The Seat Beside Me (39 page)

He’d think about it.

All done. Though it had taken some doing, George had gotten ahold of his surprise guest, had spoken to Merry and Tina about the reunion, and had left a message for Sonja Grafton and Anthony
Thorgood. According to the papers, the latter three were having job troubles. Not a fun thing to come back to after surviving a plane crash. Or had their troubles developed because of the plane crash? Being a survivor was hard work.

The doorbell rang, and though George knew there was a chance it was a reporter, he didn’t feel like gathering his crutches to use the peephole. “Enter at your own risk!”

Suzy poked her head in the door. “You always answer the door like that?”

“Don’t complain.” He noticed she carried a suitcase. A discolored, dented, banged up—“Hey, that’s mine. Where did you get it?”

“I just came to check on you and found it on the porch. There’s a tag on it from the airlines. They must have had it delivered.” Suzy set it on the kitchen table. “It looks like you held up better than your baggage.”

“I have a longer warranty.”

“Let’s see how the contents fared.”

She started to open it, and then George remembered. “Don’t open—”

Too late. Suzy stared at the jumble of clothes. Irma’s clothes. Irma’s under things. They were stained and covered with mildew but still recognizable. Suzy looked at her father. “What’s this?”

George grabbed a newspaper and hid behind it. “Looks like clothes to me.”

“Women’s clothes.”

George peeked over the top of the paper. “Well, I’ll be.”

Suzy checked the tag on the handle. “Dad, this is your suitcase. You said as much. But why is it full of women’s clothing? Are these Mom’s?” She cautiously rummaged through the contents. “And here’s Mom’s picture. It’s damaged but—”

George was out of his chair, grabbing the picture before he realized he’d left his crutches behind. “Give me that!” The glass was broken, and Irma’s face was warped and stained.
My favorite picture. Ruined
.

To his horror, he watched as Suzy plucked a prescription bottle from between the soiled clothes.

“Hey, I’ll take that—”

She pulled it out of his reach and strained to read the label. But George’s hope that it was obliterated was dashed when she said, “Are these sleeping pills? Dad, what’s going on?”

George pulled Irma’s picture to his chest and returned to his chair. It was time for the truth. “I wasn’t going to Phoenix for a vacation.”

“That doesn’t explain the lack of your clothes or—”

“The suitcase needed to feel full.”

“Why?”

“So you wouldn’t suspect anything.”

Suzy swallowed and fingered the prescription bottle. “Suspect what, Dad?”

George put Irma’s picture on the table and looked his daughter full in the eyes. “So you wouldn’t suspect I was traveling to Phoenix to kill myself.”

Suzy nearly missed the chair. “What? Why?”

George looked at Irma’s picture. “I miss her.”

“So do I, but …”

“She was my wife.”

“She was my mother.”

“It’s different.”

George was glad Suzy didn’t try to argue that one. She looked at the floor. “But Phoenix … Why Phoenix?”

George shrugged. “Why not Phoenix? I didn’t want to do it here, in the home we shared. I didn’t want you to find me.”

Suzy sprang from her chair and drilled the prescription into the jumble of her mother’s clothes. “But you
were
willing to have me go on without you?”

“It couldn’t be helped.”
Lame, George, very—

Suzy began to pace. “How could you even think of doing that
to me? I’ve already lost Mom, and you didn’t think anything about having me lose you too?”

“You’re a strong woman.”

Suzy stopped pacing, and her finger jutted toward George’s face. “That is a totally unacceptable answer.”

It was. George knew it.

“You were only thinking of yourself.”

“Probably.”

“You—” Her eyes lit up with understanding. “That’s why your will and insurance papers were out. So I could find them after—” She shook her head. “You thought of details like that, but not about my feelings? My pain?”

George had no defense. How had it seemed so logical at the time? How had it ever seemed like the right thing to do? The only thing? “I don’t—”

Suzy started to cry, the grown-up quiver of her chin reminding him of Suzy, his little girl. “How … how could you deprive our child of a grandfather?”

“What?”

Suzy’s chin stopped its quiver. “I’m pregnant. Stan and I are going to have a baby.”

George sucked in one breath, then had to try again when there still wasn’t enough air. “A grandbaby?”

Suzy nodded. “Who needs a grandpa.”

George held out a hand and used his daughter’s strength to stand. They hugged tightly. “I’m so sorry, Suzy. So sorry.”

Suzy pulled back to look her father in the face. “You’re not still thinking …?”

