earth
tremor recorder even picked up the astronauts' footfalls and transmitted
them back to earth. The reflector placed to catch a laser beam from the
earth, to measure movements of the earth, the moon and the continents,
worked on a test. The solar wind experiment, designed to soak up
particles shot from the sun, was rolled up after two hours to be carried
back in the Eagle.

At 1:09 a.m. as Armstrong started back up the ladder, Aldrin reported:
"We got about 20 pounds of beautifully selected if not documented rock
samples."

Martha chuckled. "He's talking about one of their last assignments,
which was the assembling of a number of stones with careful
documentation of where they were found," she explained to the children.
"They obviously don't like having to keep things tidy and in order any
more than you do!"

The two astronauts flawlessly completed their scientific tasks and
clambered back into their space ship after two hours and 17 minutes on
the lunar surface. The two moonwalkers had ventured no farther than 275
yards from their spaceship. After the two had clambered back into the
Eagle, Carolyn sent the children to bed, telling them they would be able
to watch the Eagle blasting off to rejoin the command module the next
afternoon. "Those two men are going to get some sleep now, and I think
it's time you did, too. You're both almost falling asleep on the rug there!"

"Aww, Mom," grumbled Candy mechanically, then her face split in a giant
yawn.

Jonathan said nothing, only sleepily trailed his sister up the stairs.
Martha yawned and announced she was hitting the hay, too. Carolyn locked
the front door, then went upstairs to tuck her sleeping children into
bed. She went into her own room and stood there for a moment, feeling
too restless to sleep although she knew she should retire as well.

"Captain?" she finally said aloud, and he materialized at her side.

"Aye, madam? Should you not be asleep?"

Her smile was faint. "Yes. But I don't think I can."

"I see. Might I suggest a walk outside, then? The wind is blowing up
more rain, but ..."

"I'd like that, Captain," she interrupted him, slipped on her shoes and
went to the door immediately. "You will join me, won't you?"

"I shall. Madam!" Now he sounded rather horrified. "You cannot go out in
your night clothes!"

"It's the middle of the night, Captain! Who do you think will see me?
We'll walk down the cliff road away from Schooner Bay, so we won't pass
any houses."

He said nothing, but his frown continued to darken his face as she crept
down the stairs, quietly unlocked the door and slipped out of the house.
At the gate, she turned to look at him. "Would you rather walk on the
beach?"

"Not with you in that flimsy outfit!" he growled. "At least up here you
can hide in the trees!"

Carolyn chuckled again, and wrapped her robe tightly about her, tying
the belt again. "And they will provide shelter if the rain you predict
DOES come."

They began to saunter along, their eyes mostly on the sky as they
watched the clouds drift across the moon. They talked quietly about what
it must have been like to walk on the moon, what a miracle it was that
the two had even made it that far, and how the adventure wouldn't be
over until all three astronauts were safely back home on earth. The
faint light from the moon wavered in a path across the water of the bay,
and Carolyn commented that it seemed to bring sky and sea and land
together.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" she said. "People have been dreaming for years
of going to the moon, and now, almost miraculously, we have done it.
Astronauts must love what they do very much to risk so much, I think."

"Life's pleasures are built on love and simple daydreams." he said, and
his velvety-smooth voice made her quiver with a longing to touch him and
find HER life's pleasure of love and daydreams.

A low rumble made her almost stumble, and she looked at him inquiringly.
Once again he was scowling moodily, although this time his gaze was on
the distant waves.

"Captain?" she dared to ask.

He sighed, then turned to her. "My dear, you are a lady. I am ... was
... I AM a mere spirit now, but I was and still am gentleman, and yet
..." He paused.

Carolyn waited a moment, then asked, "Captain, what exactly are you
talking about?"

"This is our own earthly miracle on such a historical night as this,"
the Captain said finally, staring down at her intently, his love for her
obvious as she searched his eyes with hers.

Wordlessly they exchanged promises of love and fidelity; without
physically touching, they caressed each other tenderly; for endless
moments they remained motionless yet soared together as far away as the
moon itself. Then the wind came up, and suddenly Carolyn realized that
the wetness on her cheeks was more than tears of happiness. The rain
began gently, then grew heavier. Laughing, the two retreated into the
trees, Carolyn hoping the branches overhead would shelter her somewhat.
Loathe to go back to Gull Cottage and end the tryst, Carolyn settled
down as close to the trunk of the tree as she could.

"I'll dry," she said. "And it may stop raining soon, anyway. It might
just be a shower passing through. It's not very heavy yet. Captain, I
didn't think you would get wet."

He stared at her. "Of course I can get wet!"

