The Seat Beside Me (13 page)

“You said original survivors. Have some of them died?”

“The grapevine says two, but we haven’t been told any details yet.”

“Anything going on back at the river?”

“We have a crew there,” Jon said. “The rescuers set up searchlights, but the ice is refreezing around the wreckage. And the truth is, there isn’t anyone else to search for. They’ve called it off.” He tapped his list. “This is all there is. Was. Seven survivors, and only five of those are left.”

“Out of how many on the plane?”

“Ninety-five.”

“Anyone hurt in the parking garage?”

“No one. I expect some people will find their cars demolished like a pop can in a can smasher, but no one was hurt.”

“That’s a miracle.”

He nodded.

“And the name of the hero?”

“No one knows.”

Dora scanned the room. “I’ve got to find out. I’ve got to. I watched him.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she angrily flicked them away. “It’s just not fa—”

“Hey! Anybody!”

All eyes turned to the area in front of the entrance. An elderly man in a navy parka pulled a chair across the floor and, with the assistance of those around him, stood on it.

“What is he doing?” Jon whispered.

Dora had no idea.

The man extended his arms and called over the heads of the media. “Does anyone know the names of the survivors? My son, Cameron Smiley, was on that plane and.” As his voice faltered, so did his legs. He was helped to the floor where he sank onto the chair, his head in his hands. News people surrounded him, offering their lists.

“Poor—”

There was a sudden wail as he learned his son was not among the living. It sliced through whatever professional restraint Dora had left. “Oh dear, oh my. Excuse—” She ran out of the gaggle of reporters and took refuge in a rest room. It was blessedly empty. She slammed the door of a stall and locked it, leaning her head against the cool metal. How could she detach herself from the pain of over ninety families, each with stories of loss and devastation? How?

The door to the rest room swung open, and Dora heard the scramble of another woman dashing for solace. The door to the next stall slammed shut. Dora heard sobs much like her own. A comrade in pain.

She touched the shared wall between them. “It’s so sad,” Dora offered.

“Huh?”

“Covering this crash … the people … It’s so sad.”

“Wrenching,” the other woman said.

“To witness such pain.”

“It rips me apart.”

“It hurts.”

The woman answered with her cries. Dora joined her.

When traffic finally started to move, it was dark, and David heard on the radio that the search had been called off. All survivors—and there were reportedly five—had been taken to Mercy Hospital. Was
Tina there? David didn’t know. And the radio hadn’t released any names.

At the first exit, he turned off the highway and headed to the hospital via side streets. They’d mentioned four women, a child, and two men.
Please let one of them be Tina
.

The hospital parking lot was jammed, so David double-parked and ran into the building. A group of media people filled the lobby, but David rushed by them to the front desk.

“My girlfriend? She was on Flight 1382. I need to know if she’s one of the survivors.”

The older woman bit her lip and looked at a very short list. “What’s her name?”

“Tina McKutcheon.”

Suddenly she beamed and held the list so he could see it. “She’s here! She’s alive.”

Some reporters overheard and peppered him with questions. “You know one of the survivors?”

“Who are you? What’s your relationship?”

“Tell us—”

David leaned toward the woman. “Can I see her?”

“No, I’m sorry. They’re not allowing any visitors right now, but soon only immediate family, though as yet there haven’t been any immedi—”

“But I’m her fiancé.”

She looked at him as if she were very aware that he had just upped his status. Let her think what she wanted; he had to see Tina.

“Truly, sir, they aren’t allowing anyone in to see them, but you could go up to six and wait—”

David didn’t have to be told twice.

David went to the nurses’ station on the sixth floor and realized he’d have to be even more assertive to break through their wall
of protection around the survivors.

A redhead looked up from her computer. “Yes?”

“I’m Tina McKutcheon’s husband. She’s one of the sur—”

The nurse eyed him warily. “Mr. McKutcheon, is it?”

David had lied once but found this eyeball-to-eyeball scenario more difficult—but not impossible. “Yes. May I see her? Please?”

“I’m afraid not. Your wife needs a little more time before she can accept visitors. We want her condition stabilized. We’re administering warm oxygen to try to slowly raise her body temperature.”

“But how’s she doing? Is she going to be all right?”

The nurse patted his hand. “Yes, she will. She’s proven herself to be quite a survivor.” She pointed to a room across from the nurses’ station. “You can wait if you like. We’ve set up a special room for the patients’ families.”

David went inside. A television blared to the empty room. News of the crash assaulted him. He turned it off and sat in the opposite corner. To wait. To pray. And to give thanks for Tina’s life.

George opened his eyes.

I’m alive
.

Those were two simple words that voiced the ultimate declaration.
I think, therefore I am
. If only it were so simple.

The thing was, he shouldn’t have been alive. Not when he’d wanted to be dead. There were so many dead who wanted to stay alive.

Sorry, Irma, I’ll be a little late
.

He closed his eyes but quickly opened them when memories of the crash filled the dark. He did a quick inventory of his body. To say he felt as if a truck had hit him was a comparison that was totally lacking creativity. A truck? Try a plane slamming into ice. Try waking up under water, still strapped to your seat. Try being in water so cold it nearly made your heart stop as it fluttered as fast as your shivers.

He moved his arms. Sore, but all right. He moved his legs and felt a sharp surge of pain.
The left one is broken
. He remembered kicking toward the surface and acknowledging that fact, yet dismissing it as irrelevant to that particular moment. Who cared about a broken leg when lungs were bursting from lack of air?

