Sparrow Migrations (2 page)

“Oh, my God.”

Aboard the ferry, Brett Stevens’s eyes opened. From the moment the captain turned the ferry, revealing the astonishing scene, silent prayers had begun automatically.
Our Father, who art in heaven. Please let everyone be unharmed. Hallowed be thy name. Please save their souls.

Reverie and recitation now both broken by Jackie’s voice, Brett stared in disbelief at the plane’s white nose, starting to list sideways now.

“Oh, my God,” Jackie repeated. “Can you read the name?”

“What name?” Brett looked out at the waves.

“Of the airline. On the plane!” Jackie was clutching at her fur coat.

Brett squinted. US something. US Airways.

“US Airways, I think.”

“Oh, dear Lord. Dear Lord.” Jackie began rifling through her purse.

“What? What is it?”

“I’ve got to find my plane ticket!”

“The old one? Why? What for?”

Jackie didn’t answer, still pawing through her purse, searching for the ticket they had changed that morning when the thought of returning to their humdrum lives in Charlotte and Pennsylvania was too awful.

Finally she located the envelope and read aloud the printed e-ticket. “US Airways, Flight 1549. Departing LaGuardia, 3:24 p.m.”

Brett’s watch read 3:33 p.m. The realization sank in for both of them as their eyes met.

“That might be my plane,” Jackie said, her bejeweled left hand plucking nervously at her fur collar. Brett swallowed hard and closed her eyes again, twisting her own plain wedding band hidden inside her glove. Inside, she felt her heart lightening, her soul rising. Was there ever a clearer sign? Jackie was safely there beside her instead of on that plane. They were meant to be together.

Another prayer, one of gratitude, rose to her lips as Brett laid her blond head on her lover’s soft shoulder and again closed her eyes.

Propped up by Christopher, her feet numb in the black pumps, Deborah stared at the waves where the phone had disappeared.
I need to talk to you. In person.
She felt an intense longing to see her only, older sister, and her two nieces. Regret that she’d put off this visit to Seattle for so long rose up along with the river, nearing her knees now. All her reasons were so foolish. Superstition about flying during an in vitro fertilization cycle. Her projects at work. Christopher’s projects at work. What good was all that now? She still wasn’t pregnant. A new law school, a paper published in the
Journal of Field Ornithology.
Trivial. People were what was important. Relationships. Family.

The realization swept over her as coldly as the river. Would she get another chance now? She thought of the embryos, E, F, and G, the clinic had labeled them, siblings to the unsuccessfully implanted A, B, C, and D. They were so far away. What was she doing here, with these strangers? Most looked like business travelers, but there was one woman cradling an infant. The one she heard crying before, now quiet. She had apparently wrapped the baby in her own coat. As Deborah stared past the passengers in between them, the coatless mother clutched the baby close, kissing its forehead, tucking in a stray sleeve tighter, her gaze never swerving from her child.

Watching the mother, Deborah felt the internal longing yield to yearning. Yearning that had survived two years of shots and struggle and, more recently, the sense that she and Christopher no longer shared a solidarity about parenthood. This yearning was in prime form, puffing out its chest, filling every cell with certainty. Deborah still wanted to have a baby. She was tired of executing their predictable, perfect lives in Ithaca. She wanted to live them. Seize the day.

The thought seemed to thaw her frozen fingers, and she gripped the nubby tweed of Christopher’s jacket. If this crash proved anything, it was that the future was promised to no one. This day, this moment, right now, was all that mattered. She tilted her head back, to look him square in the eye.

“Christopher, promise me something. Promise me that whatever it takes, we’ll still have a baby.”

Christopher blinked behind his glasses. “Deborah, you’re upset. This isn’t the time to make a decision like that.”

“It’s exactly the time. If we don’t decide what we want at a time like this, when will we know what’s really important? I want this more than anything. You know that. Promise me we’ll have a baby.” She wasn’t begging or pleading. She was simply adamant.

“Deborah, look. It’s almost our turn. The ferries are right here. When we’re safe and dry and back on land, we can discuss this.” Christopher’s voice took on his overly reasonable tone.

She fired back. “I don’t need to discuss anything! This is what I want. This could be a sign. Life is short.”

“A sign? Deborah, you’re sounding crazy. We’ve talked about all this before. We’ve had two strikes already. And we’re not getting any younger.”

“We weren’t in a plane crash before! Promise me, Christopher. Promise me.”

And as the icy river rose over their knees, Christopher promised.

TWO

T
heir ferry floated barely fifty yards from the plane. Robby watched another, already loaded with passengers, motor off. Theirs would be the next to assist. He didn’t even need the binoculars anymore, they were so close. The Storm Trooper now looked more like he was sinking, instead of rising. Robby bounced up and down on his toes, impatient for something else to happen.

The ferry captain sounded impatient, too. No one had budged from the deck rails. “Ladies and gentlemen. For your own safety, clear the decks and return to your seats in the cabin. I repeat, clear the decks immediately.” It was at least the tenth time he had repeated himself.