Still she puzzled over the conundrum. If he was not flesh and blood, if
he was an illusion as he insisted, how could raindrops be running down
his cheeks and into his beard? How could he have gotten so bedraggled
the time he was trying to fix the young eloping couple's car, and ended
up pulling out most of the wires trying to stop the horn he had
inadvertently set off? Had Jonathan ever touched him? Why could she not
touch the Captain when he could touch Scruffy? She thought again of the
strange tingling when their hands had inadvertently met over the
television button. Had that been merely the electricity from the
television, or had it been the Captain she had felt? "Talk to me,
Captain," she commanded boldly. "Tell me some stories of your times at
sea, the nights on watch when you could see the moon and the stars. Tell
me your thoughts."

"I shall do my best, madam, although I must admit that some thoughts
cannot be shared with anyone of your sex. It could get blasted lonely
out there."

"It can here, too," was her soft rejoinder.

He hesitated at that, then cleared his throat, obviously deciding not to
speak of that any longer. Instead, he launched into a rousing tale of
his shipboard life. A few questions from Carolyn brought forth another
spate of words, and Carolyn leaned back against the tree and listened,
oblivious to the dampness seeping through the very pores of her skin.

When she realized the rain was not going to quit and that it was soon
going to be dawn, she reluctantly got to her feet and together they made
their way back to the house. Carolyn was completely soaked. Coming up to
the front door, laughing quietly as she dodged the large drops coming
off the eaves onto the steps, she put her hand to the door and sobered
when she realized that it was locked.

"Oh NO!" she gasped, turning the knob both ways, unable to believe that
Martha had locked her out.

Then the Captain smiled. "Allow me, my dear," he said smoothly as he
opened the door for her.

Carolyn stepped into the house. "Thank you, kind sir." Then she
smothered another chuckle. "I'm dripping all over the floor! What will
Martha say?"

The light suddenly turned on, and Carolyn was caught, feeling like an
animal frozen in the headlights of a car. Martha stood in the kitchen
door, a glass of water in her hand. She exclaimed, "Mrs. Muir! You are
soaking wet! I just got up to get a drink! I thought you were in bed and
asleep HOURS ago! Either you're up awfully early or you never went to
bed at all!"

"Well, I ... I couldn't sleep." Carolyn said. "I decided to go out for a
walk."

"In the rain? I could have sworn I heard you moving around upstairs! But
you were out walking in the rain?"

"It wasn't raining when I left. I guess I got caught in it. I just went
out to look at the moon again ..."

"I haven't been able to sleep for all the excitement either, so I know I
never heard you leaving ... It has been raining for THREE HOURS, Mrs. Muir!"

"Really? That long? Fancy that!" Shaking her head, and feeling the
raindrops spray out off her hair, Carolyn squelched her way rather
unsteadily up the stairs, ignoring Martha's openmouthed stare of amazement.

Martha locked the door again, muttering, "Something strange is going on
here. How did she get in through this door? I KNOW I checked it just a
minute ago, and she can't tell ME the doorlock is broken. I fixed it
myself last week." She looked at the wide, wet path up the stairs,
knowing water from Mrs. Muir's slim body could not have wet that much
area. "I will NOT try to reason this out, since I'm sure there's no
logical answer anyway! WRITERS! I guess some people are affected by moon
madness more than others! If I didn't know any better, I'd start to
wonder if maybe Jonathan is right about the Captain's ghost haunting
this place and Mrs. Muir into the bargain!"

After her late night, Carolyn found herself moving languidly through the
following morning. Still, she couldn't help but be caught up in the
excitement as the time neared for Aldrin and Armstrong to take off again
from the moon. Hints of possible trouble kept anxiety at a high level.
Nobody had ever blasted off from the surface of the Moon before, and if
there was some kind of failure, there were very few options open for the
two men who were now almost 400 thousand kilometres from Earth.

"I expect you two will find this commonplace in years to come," Martha
commented to the children, "but I find it tremendously exciting! Just
think, they've been up there for almost twenty-two hours!"

"Now the entire world has to hold its breath again, waiting to see if
the Eagle will be able to get off and rejoin the Columbia orbiting some
sixty miles overhead." Carolyn said tensely.

At last the ascent stage blasted off, and Jonathan, Candy and Martha
cheered wildly. Carolyn closed her eyes in a moment of thankfulness for
the completion of the first part of the homeward journey.

"My dear," the Captain's voice was quiet in her ear, and she turned to
him with a full heart, "this truly has been history in the making. A
heavenly miracle indeed. Up there they have left only the foil-wrapped
structure of their lander to remain as mute evidence, along with the
footprints, that on Sunday, July 20, 1969, man first landed on the moon
and walked its dusty surface. I do not think I can conceive of anything
as incredible as this ever in my life or since."

Carolyn, thinking of the incredible love she shared with this very
special person, only smiled in response. Their love was every bit as
wonderful as the lunar landing, in her humble opinion!