Linda turned on the nightstand light, sat up in bed, and faced her husband, fighting mad. She shook her head, “I don’t get it, Rick. Please explain to me one more time about how it is you don’t want to come with me and the kids.”

Rick sighed. The thing was, he did want to come with his family. He just didn’t think he should. Or could, maybe was a better way of putting it. “I told you before a hundred times: I just need more time to think about it.”

Linda blew up, “What’s there to think about?” she spat out. “A meteor is going to slam into Earth in less than a month, killing all living things. The final transport ship leaves at noon today to get us out of here, and you can’t decide whether or not you want to come with your family? What the hell’s the matter with you?” She looked at her phone to check the time before slamming it down on the nightstand. “We’ve got less than eleven hours before it leaves.” She leaned toward him, “And, speaking of time,” she pointed a menacing finger at him, “I’ve got no more time for you.” She threw back the covers and got up. “Me and the kids will go without you.” She stomped into the bathroom.

After a minute, Rick heard her vomiting into the toilet. He ran to the door and knocked. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay, you creep.” Linda threw up again. Then Rick heard water running in the sink. When it stopped, she said, “I’m having a bad reaction to this medication they gave me for the trip, if it means anything to you.” She yanked open the door and yelled, “Now leave me alone. I want you out of the house in five minutes.” She pushed hard him in the chest and he stumbled backward. “I mean it.”

Linda rarely got angry, but when she did, watch out. She stepped back into the bathroom and slammed the door. Rick had no choice. He went to the closet, grabbed his small backpack and half-heartedly threw some clothes in it.

When he was finished, went back to the bathroom and put his head to the door. On the other side, he could hear Linda sobbing. God, what a mess he’d made of things, but he couldn’t leave under these circumstances. He took a deep breath to help him prepare for what he should have done a long time ago, and to say what he should have said way before now.

He knocked on the door and said, “Honey? Honey, please open up. I’ve got something to tell you.” He waited a minute and then knocked again. “It’s important. Honey?”

Linda opened the door, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. She looked exhausted. He didn’t blame her. He was being a jerk for putting her through this; through this hell. “What do you want? I told you to leave.”

He reached out to touch her arm but she pulled away and wrapped her arms tightly around herself as if she were freezing cold. He asked, “Can we at least sit down?” He pointed to the bed.

She sighed. “Okay, fine, but make it quick.”

When they were seated side by side, Rick suddenly started shaking, the tension in the room palatable, his entire body reacting to it. He felt his wife’s eyes on him, watching. Waiting. He knew he only had this one chance to regain her trust and respect. Her love.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s the deal.” He looked at her and the last 15 years of their life flashed before his eyes: meeting in college, getting married, beginning their careers with Linda as a grade school teacher and he as a software design technician at a micro-chip manufacturing company, then having their two children, Willie and Elise, all the times spent being together as a family, vacations and birthday parties and hanging out on the weekends watching movies and eating popcorn. So many good times. So many wonderful memories. Now, it all came down to do this—after he told her what he had to tell her, would she believe him? And if she believed him, what then?

“I’m waiting, Rick,” Linda said, looking at the time on her phone. “The transport leaves in ten hours.”

“Okay. Here’s the deal.” He stood up and began to nervously pace.
“Rick!” She was not only exhausted, but getting exasperated. “Hurry up!”

Rick’s heart went out to her. He came back and sat down and reached out to take her hand. Linda, by now, had figured out that something out of the ordinary was about to happen, so she let him. He gratefully took a hold of both her hands and held on as if it they were a lifeline to his sinking ship.

“What is it?” she asked, tempering her voice. “What’s wrong?”

He shifted and bent his head so he was looking into her eyes and said, “You know back when we first met in college, and I told you I was from the Midwest, from a small town in Minnesota, and that my parents had been farmers before they’d been killed by a drunk driver when they were coming home from an evening church service?”

Her reply was a hesitant, “Yeah. So?”

“Well, I made it all up.”

“You made it up?” She pulled her hands away and jumped to her feet to face him. “Why the hell would you do that? What are you trying to tell me?” She leaned over him, her hot breath inches from his face.

Here goes, he thought to himself. It’s all or nothing. He looked up at her. “Just this,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I’m not of this planet. I’m not from Earth.”

Linda’s eyes went wide. “What?” She sat down hard next to him.

