Healing Waters (9 page)

“Did you notice the crew that serviced the airplane at all?”

“The crew?”

“Weren't there some people refueling the jet—”

“I know what a crew is.” I closed my eyes again, but I only saw the scrawny kid with a wanna-be goatee who tried to hit on Marnie. “They were just kind of there,” I said. “All I saw them do—”

“Them.”

“Two guys. They put those blocks under the wheels. Other than that, I didn't pay attention.”

“Neither of them went on board the plane.”

“Not while I was on there.”

“When you got off, did you notice them anywhere around the plane?”

How many ways did I have to say it?

And, more to the point, why? The FBI didn't come around unless they suspected somebody had committed a crime. It didn't sound like Chip's kind of crime this time, but I still wanted with every cell in my body to get out of there. Yet I couldn't leave with this piling on top of everything else I was hauling around inside. Even I could only expand so much to hold it.

“You said you weren't here to talk about my husband,” I said. “Then why
are
you here?”

“That's a fair question.” She added more tea to her cup. “We don't have a theory about the plane crash yet. At this point we're just gathering information. Would you like to hear what we know so far?” She gave a small shrug. “Who knows, maybe it will jog something in your memory.”

Regret that I'd asked crept in, but I nodded.

“Air traffic control lost contact with the pilot within seconds of takeoff. Preliminary examination of his body by the medical examiner showed no smoke inhalation, which would indicate he died before the fire occurred. That jibes with the behavior of the plane described by the ground crew. Am I going too fast?”

It was too much to process at any speed.

“Mr. Underwood's medical records show he has no previous history of serious illness. The man was fifty-nine years old, though pronounced to be in good health at his last physical.”

Her words were professional, but by her tone we could have been chatting on the back porch about our recently deceased uncle.

“The autopsy and full tox screen could reveal more. In any event, as the jet ascended, he apparently pulled the yoke too hard for some reason and caused a stall. The plane virtually fell out of the sky.”

I nodded involuntarily. I'd described it that way to myself as I'd watched it.

“Now, here's the problem. The plane had gained no more than a few hundred feet in altitude before the crash. While the fact that it had been refueled literally moments before would account for its bursting into flame, NTSB is not sure the impact was enough to warrant the kind of explosion you saw.” She gave me the grandmotherly look again. “I'm sorry, but we're looking for evidence of foul play.”

“You think somebody did this deliberately?”

“We're just compiling the facts.” She pulled out her badge case again and produced a business card, which she held out to me. “If anything occurs to you—even if you think it's insignificant—call me at this number.”

I couldn't even reach out my hand to take the card. She set it on my knee.

“The idea that someone would want to hurt your sister, or anyone else on the plane, is probably difficult to fathom,” she said. “Unless you can think of anyone who might.”

“Everyone loves Sonia,” I said before I even thought it. To meet Sonia was to drop to one's knees in awe, no matter how hard you fought it.

“There are people who hate the ones everyone else loves,” the agent said. “It's sick, but it's the sick who perpetrate this kind of tragedy. And again, there may not be a perpetrator at all. We could be talking about a freak accident.”

She put out her hand to shake, and I stuck mine in it, sure it had all the warmth of a branch.

“I'm so sorry for what you and your family must be going through. By the way,” she added offhandedly, “we haven't been able to get in touch with your father. Any idea how we might locate him?”

“None,” I said.

“He hasn't contacted you? This has been all over the national news.” She glanced toward the door. “Those two reporters aren't the only ones looking for a story.”

“I don't even know if my father has access to a TV,” I said.

“If you hear from Mr. Brocacini, you'll let us know, yes? I think that's enough for now.” The agent stood up.

Agent—

I couldn't remember her name.

I couldn't even remember my own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
he FBI agent vacated her domain in Lounge C later that afternoon, and I went in to close my eyes against everything, including a headache that threatened behind my brain. When I opened them, Chip was there.

“Hey, babe,” he said. He put a bulging white trash bag in my lap. “I brought you some of your own clothes. Not that you don't look fabulous in those scrubs.” He attempted a smile, which I didn't return. “See if those are okay.”

I pulled the bag open and peered inside. Nothing in there went with anything else, and I hadn't been able to get into any of it in weeks.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I found your purse and got the car to the house,” he said. “And I watered your plants. You have enough to handle here. I thought I'd take care of things at home.”

I couldn't help staring at him. When had Dr. Chip Coffey ever done a domestic chore in his life?

“You're scaring me, Lucia,” he said. “Talk to me.” He pulled the sack from my lap and pawed for my hand. “Tell me about Sonia.” “The FBI is going to question you,” I said.

“Special Agent Deidre Schmacker. She got to you too.”

“She already saw you?”

“They probably contacted me before anybody. She showed up at the house.” He waved off my sudden tautness. “Relax, babe. Schmacker came alone. If I were a suspect she would have brought a partner.” His smile was grim. “It was a refreshing change, actually. She didn't try to make me hang myself.”

My insides shook. “Did you help her?”

“Probably not.” He sat up again and took both of my hands. “Look, I don't know what Agent Schmuck told you, but nobody is out to get Sonia. All I've seen the last three months is complete idolatry. People worship her. It gets a little sickening, actually.”

“Is that why you quit?”

It was out now, stirring Chip's faded-denim gaze. He didn't release my hands, though, and I didn't pull away. If I moved, it would all go.