He allowed himself a quick scan of the horrible events, testing his memories to see what he could handle. Speeding down the runway, the plane shook like a carton of chocolate milk being made ready for pouring. It felt … heavy. They rolled on forever, never going quite fast enough. He remembered thinking that perhaps the pilot was considering aborting the takeoff. It was just a feeling, as if he’d sensed a moment’s hesitation on the part of those in charge, like the scene in Hitchcock’s
Vertigo
when the police were leaping from rooftop to rooftop. They’d take a run at it, relying completely on faith, luck, and speed. Yet there was always that moment of hesitancy at the edge of the abyss where they’d have to make a split-second decision to pull up or fly. If they let that hesitancy take over for a moment past its allotted time, the danger was that they wouldn’t have the speed to make the jump even if they wanted to. It was that kind of decision-moment on the plane. “Do we go for it? Or back off?”

Obviously a wrong decision had been made.

George remembered taking Henry’s and the widow’s hands and praying just as the tail section hit, only to have their prayers answered with the terrible sound of tearing metal, scraping, fractures, screams, cries.

George whipped his head toward the other bed in the room. It was empty. After a disaster shouldn’t the hospital be crammed with casualties?

Maybe you’re the only one, George. Maybe God let you live, and the rest are gone. Wouldn’t that be a horrible joke? Let the suicidal man be the lone survivor?

George closed his eyes against the sting of tears.
God, no. Don’t let me be the only one
.

Get this thing off me. I can’t breathe!
Merry shuddered out of her dream as if she were shrugging off a wool coat on a hot day.

She left Justin and Lou behind, their arms outstretched, reaching for her, calling to her. Yet they were too far away. She couldn’t reach—

The dream was so vivid, it took her a moment to focus on reality. She was in a bed, but not her own. There was a TV on a high shelf attached to the wall. Soft whispers filtered in from outside.

“… she doesn’t know. And the doctor doesn’t think we should—”

A nurse peeked in the door, then seeing her awake, came in. “Well, well. This is good. After what you’ve been through, we expected quite a sleep.”

What I’ve been through?

Suddenly the dream was real. Merry bolted upright, her body screaming at the effort.

The nurse rushed to her side. “Hey now, slow down a bit. Take it easy.”

Merry shook her head, searching the room. “Justin! Where is he? How is he? And where is my husband?”

“Now, now …”

“My husband. My baby. Where are they?”

The nurse pressed a call button with one hand while restraining Merry with the other. “You need to rest. There’s plenty of time for—”

Merry shook the nurse’s hand away, not caring about the jolt of pain that wracked her body with the sudden movement. “Where’s my family?”

The nurse glanced toward the door, her hands trying to pat Merry’s concern away. But when Merry caught the panic in her eyes, she knew the answer to her question.
No. It can’t be. It can’t
.

Another nurse rushed in, her face assessing the situation in a glance.

“She wants to know where her husband and son are,” said the first nurse.

The new nurse nodded and put her hands firmly on Merry’s shoulders. Then she looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cavanaugh, but your husband was not one of the survivors. And your son. I’m afraid he never regained consciousness. He passed away a half hour ago.”

Merry stared at the nurses, and the nurses stared at her, waiting.

Then Merry took the deepest breath she could manage, tapping into each vein to find every vestige of air left in her body. Then she hurled it out of her mouth, melding it into a wail that emptied her heart.

The nurses backed away, unwilling witnesses to the death of a wife and mother.

Sonja smelled the starch of fresh linen. She loved when Mom changed the sheets. But she hated her mother’s choice of music. Elevator music.

Sonja opened her eyes and pulled her hands to her face to rub the sleep away. One forearm was in a cast.

What?

This didn’t make any sense. The last thing she remembered was getting coffee at the airport, calling her parents, and—

A sudden rush of images flashed. The concerned eyes of Roscoe Moore in the seat beside her, the ice on the wings, the way the seat in front of her shook as if they were on an old-fashioned roller coaster. The sight of her own hand bracing against that seat as the plane changed from straining up to falling down. Dark water. Light. The tail section. Ice. A man. A lifeline. The interior light of an ambulance, its siren wailing.

We crashed. But I’m safe. I’m alive
.

She shivered at the memories and remembered being so cold that it was impossible to shiver, as if the shivers were so intense they turned into a constant state that became the norm.

But crashing wasn’t the norm. Being in the water wasn’t the norm. Being dragged through the air by a helicopter wasn’t the norm. She closed her eyes and remembered voices intersecting and a company of hands grabbing her from the air, her desperate body absorbing the meager warmth of their closeness, drawing it to herself. The pain was secondary.

She remembered screaming for help, and then eventually a calm voice—with its accompanying warm breath—spoken directly in her ear, “You’re safe now. We’ve got you.”

That was the last thing she remembered. Until now.

But where were the others from the water? And where was her seatmate? Where was Roscoe?

She remembered the intensity of his eyes and his small smile as the plane struggled for the sky. A smile of comfort—and even acceptance—as if everything would be all right, no matter what happened. But it wasn’t all right. She grabbed his hand and together they braced the armrests, urging, imploring, beseeching the plane to climb, as if the tension of their muscles would add power to the plane.

But suddenly climbing was not an option. Nor was landing. Like a cartoon character jumping off a cliff and running a few steps in midair, the plane hung for a moment between up and down, success and failure, rise and fall. And then the shell of the plane cracked open like an egg, and the front fell away to reveal sky. Then Roscoe fell away, his hand ripped from hers.

“No!”

A nurse popped her head in and took one look at Sonja. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Roscoe was dead. That good, good man … dead.

She tried to remember the other survivors huddled around the tail. Roscoe wasn’t one of them. How could he be beside her one minute and gone the next? Their seats had been attached, their hands touching. They had been connected, then torn—