Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [145]
When I finished telling Gabby my story, I felt kind of bad. Here she was, reacquainting herself with language, and I was using an inappropriate word. She’d heard it before, of course. Now she’d heard it again.
We ended up laughing together about it. Since I was retiring as an astronaut, I didn’t feel a great need to follow orders and force myself to conjure up unnecessary negative comments about my crew.
“Maybe that makes me a . . .” I didn’t say it, and Gabby just laughed.
Gabby and I would sometimes play a game called “How did you vote?” We did it partly for the sense of nostalgia, and partly because it got Gabby to think hard and engage her recollections.
Our game worked like this. I’d bring up an issue that came before Congress during her time in office, and she’d recall how she voted.
“The climate change bill?” I asked. That was the 2009 bill aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020.
“Voted yes,” Gabby said. Yes, she did.
“Cash for clunkers?” I asked. That bill provided federal vouchers for up to $4,500 for people to trade in their old cars for new ones that got better mileage.
“Voted no,” Gabby said. She was right.
I also quizzed her on her stand on positions. “Do you support Roe v. Wade?” I asked.
Gabby shook her head back and forth, but she said, “Yes.”
“That’s the perfect answer for a politician!” I said, and she instantly realized she was moving her head the wrong way. She nodded up and down. Yes, she supported Roe v. Wade.
Gabby got every question right. She knew how she voted. She knew where she stood.
By late July, Gabby was closely following the debate in Washington over raising the debt ceiling. If Democrats and Republicans couldn’t reach a compromise, the government would default. The partisan bickering was upsetting to Gabby. She had always vowed to reach across the aisle, to work out a compromise. Every day, she waited for signs that her colleagues back in Washington had found solutions. The whole mess saddened her.
Then, on July 31, President Obama announced that an agreement finally had been forged. Speaker Boehner’s office issued a statement outlining the terms. There were still representatives in both parties, however, who were unhappy with the deal, and vowed to vote it down.
And so Gabby wondered: What if it all came down to one vote? What if her vote could make a difference and get the bill passed?
“The right thing,” she said to me. That’s what she wanted to do, if she could.
I saw her mind at work. She recognized that the country was teetering on the brink of default. Trillions of dollars would evaporate out of the world economy overnight. She wouldn’t feel right if she remained on the sidelines, allowing that to happen.
Certainly, she knew that she’d be safer on the sidelines. Taking a stand on a controversial vote will always come back to haunt a politician. Gabby set that possibility aside. She’d survived so much in the seven months since January 8, the risk of political fallout was survivable, too.
I texted her friend Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, who is close to the legislative leadership. Debbie was tallying how many “yes” votes could be counted on in her own party. She also had some sense of the Republican support.
“You got the votes?” I texted.
She texted back, “Unclear at this point. It may be close.”
I went into the bedroom, where Gabby was getting ready to go to sleep. “They might need your vote in Washington tomorrow,” I said. “What do you think?”
“I’ll go,” she answered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Back to Work
On Monday morning, August 1, Gabby got into tennis shoes and a comfortable sweat suit, ready for her regimen of therapy. “This may be just an ordinary, demanding day of rehab,” I told her before she left. “Then again, it may turn out to be very crazy. If you’re needed in D.C., are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes,” she said. She was resolute.
Gabby and