“I’m from the planet Araan in the solar system, Centuarian. I’m an alien. I was sent to here to Earth to…”

He was going to tell her more, but at that very moment, Linda fainted. He caught her just as she began slipping to the floor. He took a moment to hold her close and whispered, “I’m so sorry, my love,” before carefully laying her back down on the bed. He smoothed her hair and then gently began rubbing her arm. Well, that went about as well as could have been expected, he grimly thought to himself, shaking his head at his stupid joke, feeling more and more like a jerk with every passing minute.

Finally, he stood up and went into the bathroom to get a glass of water to help revive her. They didn’t have much time. It was only a matter of hours until the final transport carrier left and they had a lot to talk about. He anticipated it being a long night.

Rick’s real name was Raadi, and when he was eight years old, he and his parents traveled to Earth with a group of 20 other scientists on a fact-finding mission from the planet Araan. When the Universal Portal deposited them in a subway station in New York City, the scientists and young Raadi all quickly shapeshifted to fit in with the human population. Then they said goodbye to each other and went their separate ways, dispersing and integrating into society. For the next year, they gathered information and transmitted it back to Araan.

But when it came time to return to their home planet, none of the scientists wanted to. They all liked living on Earth. They liked the food and the clothes and especially the freedom to do whatever they wanted, not like on Araan, which was a totalitarian government ruled by a psychopathic tyrant, Commander Xos. When he heard news of the mutiny, he wasn’t happy that the scientists wanted to stay; it made him look bad, and he vowed revenge if they ever returned.

That had been over 30 years ago. Rick’s parents died in a car accident when he was in his late teens, before he’d met Linda at college, so that part of the story he’d told her had been true. Everything else was a lie. Why he had thought he could get away with it he didn’t know, but he had for 15 years and might have for the rest of his life if it hadn’t been for the meteor.

The world renown Galactic Institute had discovered the massive collection of dust and ice 25 years earlier and had been tracking it diligently since then. When it became apparent that the meteor was on a collision course with Earth, preparations began being made. Transport carriers were built and a plan put into place to take the humans to the planet Zerros, where a new world order would be established. All well and good. The problem for Rick was that the transport had to stop in Araan, his old home planet, to recharge its energy cells. Rick was terrified that Commander Xos would somehow discover, capture, and punish him for not returning like he was supposed to so many years ago. Rick had no doubt he’d probably punish his family, too.

And that was the real reason he didn’t want to go on the last transport carrier leaving later that day. He was afraid of putting the lives of his family in jeopardy. Who knew what that crazy tyrant Xos would do and what revenge he might seek if Rick were found? He didn’t want to take a chanch that his family might be caught in the middle and be hurt, if not killed.

Rick’s morbid thoughts were interrupted when, next to him on the bed, Linda stirred, beginning to recover. He rubbed her arm gently while she revived. After a few minutes, she blinked and sat up. Rick held her shoulder to steady her and helped her sip from the water glass. She drank gratefully. When she was finished, he set the glass down and said, “Getting back to what we were talking about earlier and what I told you, I guess that was a little too much to lay on you all at once, wasn’t it?”

If he was hoping for reconciliation, if he was hoping that coming clean and being honest was going to put him in good graces with Linda and help to make up for years of lying to her, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Linda turned on him so quickly that he jumped back, startled, and almost fell off the bed. Then she looked him straight in the eye before making her feelings perfectly clear. “So, you’re an alien, huh? That’s what you’re telling me?” she said through clenched teeth.

“I…I…”

She pushed him in the chest. “And you expect me to just blithely accept that fact? That my husband of 15 years has been lying to me throughout our entire marriage, not to mention the whole time I’ve known you? She stood up, pulled him to his feet and pointed toward the door. “Well. You. Are. Wrong!” She pushed him. “You jerk! Now, get out of here now. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Rick got the message loud and clear. He picked up his backpack, slung it on his shoulder and made his way through the apartment to the front door, Linda following close behind admonishing him to “Get going. Get out. Now!”

When he stepped into the outside hallway, she slammed the door and locked it. Then she sank to the floor as tears began flowing, thinking, God, what a mess.

By late morning the next day, Linda had recovered enough to get the kids packed and to the station and ready to leave on their journey away from Earth forever. The three of them stood on the loading platform with the crowd jamming in on them from all sides.

Twelve-year-old Willie stood on his tip-toes and looked around. “Where’s Dad? Why isn’t he here?”

