Falling(47)

“C’mon, bud. We gotta go,” Bill said. “She’s here.”

Three floors later, Bill knocked softly on the door, opening it to let Scott walk in first. Carrie lay in the bed cradling a wriggling pink blanket. Her swollen face lit up when they entered, her eyes nearly disappearing in a joyous smile.

“There’s my men,” she said, her voice weak and raw. “Now I’m okay.”

It took everything Bill had to not run to his girl and take her safe in his arms. The labor had been long and hard and when the baby’s blood pressure dropped, Bill was kicked out of the room as they rolled Carrie into surgery. He watched, helpless, open-handed, as the doctors flanked her bed, running along the corridor with her, disappearing down another hallway. Bill was left alone with nothing to do but wait and console Scott.

“You are so incredible,” he whispered to her. “You did this, Carrie. Look.”

Baby Elise, pink-faced and perfect, stretched her arms out. Her mouth opened in a yawn with a tiny noise, almost a kitten’s mew, escaping her puckered lips.

Scott stared at the newborn, wide-eyed, and the stuffed animal he and Bill had bought in the gift shop dropped to the floor. Sticking out one little-boy finger, he touched her cheek.

“She’s so small,” he whispered.

Bill helped him into the bed beside his mom and Carrie gently passed Elise to him; two hands, support her head. Scott stared into his sister’s eyes and she into his, and somehow, an understanding was met between them. Bill didn’t know the message, but he understood the messenger as the same that visited him the first time Scott was placed in his arms.

There was everything before that moment, and then everything after. The paradigm shift was supernatural.

“I’m going to teach you all about trains,” Scott whispered to his baby sister. “And baseball too.”



* * *



“Buddy,” said Bill, his cheeks quivering. “That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say in my whole life.” He desperately tried not to cry, to be half as brave as his son was being. “You just stay with Elise, okay? She needs her big brother right now. Just take care of our baby girl, okay?”

Bill watched Carrie lean over and kiss the top of their son’s head, tears falling onto his mop of hair, that cowlick stubborn, even now. Carrie and Scott glanced up in tandem again, watching something out in front of them, just like they had before.

Bill’s jaw dropped. He recovered quickly.

Placing his elbows in front of the computer, Bill buried his head in his hands. He looked like a defeated man in a pose of frustration—but the new position situated his ear closer to the speaker, where, with eyes closed, he homed in on the silence coming from the machine, listening for confirmation of what he suspected.

There! There it was. The background noise changed, ever so slightly, the far-off rumble of a jet engine growing fainter with each moment.

They were watching planes take off. They were near the airport.

Ben tapped the gun impatiently on the dash, the noise making Bill jump. He dropped his hand out of sight and began tapping Morse with the button on his hand mic as fast as he could.

Ben interrupted Bill’s concentration. “It’s just about time to throw the canister,” he said.

“I’m not throwing anyth—”

Sam held up the detonator. “So that’s your choice? The plane lives?”

“No,” Bill said quickly, reaching for his laptop as though he could touch his family. “No. That’s not my choice.”

“If you don’t throw the canister, that is your choice,” Sam said.

Bill’s jaw hung open, trying to find words besides the ones he knew he had to say.

Ben extended the gun. Sam adjusted his grip on the detonator.

“Okay,” Bill said. “I’ll do it.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


JO STOOD AT THE FRONT of the plane, looking over her squad of volunteers. The tall man reclined with his eyes closed, head back against the seat. Jo wondered how he could possibly sleep at a time like this. Everything about him seemed odd. According to the manifest, his name was Josip Guruli, and Kellie’s online search of the name had come up empty. They had no reason to distrust him besides a gut feeling. But today, that carried weight.

She watched Daddy briefing the over-wing emergency exit row passengers, making sure they understood how the doors worked and where they should position themselves during the evacuation. His firm hand assigned roles with a confident authority: you and you—stay at the bottom of the slide and help people off. You—run away from the plane and call people to you. Heads nodded up and down.

Pulling a tray of small water bottles out of her galley, Jo passed them to her six new recruits while watching a younger female passenger squeeze past Big Daddy on her way to the back. Now where was she going? Jo shook her head, frustrated that everyone was suddenly guilty until proven innocent. It went against her typical view of humanity.

“Take off your ties,” she said in passing to the two young businessmen who were now in the aisle seats of row one. “Choking hazard.” The young men complied.

Water distributed, she resecured the empty carrier before ducking behind the galley curtain to check her phone. Nothing new from Theo. She pocketed her phone and grabbed her supplies before stepping out of the galley and addressing her volunteers.