Dear Edward(6)
Jane tills through the inane and the meaningful, trying to distract herself from both where she is and where she’s going. Her fingers automatically find the spot below her collarbone where her comet-shaped birthmark lives, and she presses down. This has been a habit since childhood. She presses as if to make a connection with her real, true self. She presses until it hurts.
Crispin Cox looks out the window. The doctors in New York—the best doctors in New York, and doesn’t that mean the world?—assured him that it was worth undergoing treatment at a specialized hospital in L.A. They know this cancer inside out, the New York doctors told him. We’ll get you on the drug trial. There was a light in the doctors’ eyes that Crispin recognized. They didn’t want him to die, to be beaten, because that would mean that they, one day, would be beaten too. When you’re great, you fight. You don’t go down. You burn like a motherfucking fire. Crispin had nodded, because of course he was going to beat this ridiculous disease. Of course this wasn’t going to take him down. But a month ago, he’d caught a virus that both sapped his energy and soaked him with worry. A new voice entered his head, one that forecast doom and made him question his prior confidence. The virus passed, but the anxiety didn’t. He’d barely left his apartment since then. When his doctor called to make a final preflight appointment to do more blood work, Crispin said he was too busy. The truth was that he was scared the blood work would reflect the way he now felt. His only concession to this new, unwelcome unease was hiring a nurse for the flight. He didn’t like the idea of being alone in the sky.
Bruce Adler looks at his boys; their faces are unreadable. He has the familiar thought that he is too old and out of touch to decipher them. A few days earlier, while waiting for a table at their favorite Chinese restaurant, Bruce watched Jordan notice a girl his age walk in with her family. The two teens regarded each other for a moment, heads tipped to the side, and then Jordan’s face opened—it might as well have split in half—with a grin. He offered this stranger what looked like everything: his joy, his love, his brain, his complete attention. He gave that girl a face that Bruce, who has studied his son every single day of his life, had never seen. Never even knew existed.
Benjamin shifts in his cramped seat. He wishes he were in the cockpit, behind the sealed door. Pilots speak like military men, in a scripted code, with brisk precision. A few minutes of listening to them prepare for takeoff would allow his chest to unclench. He doesn’t like the combination of chitchat and snores going on around him. There’s a messiness to how civilians behave that bothers him. The white lady next to him smells of eggs, and she’s asked him twice whether he was in Iraq or “that other place.”
Linda finds herself engaged in a strange and exhausting abdominal exercise as she tries to steer away from the wide mass of Florida without touching the sleeping passenger on her other side. She feels like the leaning tower of Pisa. She wishes—her obliques engaged—that she had bought more chocolate. She thinks, In California, with Gary, I will eat more, and she’s cheered by the thought. She’s dieted since the age of twelve; she never considered lifting that yoke until this moment. Thinness has always seemed essential to her, but what if it’s not? She tries to imagine herself as voluptuous, sexy.
Florida is singing again but from so deep within her chest, and at such a low volume, that the noise comes out like a hum. Around her, as if cued by the sound, the plane’s engine thrums to life. The entry door is vacuum-sealed shut. The aircraft shudders and lurches, while Florida murmurs. She is a fountain of melodies, dousing everyone in her vicinity. Linda grips her hands in her lap. Jordan and Eddie, despite their silent feud, touch shoulders for comfort as the plane builds speed. The passengers holding books or magazines aren’t actually reading anymore. Those with their eyes closed aren’t sleeping. Everyone is conscious, as the plane lifts off the ground.
June 12, 2013
Evening
The National Transportation Safety Board’s “Go-Team” is at the site seven hours after the accident—the length of time it takes them to fly from D.C. to Denver and then drive rental cars to the small town in the flatlands of northern Colorado. Because of the long summer daylight, it’s not yet dark when they arrive. Their real work will take place at sunrise the following day. They are here now to get a sense of the scene, to simply begin.
The town’s mayor is there, to greet the NTSB lead investigator. They pose for a photograph for the media. Except for the handshake, the mayor—who is also a bookkeeper, because this town can’t afford full-time employees—tucks his hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they’re trembling.
The police have cordoned off the area; the NTSB team, wearing protective orange suits and face masks, climbs over and around the wreckage. The land is level in every direction, the surface burned, charred, a piece of toast blackened under a broiler. The fire is out, but the air is charged with heat. The plane sluiced through a cluster of trees and dug itself into the earth. The good news, the members of the team tell one another, is that it wasn’t in a residential area. No humans on the ground were hurt. They find two mangled cows and a dead bird among the chairs, luggage, metal, and limbs.
Families of the victims arrive in Denver by plane and car over the twenty-four hours following the event. The downtown Marriott has several floors reserved for them. At 5:00 P.M. on June 13, the NTSB spokesman, a man with acne-scarred skin and a gentle demeanor, gives an update to the families and media in the hotel banquet hall.