The Marriage Lie(17)

My father adds another bullet to his list, which has grown to a handful of pages.

All around us, people are weeping. A silver-haired man with unshaven cheeks, an Indian woman in a teal-and-silver sari, a black teenager with diamond studs bigger than my engagement solitaire. Tears roll down their cheeks unchecked, and the air in the room pulses with despair. Seeing their sorrow is like watching someone yawn, uncontrollable and infectious. Suddenly and without warning, I’m weeping, too.

Ann Margaret passes me a pack of tissues.

“Ms. Myers,” Dad says, “perhaps you could give us a quick update on the crash. Is there any new information?”

“Please. Call me Ann Margaret, and of course. As you may have heard on the news, both black boxes have been recovered, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, and they’ve been sent on to the National Transportation Safety Board for analysis. I do want to warn you, though. Their final report will likely take months, if not years.”

I wince. A month feels like an eternity, but years?

“In the meantime...” She pushes a packet of paper an inch thick across the desk and taps a fingertip on a website address printed across the top. “This is a dark website, meaning it’s not meant for the general public. There are no links leading to it, and only people who type in the exact address will be able to find it. Liberty Airlines will use it to issue statements and provide updates to friends and family of the passengers as soon as information becomes available. You’ll also find a list of contact names, phone numbers and email addresses for every employee on the disaster management team. They are available 24/7, as am I. You are my family, and as such, my very first priority.”

I look up. “What do you mean we’re your family?”

She smiles at me, not unkindly. “Every passenger’s family receives their own Care Specialist. I’m yours. You are my family. If there’s anything at all that any of you need, all you have to do is say so and I’ll take care of it.”

“Excellent. You can start with giving me back my husband.”

Her shoulders fall a good inch, and she tilts her head, reassembling her empathy mask. “I wish I could do that, Mrs. Griffith. I really do.”

I hate this woman. I hate her with such an intensity that for a second or two, I actually blame her for the crash. I know Ann Margaret is not the one who performed the sloppy safety check or who banked left when she should have banked right, but I don’t believe her I’m on your side here attitude, either. If this woman really had my best interests at heart like she claims, she’d tell me what I really want to hear.

“How did my husband get on that airplane?”

It takes Ann Margaret a second or two to register my change of subject, and then she gives me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.”

“What I mean is, did someone actually see him walk on? Because he was late leaving the house, and even if he didn’t hit rush-hour traffic, which he most probably did, he would have had to haul ass through security and to the terminal. He probably would have been the last person on the plane, if he even made it on time.”

She shifts in her chair, and she glances at my father as if to request a little help. When she doesn’t get any, her gaze returns to me. “Are you asking how Liberty Airlines knows your husband boarded?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“Okay. Why don’t we just back up a minute, then? All airlines have procedures in place, so mistakes like the one you’re suggesting could never happen. Passengers’ tickets are scanned at the security checkpoint and then again at the gate, right before they board the plane. Technology doesn’t lie. It assures us there are no false positives.”

I hear Will’s scoff, as clearly and surely as if he were sitting right here, right beside me. If he were, he’d tell this lady that technology lies by design, because it is created and controlled by humans. There are bugs. There are crashes. There are false positives and false negatives, too. So Ann Margaret can try to talk me out of beating this particular horse, but as far as I’m concerned, this horse is far from dead.

My flare of fury settles into one of self-satisfaction. If Liberty Air can make a mistake as grievous as neglecting to call me before contacting the media, then who’s to say Will’s name on that passenger manifest isn’t another? A gigantic, life-altering mistake, but a mistake all the same.

“What if halfway down the Jetway, he turned around and went back out? He could have slipped right past the gate agent while she was scanning someone else’s ticket. Maybe she didn’t even notice.”

“It’s possible, I suppose...” Ann Margaret looks away, and she doesn’t bother to conceal her doubt. She doesn’t ask the most obvious question, either—why would anyone turn around and leave? If she did, I’d tell her because it was the wrong flight, headed in the wrong direction. “Perhaps you’d like to speak with someone?”

Now we’re talking. I’m already nodding, assuming she’s referring to her boss or, better yet, the head of security for Hartsfield.

“Religious or secular? We have Red Cross grief counselors on hand, as well as clerics of every major religion. Which would you prefer?”

Irritation surges up my chest, lurching me forward in my chair. “I don’t need to talk to a psychologist. I am a psychologist. What I need is for someone to tell me where my husband is.”