It was 8:20 at night in Amsterdam, which made it 1:20 in the afternoon back in Madison. I went into my bathroom and closed the door and called Izzy. I knew she’d be in class, but I also knew that the teacher would let her take my call.
“Tristan!” she cried. “Gimme a sec.”
She muffled the phone but I could kind of hear her tell someone—the teacher, I guessed—who it was.
A few seconds later Izzy spoke again, her voice hushed and warm and familiar. It also sounded a lot less stressed than I expected. She was still coming back from the shock of the Neo-Luddite thing at her house. “I’m out in the hall,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, and very nearly told her about what had happened between my mom and Mr. Colpeys. I’d told Izzy about the Olympus Station disaster a long time ago, and once I laid everything out to her she said that maybe Mom’s anger was tied to guilt. She hadn’t been there to make sure everything was in top shape and blamed herself. It was a sad thought because it wasn’t her fault at all, but guilt’s a funny thing. We keep taking it on as if it’s ours even when it’s not. And, I have to admit that I had a flicker of it too. After all, Mom didn’t go because she was pregnant with me. If I could feel guilt like that, what Mom was going through must have been a hundred times worse.
What I didn’t tell Izzy was the other thing that was making me feel guilty—that I was kind of praying Mom would find something wrong. Something so bad the whole mission would have to be scrubbed. Even though I really did want to go, there was that nasty little part of me that wanted an out.
It wasn’t something I could ever tell Izzy. If I told her the truth then she’d also start hoping and praying that the mission would never get off the ground. Wanting that would hurt, and it would hurt worse if we still left. Sometimes I’m not a total clueless moron.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” I said. “Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Oh,” she said, then, “Are you sure . . . ? Your voice sounds funny.”
“No, really, I’m good.” I hated to lie to her, and I knew I wasn’t very good at it. If she hadn’t been at school she’d probably have grilled me and gotten it out of me. I was glad I called her at the wrong time. “They’ve been working us really hard and I’m really out of it. Heading to bed, but I wanted to hear your voice and tell you I love you.”
There was the kind of pause that let me know she was evaluating what I just said.
“I love you, too,” she said slowly. Almost putting it out there as a question, or as an invitation for me to say something else.
“Talk with you soon,” I told her.
And hung up.