“Robby!” his mother was working her way through the crowd toward him. “Robby! Did you hear the captain? Come back inside with your father and me right away. Robby!”

But even with his headphones off now, captivated by the plane, Robby paid no attention to her or the captain. He remembered what the flight attendant said two days ago, on their flight from Detroit to New York. “In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.” It was his first time on a plane, and he imagined landing on water. Would they have landed on Lake St. Clair? Or made it farther east, to Lake Erie? Would the water seep in the windows, or would the plane stay dry? What would happen when the door was finally opened and the water rushed in? Were there any people still left on this plane?

He tilted his head back and forth as he analyzed his own questions. Nearby, a cell phone rang just as his mother elbowed herself next to him.

“Jan here.” The man on his left answered. “Yes, I’m on a ferry in the Hudson.”

“Robby. We have to go back inside the cabin. Right now,” his mother said from his right side.

“By the plane crash, uh-huh. Yes, I have a Twitter account,” said the man on the left.

Robby pressed the binoculars harder against his eyes, trying to block the dueling conversations.

“Right
now
, Robby. The captain said so. And we need to find your dad.” His mom again, now putting her hand on his arm.

“Who is this? How did you find me?” On his left the man paused. “CNN?”

This is CNN
. In his head, Robby heard the Darth Vader intonations. The man’s conversation was getting interesting, after all. He let the binoculars hang and turned to listen.

“How the hell did you . . .” the man broke off again.

“Really, Robby, we can’t stay here. We—” Her voice climbed, sounding like it did when she wanted him to stop playing video games or turn off the TV.

Irritated, Robby shook off her hand on his arm.

“Can you use it? The picture, you mean? On TV? Well, hell, sure.” The man paused again. “Go on air? Live? In five minutes? You’re kidding . . . yeah, I see your helicopter. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just describe what I saw. OK, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I’ll be ready.”

He hung up and looked at Robby. “They’re gonna have the anchor call me back in five minutes. They say I’ve got the first picture of the crash.”

Amanda Stevens unlocked her back door. “Mom? You home?” Her mother wasn’t expected back until evening, but Amanda automatically did the shout-out check-in.

No one responded. Amanda slung her backpack into the closet and headed for the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels. Tipping a handful into her mouth, she slid onto the stool at the kitchen counter and fired up the laptop. It was officially her mom’s, there for paying bills and looking up recipes and whatever else she did online, but sixteen-year-old Amanda used it most.

She turned on her IM. No one was online yet. She checked her iGoogle page before noticing the voice mail light blinking on the landline. Her mother’s voice sounded strange, disembodied from the kitchen where she spent so much time.
I’m staying another night in New York, she said. Do your homework. Have Dad order out or have leftovers for dinner. Fill the bird feeder.

Amanda’s brow furrowed. Her mom never went anywhere overnight. Now she was staying another night in New York City, where she knew no one? Just as Amanda started to call her mom back, her IM pinged. Kelsey was online. Nicole followed. They dissected the events of the day at Scranton High School for fifteen minutes before Amanda’s attention wandered. She clicked back over to her iGoogle. “Plane ditched in Hudson, officials deny terrorism,” she read at the top of the breaking news feed, and clicked the CNN video link.

A somber anchor began. “New Yorkers like to say they’ve seen it all. But at about three thirty this afternoon, most of them were proven wrong when, just before afternoon rush hour, a US Airways jet was ditched in the Hudson River minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport.

“Passengers have been evacuated onto the wings and are now awaiting rescue from the chilly waters near midtown Manhattan. About a half hour ago, a passenger aboard a nearby sightseeing ferry enlisted in the rescue effort posted what CNN believes is the first picture of the crash on his Twitter account. We’re pleased to bring you this picture now, exclusively on CNN.” Amanda turned up the volume. Was the conference near Midtown? Maybe her mom was watching live. The picture flashed on the screen. “That passenger, Janis Krums, now joins us by phone from the ferry. Welcome to CNN. Thanks for your time.”

“You’re welcome.” A man’s voice, uneven with static and background noise, piped up.

“You’re on the scene that we’re now showing our viewers. Tell us what you know about the accident,” the anchor commanded. Amanda leaned forward. It was pretty fascinating. The plane looked almost graceful, balancing itself on the waves, passengers clustered on each wing.

“Yes. Um. Well, our ferry was headed around the island when the accident happened. Southbound, toward the Statue of Liberty. And I didn’t see it crash, you know. But I was standing outside when the captain told us we were diverting. And when he turned the boat, I saw the plane.”

“We expect to have live video in a few more minutes, from the CNN helicopters now on the scene. We’re talking live with . . .”

Her IM pinged again, and Amanda closed the video. Abby was online now. They spent half an hour sort of working on biology homework and mostly talking about tomorrow’s musical auditions. This year it was a production of
Grease
. Abby hoped for one of the Pink Lady roles, maybe even Sandra Dee. Envious of her confidence, Amanda wondered if she should even bother auditioning. At church she sang in the choir, but on the few occasions she’d given in to her urge to raise her voice above the muted mediocrity, her dad had rebuked her afterward. It wouldn’t do for the pastor to look like he was showing off his daughter, he’d told her. Why bring on more nagging by auditioning? But Abby just about had her convinced to audition when Kelsey pinged her.

