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“Did Lana tell you,” Astrid says quickly, diverting the conversation herself. “She’s starting up her therapy practice again?”

This is news. Great news.

Wherever humans exist, they will experience trauma and emotional upheaval that would benefit from skilled guidance. That cannot possibly be more true than as we colonize a new planet after the destruction of our own.

“Tell me more, madame,” I say.

Lana pours everyone another drink, a sad smile on her face as she clears her throat. “Before,” she says, and we all know instantly what she means. Before Mars. Before The Lottery. Before we 100% knew without a shadow of a doubt we were doomed.

Before.

She clears her throat again. “Before this, I spent my final years on Earth trying to help my clients process the stages of grief. To help them accept not only their own deaths, but the death of the very planet itself.” She takes a deep drink and we each follow suit. “I felt selfish buying my way onto this ship, but Marek convinced me it was not so. People would need help recovering from the expectation of death. So now… now I’m trying to help people process their guilt at surviving, and all the trauma that led up to our launch.”

She pauses and I whisper into the silence the part she doesn’t say. “All while you’re dealing with the same shit as everyone else.”

She nods. We all drink.

Lana turns to Astrid, an eyebrow raised. “Did you think it would work, Astrid? When you were helping to build the ship, years ago, did you think we would ever make it here?”

Our engineer friend takes a long pause, staring into her drink as she digs through memories that must feel decades old. “Not at first. Before I met Marek, when I only knew him by reputation, I thought it was another mission destined to fail.”

I smile as she speaks, thinking of a time when we both felt the same way about a man we’d never met. “What changed?” I ask.

Astrid looks up, a new gleam in her eyes. “I met Captain Millard. Not just that, I saw how Marek deferred to her. She’s brilliant, in every way, and he never made a decision without her input. That’s when I thought… we’ve got a chance.”

I look at Lana, and her smirk tells me I must be grinning ear to ear. To hear a story of the Marek I’ve come to love from a time before I knew him, it makes my heart sing. I can’t hide how flush my cheeks are, so I just raise my glass and say, “To Marek.”

The other women follow my lead and we drink to the man responsible for, well, everything.

We all spend the next few moments lost in our own personal reflections, but the spell is broken when Robert and Ivan return. They are laughing over a shared joke as they enter, abruptly stopping when they see us.

“So sorry. We thought you’d be done. We can come back.”

I stand, the other women doing the same. “It’s okay. We are all packed up and ready to get out of your hair.”

There’s an awkward pause as Robert and I face each other. Then I step forward and give him a quick peck on the cheek, my palms on his shoulders. “You’re a good man,” I say.

He smiles. “If I had to be fake married to any woman, it would be you.”

We both laugh and then my friends and I pick up my bags--and tree--and take them next door.

Marek is still out, and no one seems in a hurry to leave, so Lana pours more drinks and turns on some music. French. Melancholy. Heavy minor chords. I love it.

I unpack what little belongings I have, but it only takes a few moments to stow my clothing into drawers and closets.

We have all avoided discussing what happened to Lana, but I see her gazing into the distance, a frown on her face.

Astrid is busy looking through Marek’s impressive collection of print books, so I stop hanging dresses and take a moment to sit by my French billionaire friend.

“This has to be hard on you,” I say, reaching for her hand.

She looks over to me, her eyes glossy, but her expression is one of strength and resilience. “It is not the first time a man has hit me, but no man has ever hit me twice.”

“He got aggressive with me too,” I say, remembering that day Buddy grabbed me and I had to push him away. “Marek showed up. If he hadn’t…”

Lana nods. “I am glad the little prick is gone.”

“So am I.”