The Seat Beside Me (15 page)

Floyd didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear any words of congratulation. Without a word, he headed for an empty office. Hugh followed and closed the door. They each slumped in a chair without removing their coats. They stared at nothing and yet Floyd saw everything. Saw the tail section. Saw the man in the water. Saw the ice and the blowing snow and the wobbling lifelines, and the expectant, frozen faces looking to him for help. For life. And then
saw nothing. The man was gone. The man who had helped the others in a way no one else could had disappeared beneath that fuel-covered, debris-laden, deathly dark water.

Floyd slammed a fist on the desk, willingly accepting the pain.

“Hit one for me.” Hugh sat forward, balancing his elbows on his thighs, his hands clasped, eyes to the floor. “I really wanted to meet him, you know? I wanted to shake his hand, to ask him what he was thinking about out there.” He looked at Floyd. “You know, a fellow could learn a lot from a guy like that. Life lessons. Deep thoughts.”

Floyd nodded. “I’ve never seen anyone with such dedication. It’s like he took it upon himself to play this part, to be the savior of the others.”

“And he had to know,” Hugh said. “At some point, he had to realize giving off the line one more time would mean his own death.”

Floyd’s throat tightened, and he put a hand over his face to hide the tears. He was glad Hugh let him cry in silence. Floyd wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “That’s what gets to me the most. The
decision
in it. I can see lots of people handing it off the first time. I mean, the law of the sea is ‘women and children first.’ ” The words caught in his throat, and he waited until he could swallow again. “But when the cold started to get him, when he knew time was running out, he still gave it away.”

“Gave his life away.”

Floyd pressed his fingers into his temples, then opened his eyes. “What was he thinking, Hugh? When he saw us fly away with the last load, leaving him all alone in the wreckage?” Floyd shuddered, then hit a fist on his thigh. “If only I would’ve added the second line right away. If only we could have taken more load. If only the people would have been able to hold on so we didn’t have to go back for them.”

“We risked our lives too, Floyd. By going down so close, the jet
fuel in the water could have blown. And the skids could have iced up, destabilizing the whole thing. I could’ve lost it.” He blinked and looked away. “Nearly did, more than once. We did what we could—but it wasn’t enough.” His head shook with the words. “It wasn’t enough.”

Floyd let the silence settle between them. He had something to ask, but he wasn’t sure how Hugh would take it. Funny how you could work with a fellow—risk your life with him—and not know much about the guy. Not the deep stuff anyway.

“You’re going to ask me something,” Hugh said, pointing at Floyd’s face. “I can see it brewing. Out with it. Do you think we could have done more? Is that it?”

Floyd waved his hands in front of his face. “No, no, nothing like that. We did good, Hugh. Five people are alive because of us.”

“Then what is it?”

Floyd took a deep breath. “Do you believe in God?”

Hugh sat back in his chair. “Sure. I suppose. Do you?”

Floyd nodded.

Hugh unzipped his coat and shrugged it off. “And yes, disasters like this get me thinking about God, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m wondering why He lets things like this happen. You know, if God is love and all that …”

Floyd agreed with Hugh’s statement, but that wasn’t what he had been thinking about. “I was thinking more of the hero. Being out there alone, but not alone, you know? Did he feel God’s presence before he died? Was he comforted in some way? Did God take the pain away and let him go easy considering the sacrifice he’d just made? Did God approve?”

Hugh considered this a moment. “What that man did … it
is
kind of a God-thing.”

Floyd nodded. “That’s what I thought too. And somehow, the thought of him not being truly alone makes it a little easier to take.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

Floyd had one more question. “Would you do it, Hugh? I mean, we risked our lives to save them, but that’s our job. He was probably just an ordinary guy. An ordinary hurting, needy guy. Would you give up the line?”

Hugh put a hand to his mouth and stared out the window at the darkness. His reflection stared back. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. How about you?”

The intercom buzzed. “Floyd, your wife’s on two.”

He picked it up and let his wife’s concern flood over him. “Yes, honey, I’m okay.
We’re
okay.” He exchanged a look with his partner and they shared an understanding. They may have been physically okay, but emotionally?

Hugh left the room, closing the door behind him … leaving Floyd alone with the answer to Hugh’s question.

Ellen Smith had been glued to the television all afternoon—until the helicopter gave up looking for the hero. Then she turned it off, unable to watch any longer. It was as though with the death of the hero, a little bit of her had died too.

What if it’s Henry?

She tried not to think about it. She’d strained to see every shot of the hero as he handed off the line, over and over. She listened to the commentators describe her Henry. If he
was
the hero, so be it. If he wasn’t, then what did it matter? Either way he was dead. Joey was on his way from college to be with her.

She sat on the couch, looking at the dark TV. Although she’d been able to turn it off, she could not seem to move too far away from it. For in this magic box contained information—information she wasn’t sure she wanted to have, yet information she needed.

She pulled the phone onto her lap. If only they’d call. If only someone from the airline would call and end her awful waiting.
She’d tried calling them repeatedly but gave up. Let them do the calling. Why should she make it easy for them? She wanted it to be very, very hard. After all, they had killed—

Not yet. Allow yourself just a few more minutes of believing in miracles. Maybe Henry will call and tell me he took a different flight. “Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, Elly, but I had to run onto the plane at the last minute, and we were so late getting in by the time I found a cab to the hotel …”

The phone rang in her lap. Ellen had it to her ear before the sound completed its tone. “Yes?”

“Is this Mrs. Henry Smith?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith, but this is Sun Fun Airlines, and we regret to inform you that we have confirmation that your husband was on Flight 1382 today and—”

She forced herself to take a breath. “Are they trying to recover the plane?”

“Yes, ma’am. As we speak.”

The harder question. The stupid question. The last-ditch question. “Do you think anyone could still be alive?”