“Turn on your TV to the plane crash news!”

“Why?”

“Your mom is on! Channel 33. OMG.”

Amanda blinked. She jumped and grabbed the remote. A reporter was standing on a boat with a microphone in the face of a man holding his cell phone and gesturing. The plane was nowhere to be seen. Other passengers milled in the background, around the deck. Amanda muted the volume and studied the people behind the man, looking for her mother’s blond hair and red peacoat. Mostly she saw other men, with the exception of one tall woman wearing sunglasses and a fur coat.
Who wears fur anymore?
Amanda thought. She saw a brown-haired woman with a kid who looked a couple years younger than her, wearing a pair of giant headphones around his neck. But no red peacoat. She went back to her computer.

“You’re crazy, Kels.”

“I saw her! I’m sure it was her. They were interviewing some guy, and I saw her behind him. On a boat. You said she was in New York.”

“No way. My mom’s at some church conference about food pantries. She doesn’t even like boats.”

“It was her,”
Kelsey insisted.
“Ask her when she gets home. I gotta go now. Later.”

Amanda closed the IM window and shook her head. Kelsey was wrong, of course. That was the only thing that made sense. But as she called her mom’s cell phone, which rang through to voice mail, Amanda really wished her mom was right there in the kitchen, as usual.

Brett heard the voice mail notification as she sat next to Jackie in the ferry cabin, listening to her complain that she was cold. Her home number was at the top of the list of missed calls. Brett pulled her red peacoat tighter, feeling a chill from the inside. Amanda would be home from school, getting her message about now.

“My daughter. I’ll call back from outside.”

“All right.” Jackie shrugged, burrowing herself deeper into the fur. “I’m staying right here.”

Amanda picked up on the first ring as Brett resumed pacing the deck.

“Hi, sweetie, it’s me. Did you just call?”

“Yeah. I got your message. Why aren’t you home?”

“Oh, I met someone from another church,” Brett told her daughter.
That much is true
, she thought. Her words seemed to emerge by themselves, like lip syncing ahead of the music. “They’re doing some really neat things with their food pantry, and we just wanted to talk a little bit more, find out if maybe there’s a way we could work together.”

“Oh. OK, I guess.”

“Are you OK, honey?” Brett plugged her other ear with her finger, straining to hear. At this end of the ferry the din of the rescue effort was muted, but it was still far louder than the hotel conference room where Amanda imagined she was. When would they be allowed off the ferry, for God’s sake?

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just been funny around here, with you gone for three days. And then Kelsey just IMed me the weirdest thing. She said she saw you on TV.”

“On TV? Me?” a stab of alarm pierced Brett. She glanced at the cameras that had invaded the ferry’s deck. They’d been interviewing for at least a half hour. Until Jackie announced she was freezing, Brett had paced the deck back and forth, too keyed up to sit. She could easily have been caught in the background.
Think, Brett, think
. Amanda was still talking.

“Yeah. Are you anywhere near that plane crash? In the river? It’s all over the news. Kelsey said she saw you on TV. On a boat, behind somebody else being interviewed, I guess.”

“A plane crash? In a river? Here in New York?” Brett repeated Amanda’s words, trying to think clearly. She couldn’t be caught. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. She feigned surprise. “I’ve been stuck in a conference room, in meetings all day. Haven’t heard anything about it.”

“Oh.” Amanda drew out the word. “I told Kelsey she was crazy. But you are coming home tomorrow, then, right?”

“Yes. I’ll be home when you get back from school.” Saying something truthful momentarily soothed Brett’s conscience.

“OK. See you tomorrow, then.”

“Right. I love you, Amanda.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

Brett flipped her phone shut and tried to breathe deeply. A close call. She couldn’t recall ever lying to Amanda. Through the windows she watched Jackie, now smiling and chatting with some other passenger. She remembered the night before, and that morning. Jackie looked up, caught her eye and winked. Brett smiled back, her fear of discovery almost dissolving in the warmth of the moment.

On the river side of the ferry, Robby still hung over the guardrail, glad to have it to himself again, except for his parents. On the dock side, two dozen wet passengers were disembarking into a throng of media. Everyone else seemed more interested in them than the plane. Through the binoculars, Robby scanned the hulk of white metal, wingtip to wingtip. It didn’t look menacing at all anymore, the Storm Trooper mask tilted half-in, half-out of the river.

“I don’t see the engines. Are they underwater?”

“Yes, probably,” his mom said.

“Nothing looks broken. Not even any windows. So how did the plane crash?” He turned the binoculars toward her. Through the lenses, the intersecting lines of her plaid coat looked like little worms on a field of dirt.

“I don’t know how it crashed. I’m sure it will be all over the news,” she replied.