Gwendy’s Final Task

It takes them less than a minute to make their way up to the flight deck, but it’s long enough for Gwendy to convince herself that the worst is about to happen: Mission Control has somehow discovered her deteriorating condition and they’re canceling the scheduled landing at MF-1. There will be no space walk. No disposal of the button box. It’s over. She’s failed.

When they arrive at level one, Operation Commander Kathy Lundgren and two male crew members—Gwendy can’t recall their names for the life of her and is too unsettled to try Dr. Ambrose’s technique—are buckled into their flight seats surrounded by a u-shaped bank of touch screen monitors. Directly in front of them is the long, narrow viewing window Kathy had invited Gwendy to look out of a little more than twenty-four hours earlier. Beyond the window, lies one of the world’s great oceans. Kathy swivels in her chair to face them, her expression unreadable.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Gwendy.”

Here it comes …

“There’s been a mishap back in Castle Rock.”

“It’s not my father, is it?” she asks, all her breath leaving her at once. Please, he’s all I have left.

Kathy’s eyes widen in alarm. “No, no, as far as I know, your father is fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Oh, it’s a little too late for that.

“There was a fire at your house, Gwendy. Your neighbor spotted the smoke and called 911. The fire department was able to catch it early. The majority of the damage was limited to your garage and back porch. There was some additional water damage to the kitchen and family room.”

“A fire. At my house.” Gwendy feels like she’s dreaming again. “Does anyone know how it started?”

“You’ll be receiving a number of emails—one from someone at your insurance company, another from a retired policeman named Norris Ridgewick—explaining everything they know.” Kathy looks at her with sincere regret. “I’m very sorry, Senator.”

Gwendy waves a hand in front of her face. “I’m just glad no one was hurt. The rest are just … things. They can be replaced.”

“Under the circumstances, we didn’t know whether we should tell you right away or wait until we docked at MF-1, or even if we should wait until you were back on the ground. But we were concerned that someone in the media might alert you, so we decided you needed to hear it from us first.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Gwendy … would you like me to reschedule the video conference for another time? I’m sure everyone will understand.”

She pauses before answering, purposely giving the impression that she’s thinking about it. “I’ll be okay,” she finally says. “The last thing I want to do is disappoint all those children.”

Despite being called “one of public education’s fiercest advocates” by a reporter from The Washington Post two years earlier, Gwendy’s true motivation for going ahead with the video chat has little to do with not wanting to disappoint honor roll students from all fifty states. As desperately as she would like to avoid appearing on live television, she believes that cancelling at the last minute would be a very bad idea. It would send the wrong message—one of weakness—to whomever it was searching for the button box. And that’s the last thing she wants to do.

It’s not a coincidence, she thinks on her way back down to level three. The fire started in the garage and it spread from there. After all these years, they’re getting closer.

19

AS SPRING APPROACHED, GWENDY threw herself into the 2020 Senate campaign with what Wolf Blitzer from CNN described as “fevered abandon.” Even with the coronavirus raging across the country—with more than 175,000 and counting confirmed deaths by mid-August—she spent the majority of her days and nights connecting face-to-face with the people of Maine. Masked, she visited hospitals and schools, daycare centers and nursing homes, churches and factories. While the incumbent (and defiantly unmasked) Paul Magowan focused the majority of his attention on big business and corporate incentives and continued to hammer strict borders and the Second Amendment, Gwendy went straight to the people and their day-to-day struggles and concerns. Tip O’Neill once said “All politics are local,” and she believed that. Any place of commerce or education that would have her—as long as masks and social distancing were in place—she went. She even spent a blisteringly hot August afternoon walking door-to-door in Derry. At one house, a man in a wife-beater tee told her “to get outta my face, you fucking harpy.” It made the news, with the obscenity bleeped … for all the good that might do.