“I … I’m sorry, ma’am. I just don’t know.”

Ellen took down the information about where to go to identify her husband—when he was found. She kept nodding to the phone, feeling silly for having a conversation about flight times, hotels, and taxis when Henry was dead.

She hung up with that thought resounding through her soul.

Henry was dead. Henry was dead. Henry was—

She heaved the phone into the television set, shattering both. Horrified, she scrambled to the floor and began picking up the pieces, trying to fit one to another.

“No, no, no … Fix it, fix it.”

She suddenly realized the absurdity of what she was doing and let the pieces fall from her hands to the carpet. She stared at the
broken, jagged fragments and noticed a small stream of blood snake its way down the palm of her hand. The wreckage of a phone and a television set. A little blood. Inconsequential wreckage compared to—

With an expulsion of breath, she fell over on her side and pulled her knees to her chest, the broken pieces crackling beneath her.

She let the sobs come and, with them, felt her heart do its own breaking. Unlike the television or the phone, her heart couldn’t be fixed. Not ever. For all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Henry together again.

Seven

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility
consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only
to your own interests, but also to the interests of others
.
P
HILIPPIANS
2:3–4

T
he next morning, Dora was on the road early. The airline was going to give a statement at nine, and she wanted a front-row seat. But it turned out her early start didn’t matter. The conference room was packed with people waiting for an official to appear. Dora had to settle for a seat halfway back.

“Did I miss any—?”

A door opened near the podium and a group of three men came out. The crowd quieted. The oldest of the three approached the microphone. “Good morning. I am Malcolm Evers, spokesman for Sun Fun Airline, and these two gentlemen are Simon Wallin from the National Transportation Safety Board, and Chad Reese from the Federal Aviation Administration. I have a brief statement to make before we open the floor to questions.”

He cleared his throat, donned reading glasses, and lifted an index card. “We at Sun Fun, wish to express our sincere …”

Dora shook her head at the subtle faux pas. If he couldn’t give a heartfelt show of condolence and regret without notes, he was in trouble. She readied her pad and pen for some
real
news.

“As of yet, we have not determined what caused yesterday’s crash, and I hazard to speculate. But certainly weather was a possible factor.”

Duh
.

He turned to the FAA man. “Mr. Reese?”

They exchanged places. “Although the weather is beyond our control, each pilot has the choice of taking off or not taking off.”

“Are you saying he made a mistake?” asked a reporter.

There was an awkward silence. “That is a possibility.”

Chaos erupted. Questions were hurled across the room. Dora felt sorry for the man, whose head whipped from one question to another, not knowing what to do.

“… pilot error?”

Reese made calming motions with his hands, and the questions stopped. The main question
had
gotten through.
Was it pilot error?

“We don’t know,” Reese said. “But there is a saying: PIC. Pilot in Command. A pilot always has the option to abort a flight until he reaches the point of no return.”

“Had Flight 1382 reached that point?”

“Apparently.”

Mr. Wallin stepped to the mike, sharing it with Mr. Reese. “As you know, the airport was closed for nearly an hour and a half yesterday because of inclement weather.”

“Have you recovered the black box yet?”

“Not yet. We haven’t found the flight data recorder yet, either. Both of them will help us determine what happened to the plane and what was said in the cockpit before the time of the crash. However, preliminary examination of the communication between the cockpit crew and the control tower appears to be normal. There was no distress call.” Mr. Wallin took a deep breath. “Of course our first priority is recovering the victims so accurate identification can be made. As we speak, relatives are arriving and are being taken to area hotels.”

Dora resisted the impulse to run out of the room to head to nearby hotels.
Cause of crash first, reaction to crash second
.

“Please keep in mind there are many factors to consider, and all these take time to investigate.”

“Such as?”

Wallin held out a hand and began listing them. “Runway conditions; the weight of the plane; the condition of the engines; mechanical failure, since it appears the plane did not receive the thrust it needed for takeoff; pilot error; and, of course, the weather. Visibility when the plane took off yesterday was minimal.”

“Another question, Mr. Wallin. Why did the plane sink so fast? Aren’t they supposed to float so people can be evacuated?”

Wallin opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked to Reese and Evers but got no help. He turned back to the microphone. “They will stay afloat for some time unless the structural integrity of the cabin has been compromised.”

This was all very interesting, but no one was asking the most probing question Dora wanted answered. She took a chance and stood.

“What about the hero?”

Silence. Then murmuring.
“Yes, what about the hero?”

“We all witnessed the sacrificial actions of the eighth person in the water and were deeply moved. All efforts will be made to identify this man and give him the honor he is due. We can only wait and see—and hope he is identified.” Mr. Wallin looked to the other two men. It was a good way to end. “Let’s get back to work.”

George woke to find a nurse taking his blood pressure. The Velcro band ripped apart, the sound yanking him from the last remnants of sleep.

“Good morning, Mr. Davanos.”

Morning?
He groggily glanced at the blinds.

“You want these open?”

Whatever
. He didn’t protest when she opened them and adjusted the light. His eyes skimmed the empty bed beside him.

I’m the lone survivor
.

He felt like asking for more drugs. The ones they had given
him last night, for the pain had been great. Hours and hours of dreamless sleep—only to be wakened in the morning to the reality of
his
life and
their
deaths.

The nurse took his water pitcher and filled it at the sink, chattering in a happy monologue. “We are so glad you slept well last night. Some of the others had a harder time of it. They tossed and—”

He perked up. “Others?”

She set the pitcher on his tray table and turned the handle to his right. “The other survivors.”

He shoved the table aside and sat up. “Survivors? So all the people in the water lived? How many?”

“Hold on a moment, Mr. Davanos.” She moved the table and its water pitcher close again as if a glass of cold water would make everything better.