“So you know,” he said. “I was going to tell you. I never had the chance.”

“Did you just decide on the plane on the way up here?” I said.

“No.”

“Never mind.” I floundered against the onslaught of openness. It was too much. “It doesn't matter right now.”

Chip swore softly, around the edges of his sandpaper voice. “That FBI agent shook you up, didn't she? Lucia, listen to me. They have to do an investigation any time there's an explosion on an airplane, so they can rule out terrorism.”

“Terrorism!”

He put his finger to my lips. “It's protocol. Nobody thinks the plane was sabotaged. They know there was structural damage, but they just aren't saying it. That combined with whatever happened with Otto—she told you that part, right?”

“He didn't have heart trouble or anything before.”

“Not that anybody knew about.”

“Did you?”

Chip stiffened. “I didn't practice medicine down at Sonia's, if that's what you mean. I didn't do much of anything except drive her around and run errands. That's why I quit. And because I missed you too much.” His eyes softened. “I miss your cooking, babe. And your nagging—and the way you dance in the kitchen when you're making ravioli.”

He lifted my chin—all my chins—with the tips of his fingers. It was a moment like so many I'd had with Chip, when I knew he didn't see my fatness and didn't care if he did.

Or at least I'd thought so.

I let the moment pass into one of the real ones, when I knew he couldn't stand the sight of this bloated version of his size 6 bride. When I knew the inevitable had happened, and I had been traded in for a size 2.

“I don't dance anymore,” I said.

“I would guess not—you look exhausted. I wish you'd come home and get some decent rest.”

“I can't.”

“Why? Sonia's getting round-the-clock care right now. This is the perfect time for you to take care of yourself.” He touched my chin again. “Or let me take care of you.”

“Since when have you ever taken care of me?”

Dear God, why did You let me say that?

I groped to get the words back, saying, “Never mind, never mind,” but the space they left gave me room to breathe. I got up and stood beneath a cooling vent and gulped in air.

“Since never,” Chip said behind me. “I have never taken care of you. But I'm going to start now.”

I felt him come to me, but he didn't touch me. “I said I didn't do much at Sonia's, but that's not completely true. I
thought
, babe, and I searched my soul, and I realized I could never have gotten through these last three years without you being who you are and standing by me. Now it's time for me to do that for you.”

I felt his hands take my shoulders as if they were too hot to touch.

“Please come home with me and let me try.”

I wanted to. I wanted to as much as I'd once wanted to believe he was innocent. And then later that he was at least remorseful. And then that he wanted a family as much as I did—children to focus on, a reason to start over. I always wanted to believe, and I had, over and over, because I somehow knew I was his only one. For once in my life, I was someone's only one.

Until now. Now he thought I was stupid enough not to know it. I was tired of being stupid.

“Babe, you're shaking.”

“I'm fine,” I said. But the bursting apart of pride and pain and panic was imminent if I didn't get it under control, here in the strange comfort of ICU where I knew what I was doing. Where I wasn't just a fat idiot. Maybe after that I could tell him what I knew. Maybe after that I could handle what he might say.

“I can't come home right now,” I said. “Later, when Sonia's doing better.”

He tried to turn me to face him, but I dug in. His hands slipped off my shoulders.

“You do what you have to do,” he said. “I'll take care of things at home. I'll see about getting another job.”

I nodded.

“I'm not giving up on us.”

I let him get all the way to the door before I said, “I'm fine here by myself.”

Chip put his hand on the doorjamb and squeezed until I could see his skin go white, but his face showed me nothing. There was a time, far back, when I could watch all his possible responses flip through his face like cards in a Rolodex before he landed on one. Now he could make his face as impassive as a tombstone. My only clue was the strained up-and-down bob of his Adam's apple.

“Call me when you need me,” he said.

When he was gone, I went to the vending machines and filled the pockets of my pink smock. Later, in the lounge after everyone else had left, I had a supper of cheese crackers and Snickers and didn't think about Marnie perhaps slipping to my home to be with my husband, to whom I'd just given the perfect opportunity to have his affair.

Anything not to feel.

“No wonder we can't pry you out of here, Sully. This place is amazing.”

Sully handed Rusty Huff a glass of iced tea and leaned with him on the railing of Porphyria's wraparound veranda. Below them a thick field of ragwort and bee balm tumbled toward the woods in happy abandon. Beyond, the Smokies seemed to drift in a bluegray mist.

“Porphyria admits God doesn't live here,” Sully said, “but she swears this is where He spends most of His time.”

“It was the perfect place for you to heal.” Rusty took a sip from the glass and looked at it reverently. “Did God make this too?”

“Close.” Sully grinned. “Porphyria's trying to teach me, but I'm pretty much hopeless.”

“Yeah, we all give anything you cook a wide margin.”

Rusty furrowed his forehead, and Sully knew he was about to say something that made a huge amount of sense. It was the reason Sully had chosen him as acting head of Healing Choice Ministries in his absence.

“So—you planning to bring everybody up here for healing?” Rusty said.

“Who?”

“You haven't given me anything for the DVD. I thought maybe you were planning a retreat for all the hurting people who need what you've learned.” Rusty looked into the glass as he swirled the ice. “I think you've got the lamp-under-a-bushel thing going on.”

Sully left the railing and dropped into a padded wicker chair. “I don't think the DVD idea is going to work. I looked at what I've filmed so far, and I come across more like a prisoner of war than a spiritual-health guru.”