Ten Years Later. October 1973.
The auditorium in Cambridge smelled of floor wax and old wool. I stood at the podium, waiting for the applause to fade. I had just spent an hour breaking down a problem in non-Euclidean geometry. My hands were clean now. The permanent layer of coal dust was gone, replaced by the faint, dry chalk residue that marked my days.
The department head, Dr. Harrison, took the microphone from me.
"Thank you, Professor Vance. Before we adjourn, I want to acknowledge the grant that made our new applied mathematics wing possible." He gestured toward the side of the stage. "We are honored to have the founder of Vance Aerospace with us tonight."
A man stepped out of the shadows. Julian.
He wore a dark suit, with a trace of silver at his temples. He walked with a very slight drag in his left step—the result of a highway accident in Houston five years ago, one he had hidden from me so I wouldn't miss my final exams.
Dr. Harrison smiled. "Julian is one of the leading minds behind the navigation systems that got us to the moon. Julian, would you like to address the faculty?"
Julian walked to the center of the stage. He didn't look at the dean. He looked at me.
I shook my head slightly. We had spent the last decade building our lives side-by-side, me in the classroom and him in the boardroom, keeping our professional spheres strictly separate. Most people in this room didn't know we shared a last name by marriage, rather than coincidence.
Julian took the microphone. He stood next to me, close enough that I could smell his shaving soap. He placed a hand on the small of my back.
"Thank you, Dr. Harrison," Julian said. The room went still. Students paused with their pens over their notebooks.
Julian looked out at the crowd, but his hand stayed firm against my spine.
"I'm not here as the head of an aerospace company tonight," he said. "I'm just here as Professor Vance's husband."