After Anna(26)

‘Here we go.’ Anna sat on her bed, and the movie credits started, playing the thumpa-thumpa theme music.

‘Turn it up, girl! You need the full effect.’

‘For real?’ Anna glanced back, shyly.

‘Yes, crank that thing!’

‘Ha!’ Anna did, moderately, then lay back in her pillows and pointed at the dotted-Swiss canopy. ‘Those dots are like stars in a white sky. Or snow in a storm.’

Maggie looked up, thinking Anna was right. ‘That’s poetic. Do you like poetry?’

‘Yes. Do you?’

‘Yes, but I don’t always understand it.’

‘Me neither, but I write it anyway. I tried to get on The Zephyr, that’s the poetry magazine at Congreve, but I didn’t make it. I showed some of my poems to Ellen.’

‘I’d love to see them, someday.’

‘Okay, oh, we’re missing the movie.’ Anna shifted up in bed, watching the TV, and Maggie looked over at the screen, an aerial battle between fighter jets. Suddenly she remembered that Top Gun was a movie about a pilot and one of the pilots died. She kicked herself, wondering how Anna would react to the movie, given Florian’s death.

‘Anna, maybe we should watch a love story or something.’

‘No, this is so cool,’ Anna shot back, riveted to the screen. ‘Who are the bad guys they’re shooting at?’

‘It’s about a jet-fighter school. They’re exercises.’ Maggie shifted up in the pillows, worrying. Anna was biting her nails, engrossed by the aerial battle in which a pilot named Cougar had a panic attack.

‘Way to go, Maverick!’

‘Tom saves the day.’ Maggie got more nervous as the next scene came on, Maverick getting chewed out with his partner Goose, the pilot who died.

‘I get it. He wants to be number one. Because testosterone.’

Maggie kept her eye on Goose. ‘Anna, I’m still wondering if we should watch a different movie. This has sad parts. It’s a movie about pilots.’

Anna looked over, getting the message. ‘I’ll be okay. I’m not a little kid.’

‘Okay, good,’ Maggie said, but she worried as the movie progressed, one iconic scene after the next. Room service arrived, filling the air with the delicious aromas of tomato and mozzarella, but Anna never took her eyes from the screen as she set her tray on the bed.

‘Jester seems like a jerk.’ Anna sipped her soda, and another aerial battle came on.

‘He is.’ Maggie took a bite of her eggplant parm. Anna seemed to be having fun, giggling when the scene changed to beach volleyball.

‘These guys have sick bodies!’ Anna ate hungrily, and so did Maggie, and they both finished their meals, wisecracking through the movie, then falling uncomfortably silent when the love scene came on. Maggie couldn’t believe how dumb she had been to pick a movie with sex and death for her first night with her daughter. The scene finished, then inevitably, the fatal aerial battle filled the screen.

‘Oh no.’ Anna watched the fighter jet whirl in the sky, corkscrewing downward, losing altitude. The scene was so realistic that even Maggie imagined Florian during his crash, wondering what his last moments had been like as their plane hurtled toward earth.

‘Oh no!’ Anna gasped as Goose ejected, then limp and lifeless, parachuted down toward the sea. Anna turned to Maggie, stricken. Her lips parted, and her blue eyes brimmed.

‘Anna, I’m so sorry.’ Maggie got up quickly, went to Anna, and hugged her as she burst into tears.

‘I know . . . it’s only a movie . . . but . . .’

‘It’s okay, honey,’ Maggie said, holding Anna close and rubbing her back as sobs wracked her body. Maggie could feel all of Anna’s sorrow as the girl cried hard, and Maggie made a vow that she’d never let Anna go again.

No matter what.





Chapter Seventeen


Noah, After

TRIAL, DAY 5

Noah’s gaze swept the gallery, but Maggie still hadn’t appeared. He felt relieved that she would be spared his testimony.

Linda stood in front of the witness stand, her legs planted like a human sawhorse. ‘Dr Alderman, let’s return to the night Anna was murdered. You testified on direct that you left work at 6:30 P.M., did you not?’

‘Yes.’

‘You drove directly to the gym, did you not?’

‘Yes.’

‘It took you approximately twenty minutes to get to the gym, isn’t that correct?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘You had your cell phone with you, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t have any phone conversations on the way to the gym, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Did you attempt to have any telephone conversations on the way to the gym?’

‘Yes, I attempted to call my wife. Rather, I called her, attempting to speak with her.’

Linda smiled slightly. ‘You’re a precise man, aren’t you?’

Noah assumed the question was rhetorical. He was a precise man, as a pediatric allergist. He didn’t know anybody who wanted a careless doctor.

‘But your wife didn’t answer your call, did she, Dr Alderman?’