The Dark Between The Stars

THIRTY-NINE
ORLI COVITZ

Matthew had asked Orli to meet him at one of their favorite restaurants, a colorful high-end establishment built and run by Rlinda Kett. By long distance, he had made reservations and added a significant tip so they had their favorite table—the one Rlinda always guaranteed for them. That was a good sign, Orli told herself, and she clung to the thought as she got ready, even though she felt a distinct uneasiness about what her husband planned to say.

Matthew Freling wasn’t a man who laughed often. He was serious and focused to the point of being preoccupied. Orli had fallen in love with his smile, but she couldn’t recall any hearty laughter—that wasn’t part of his personality. There had been no smiles in his recent message. He said he had something “important” to talk with her about. Not something “special.” Not a “surprise.”

In their apartment, Orli obsessed over which dress to wear. Expensive business attire? Something flirtatious to welcome him home after his long trip? Muted colors to acknowledge a serious occasion, or just a casual outfit to downplay any sort of concern she might have?

Finally, she asked DD for his advice. The Friendly compy lectured her about alternatives until she sighed and held up a hand for him to stop. “Make a random selection for me, DD. That’ll do.” He selected a maroon blouse over a pair of tailored black slacks made from merh-silk. Orli added a necklace of polished reef pearls from Rhejak—a gift from old Mr. Steinman, and more expensive than she liked to think about.

Orli was reluctant to wear anything with too much sentimental value. She and Matthew had weathered plenty of rough patches in their relationship, but they had worked through the serious ones, varnished over the pain, and didn’t pick at the scabs, careful not to draw blood. In their marriage, they’d had five good years and five not-so-good years, with the issue of children being the primary thorn in their relationship.

“You seem sad, Orli,” DD said.

“Maybe a little sad. Maybe a little worried. I don’t know what Matthew has on his mind.”

“Would you like me to transmit a message and ask him?”

She gave him a wan smile. “It’s not that simple, DD. This is something we have to explore for ourselves.”

“Oh, like a research project.”

She gave DD a hug, then went off to Rlinda’s restaurant.

She was on her second glass of wine by the time Matthew arrived. He was always five minutes late; Orli was used to that. His personal clock was irreparably off by the same amount. Tonight, though, he was fifteen minutes late, and that told Orli a great deal. He would have some mundane excuse—a shuttle was delayed, traffic was bad, or Orli must have gotten the time wrong.

He knew where to find their table. Seeing him come in, Orli raised her hand in a signal. With a brief nod, he came over to her.

At the beginning of their relationship, there had been warm greetings, happy kisses and hugs, but public displays of affection were not Matthew’s habit. She initiated an embrace to make herself feel better. He kissed her on the lips, but to Orli it felt more like a misplaced peck on the cheek.

“Welcome home,” she said. “How was your trip?”

Matthew seemed relieved to fall into a business conversation, rattling off a summary of his talks and presentations, remarking on which universities drew large audiences and which ones gave him a less-enthusiastic reception.

She knew the places he visited, knew the other researchers he talked about, knew the concerns and the high points of their work. Their passion about compies gave them so much in common that getting married had been the obvious, logical thing to do. Work partners and life partners.

When the waiter came, they ordered appetizers, their usual. The restaurant’s excellent food represented a range of cultures and exotic flavors, traditional dishes from Theroc, the Roamer clans, and Earth. Rlinda’s chef made a special platter of flaming buttery grubs from Theroc, which they particularly liked.

They had first tried the dish during dinner on their fifth anniversary—the last good anniversary. Matthew was squeamish, but Orli had eaten many disgusting things during desperate times on Dremen, Corribus, and other places. Rlinda had joined them for a few minutes during that anniversary meal, insisting that the appetizer was her favorite thing on the menu. So Orli and Matthew dared each other to eat the grubs, which were indeed as tasty as promised.

Now, however, Orli poked at them. The waiter raised his eyebrows knowingly, as if accustomed to patrons who ordered the grubs but couldn’t find the nerve to eat them. Orli frowned and took one, swallowed it whole. When the waiter hovered to take their dinner order, she sent him away. “We’re not ready yet.” She turned to Matthew, got serious. “What is it you needed to talk about?”

He swallowed, and she saw his Adam’s apple move up and down. He straightened in his chair, getting down to business, and his expression changed. His eyes grew distant, and she knew he was about to deliver words he had memorized and probably practiced again and again as he traveled back to Relleker.

“I had a surprise visitor after my lecture on New Portugal,” he said.

She waited, and realization began to dawn. New Portugal had already raised her suspicions.

Matthew said, “Henna came to see me.”

Though Orli knew it was coming, she couldn’t stop her heart from skipping a beat. “I thought she promised not to see you. You promised you wouldn’t.”

He nodded. “That’s how it was supposed to be.”

The crisis had been only four months ago, when she discovered his affair with Henna Gann… or maybe he had confessed it. The timing was murky in Orli’s mind, and the argument had been so severe that the details were fractured and not something she wanted to recall.

It was a hard twist of the knife, coming so soon after their most recent fight about having children. When Orli learned of the affair, she was deeply hurt, but in a quiet corner of her heart she realized she had put up walls and added distance between them too. She had buried herself in her work, surrounded herself with her compies, sent Matthew away on his rigorous speaking schedule. Somehow, even with all those work commitments, Matthew found the time and energy to sleep with another woman.

Orli had been through ordeals before. She’d seen the slaughter of the Corribus colony, including her father, had been a captive of the Klikiss race, fended for herself while she was lost and starving. So, she put the hurt behind her, and they had worked it out. She and Matthew decided to give it another try.

The buttery grubs on the plate now gave off a nauseating smell. Orli couldn’t tear her eyes from him. He had more to say.

“She told me something’s changed,” he said.

“How would you know, if you’d kept your promise not to see her again?”

“Henna came to me after my lecture. I didn’t ask to see her. She was just there.” He seemed about to unravel a long string of excuses and rationalizations, but he stopped himself, looked Orli in the eye. “She’s pregnant. I didn’t know. The affair was over, I swear to you—but now she’s carrying my child.” He clasped his hands together. “My child. That changes everything.”

Orli felt as if someone had tripped her when she wasn’t looking, knocked her facedown on the ground. Yes, that did change everything.

At the beginning of their relationship, Matthew had wanted children, but Orli convinced him to wait; later, when she was ready, Matthew had been preoccupied with his busy career. He said no, not yet. Without any sort of goal or time frame, the idea of a family kept vanishing beyond the horizon. And now…

“Henna and I are going to have a baby,” he repeated. From the look on his face, the hint of expression behind his eyes, she wondered if he expected her to leap for joy and congratulate him. She rose from the table and walked away.

He called after her, “I hope we can still work together.”

She paused without turning, thought of several retorts, and dismissed them all. She kept walking.

When she got home Orli couldn’t stop herself from crying. Tears rolled down her face, and she ran into their main living room where DD waited for her.

“How was your dinner?” he asked brightly. “How was Matthew?” Then even the childlike Friendly compy noticed that something was wrong. “Oh, Orli, I am so sorry.”

She couldn’t guess how he knew to say that, but she caught him up in an embrace and sobbed onto his polymer shoulder.