Ten-year-old Elise took Linda’s hand. “Yeah, Mom, where is he? I miss him. What happens if he misses the last transport?”

At breakfast that morning, the kids had asked about the loud arguing they’d heard during the night, but Linda hadn’t the heart to tell them the truth about their father being an alien; not at breakfast, anyway, and certainly not now.

“We were just trying to work out a few logistics,” she’d told them that morning and hoped she’d been vague enough that they’d just forget it. They had, thinking more about the upcoming trip than anything.

She was glad for the distraction of traveling through space (the first time for the kids) because, truth be told, she still didn’t know what she was going to do. The fact kept rattling around in her brain: her husband was an alien; he was from another galaxy. The man she’d loved with all of her heart and soul wasn’t even human.

She had all she could do to not break down and start crying right there on the platform, but she had the children to think about, so she focused on the task at hand.

“Okay, kids. Here are your passes.” She reached into her shoulder bag and gave one to each of them. “Don’t lose them.”

Over the loudspeaker a voice commanded, “Now boarding. The final transport to Zerros, with a stop at Araan, is in its final stages. All aboard.”

The crowd began moving forward in an orderly line.

“Mom, what about Dad?” Willie asked.

“Yeah, Mom, shouldn’t we wait for him?”

The kids adored their father. Linda had no choice but to move to the back of the line. “Okay, let’s give him a few more minutes.” What she would do if she saw Rick, she had no idea.

They stood at the back of the line and moved slowly forward with Linda watching the crowd thin as more and more people loaded onto the transport. Soon it would be their turn.

“Mom!” Willie suddenly pointed and yelled, jumping up and down, “There he is! Hey, Dad. Dad! Over here.”

Elise stood on the tip-toes and waved. “Dad! Dad!”

Linda watched as Rick saw his children and made eye contact with each of them. She saw him smile, a big heartfelt smile filled with all the love and affection she knew he had for Willie and Elise. Then she saw his eyes seek out hers. Their gazes met. In that moment, Linda realized that as mad as she was with him, there was still something there. She could feel it deep down inside; a feeling, a good feeling, unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life. Love.

Damn it. She was angry with herself, but she couldn’t help it. She still loved him. She made a decision right then and there: Okay. I’ll at least listen to what he has to say. She waved an arm, “Over here,” she yelled. “Hurry up.”

Rick hurried through the crowd and joined them. “I’ve got a lot to tell you,” he said.

He wanted to hug her, but she pushed him back and said, “You sure do, buddy.”

“Let’s go over there.” He pointed to an empty spot against a wall near the station house.

Linda turned to the kids. “Your dad and I are going to talk. Stay with the luggage.” Then she joined him by the station. “Okay, Rick. Talk. Hurry it up.”

He came clean and told her the whole story about coming to Earth with his parents as an eight-year-old and how all the scientists decided to stay and not go back when the year of collection data was up. More importantly, he told her about Commander Xos and what might be awaiting him on Araan.

When he was finished, Linda knew they didn’t have much time, so she followed her heart and said, “Look you’ve been a good husband and a great father. I’m willing to accept what you are telling me, but we’ve got a lot more to talk about. For now, though, and mainly for the kids’ sake, I need to know that you will work with me to build a new life on Zerros just like we planned.”

“What happens if that evil Xos comes after me when we stop in Araan?”

By now they had returned to the departure platform. Linda motioned the kids ahead, “Your dad and I are right here.” The smiles on the faces of Willie and Elise helped give Linda the courage to believe that she’d made the right decision.

They began boarding behind the kids. “Last call,” came over the loudspeaker. “All aboard.”

Linda turned to her husband, her alien husband, Rick, the man she loved with all her heart and said, “Commander Xos? Don’t worry about him.” And she smiled for the first time in a long time. “If we run into trouble on Araan with him, I’ll tell you one thing: I won’t let him destroy our family. He won’t stand a chance.”

And Rick grinned. He had no reason not to believe her.

“Final call: the doors are closing.”

Rick and Linda handed the agent their tickets and said goodbye to Earth and hello to a new life together; a new life as not only husband and wife and mother and father, but as alien and human. Linda smiled when she thought of it that way and took Rick’s hand as they walked down the passage way and caught up with their kids. They boarded the transport carrier together to begin their new life. If anything, she thought to herself, it’s going to be interesting.