The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(5)

“Yeah, but—”

“Pleeeease …”

“Ohh … kay.” Paulo squeezed his eyes shut, then popped them open. “Yes!”

Annie grabbed the phone. Her last call before dying began with, “Hi, are you flying today?”



Five hours left. Wearing light jackets against the morning chill, Annie and Paulo held hands near a large passenger basket in the middle of a grassy field. It all seemed so serendipitous: a business card, a phone call, a pilot named Teddy, a launching spot not far from their hotel. What a wonderful future story to tell, Annie thought. A wedding night that ended in the clouds.

A small crew ran propane burners to heat the air inside the balloon. Within minutes, it began to rise, like a yawning giant waking from its sleep. As the envelope filled to a massive pear-like form, Annie and Paulo leaned easily into each other, marveling at this silent airship that would lift them to the skies.

At that moment, they could not have known certain things: that Teddy was only a novice pilot, eager to prove himself; that he had agreed to take them up, despite a less-than-perfect weather report, because they were newlyweds; that newlyweds were a lucrative type of customer in the balloon world; that Teddy figured if these newlyweds told other newlyweds, it could be good for business.

And good for business was good for him.

“Ready to depart?” Teddy said.

He ushered Annie and Paulo into the basket. He shut the door behind them and, with the cables detached, let loose a stream of fire from the burner.

The balloon lifted from the ground.



“Oh, my God,” Annie marveled forty minutes later, as they glided over vast, empty pastures. “This is unbelievable.”

Paulo gripped the basket railing. “Why do people say ‘unbelievable’ about something that just happened? Wouldn’t that make it believable?”

Annie grinned. “OK, genius.”

“I’m just saying—”

A sudden gust hit the balloon, veering it sharply westward.

“Whoa,” said Teddy.

“Whoa?” said Paulo.

“It’s nothing,” Teddy answered, eyeing the clouds. “Winds are kicking up. I’m gonna take it down a bit.”

He pulled a valve, cutting the hot air, causing them to descend. A few minutes later, with the skies darkening, another strong gust pushed them farther west. Annie noticed they were getting closer to a thicket of trees.

“Can a person technically steer a balloon?” Paulo asked. “I’m not being critical or anything—”

“Just up and down,” Teddy said, his hand on the propane burner. “We’re fine. Don’t worry.”

They continued drifting in a westward direction. The winds increased. The clouds thickened. Teddy opened a hatch, allowing hot air to escape and the balloon to go even lower, hoping to avoid the gusts. A more experienced pilot would know that doing this could increase the risk of collision with the treetops, and staying high might be the safer, if rockier, course of action. But the more experienced pilot was Tolbert, who, at that moment, was at an auto repair shop, getting a new tire.

Suddenly the trees were very close. “It’s all right, no biggie,” Teddy said, “but you might want to get down, in case we scrape a branch.”

Then, as the woods drew closer, his voice intensified. “OK, get down!”

Annie and Paulo dropped inside the basket. The bottom half of the balloon smacked into high branches and the passengers were jolted to the side.

“Stay down!” Teddy yelled again. “I’m gonna land us!” He pulled the hatch even more, which caused a loud hissing sound. Looking up from her crouch, Annie glimpsed something dark and horizontal through the thick display of leaves.

Power lines.

The balloon made contact and pushed one line into another. Annie heard a sizzle. She saw a blinding flash. Sparks exploded and Teddy’s knees buckled. He hollered, “Jesus!” and the basket dropped rapidly. Annie yelled and Paulo yelled and then everything was flipping and Annie couldn’t get a straight view, trees, sky, floor, an arm, a rope, sky, shoes, fire.

They blew sideways and the basket smacked the earth, tossing the three passengers across its bottom. Annie saw flames, sky, ropes, Paulo, her elbow, blue jeans, sky, then Teddy disappeared over the side rail and the balloon began to lift again, hot air from the propane fire causing it to rise.

Suddenly, she felt Paulo’s arms hard around her ribs. “Jump, Annie!” he yelled. She saw his face for an instant, but before she could say his name, he threw her from the basket and she was falling in the air, falling and then—bang!—she hit the ground, back first.

Her vision turned to stars, a million tiny lights blocking out the sun. When she finally refocused, she watched in horror as the balloon exploded in flames, and a figure dropped towards her, growing larger as it descended, arms flailing wildly.

Then Paulo, her new husband, thudded to earth.

Annie screamed.



In the dizzying hour that followed, one sentence clung to her like an anchor: This is my fault. Through the ambulance, the sirens, the gurney, the medics, the hospital, the emergency room, the doors that flew apart with a slam of a metal panel, that sentence would not let her go. This is my fault. Through the scrambling bodies and the beeping machines and her Uncle Dennis, in surgery scrubs, hugging her tightly as Annie’s tears left a wet spot on the pale green fabric.