“No, no. Not anymore. God saved me for a reason. I just need to find out what.” He put a hand to his mouth.

“What it is. Now you know.”

George laughed and kissed his daughter’s forehead. “Now I know.”

“Grandpa George.”

Music to his ears.

George set Irma’s battered picture on the bedside table where it belonged. He’d have to dig out a fresh one, but for now, this would do. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her.

“We’re going to be grandparents, deary. What do you think of that?”

She didn’t answer. And she wouldn’t. She would never hold a grandchild in her arms or make them cookies or take them to the park.

But he couldn’t think of that. He
was
here. He was alive. And he could do all those things—except maybe the cookie part. Yet even though he’d never baked a thing in his life, he could certainly buy them cookies, and popcorn at a movie, and corn dogs at a ball game, and cotton candy at the circus.

“I’ll do it up right for both of us, Irma. I’m going to be the best granddaddy. But you’re going to have to be patient with me up there. It appears God doesn’t want me to join you just yet, and this time I don’t plan on hurrying things along.” Her faded smile seemed to brighten as if she approved.

And then he knew. It would be all right. Everything would be all right.

Dora Roberts dialed Sonja’s number—for the third time.
She has to know I had nothing to do with her job troubles becoming public knowledge. She has to know I kept her confidence. She has to know I’m her fr—

The answering machine picked up. Again. Dora hesitated. She really wanted to tell her in person, but Sonja obviously wasn’t home. Or wasn’t answering.

How can I blame her?

The beep sounded. This time, Dora didn’t hang up but left the message.

At the moment, it was all she could do.

Or was it?

She sat there with the phone in her hand. The poor survivors had endured so much. And now the world was making a mockery of their ordeal, gnawing at their troubles like piranhas devouring ripe flesh.

And what had she done to help any of them? Listen for a few short minutes? Nod her head and mention God in passing? Their survival, and the means by which it had occurred, was about so much more than merely breathing and moving on. It was about choices and consequences and possibilities.

Choices? No, that wasn’t exactly true. Although each of them was facing choices now—in the crash’s aftermath—none of the survivors had made a choice to live or die. Only one man had been given that choice. One man.

Dora looked at her computer, which was calling to her from across the room. It was time. It was time to write about the hero.

Sonja unlocked her front door and noticed that someone had stuck a copy of the
Probe
under her mat. She didn’t subscribe to that rag. Who would have—?

She flipped it open to the front page and saw the headlines: “Crash Survivor Attempts Suicide.” She began reading as she went inside, dropping her carry-on to the floor. She kicked the door shut.

She sat at the kitchen table and read the article.
Poor woman
. Then she noticed another article: “Survivor Fired Due to Misconduct.”

Her stomach threatened to do something nasty.
No. This can’t be about me. It can’t
.

But it was.

Sonja bolted from the chair toward the phone. To think she’d counted Dora Roberts as her friend.

The message light blinked. She had two messages. The first one was from a George Davanos inviting her to a reunion of the survivors. She wasn’t sure about that. Getting together to commiserate? But the second message caught her attention. It was from Dora assuring her that she hadn’t leaked the story about her dismissal.

Then who had? And who left the paper on her front step, guaranteeing she’d see—

Geraldine
.

Sonja tossed the paper in the trash. Phoenix was looking better and better.

Sixteen

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the L
ORD
.
P
SALM
31:24

D
ora hit Ctrl-P, then Enter. Her printer came to life. She looked at her computer screen with a satisfaction she hadn’t felt in months. Or years. She’d just completed her essay about the hero. It wasn’t full of facts about Henry Smith or even heavy in facts about the crash. It was about all the heroes of the world like Henry—ordinary people who, once put in extreme circumstances, became extraordinary. It was very, very good.

She’d spent the previous evening and the entire day working on it in between her assigned articles for the
Chronicle
, in between stupid stuff about the new bus lines and a threatened construction strike. But even when she was working on other stories, her mind was really on Henry Smith.

But now … she felt a sudden need to share her essay. And not with her boss. It was a long shot that Clyde would ever print it, and she didn’t want that reality to squelch the euphoria of the moment. No, she needed the response of a person who would understand. Who cared. Who—

George Davanos. Henry’s seatmate
.

She grabbed a phone book and wrote down the address.

She pulled the pages from the printer.

George had spent the day cleaning for the reunion. Although he had a cleaning lady who used to come in once every two weeks, he
didn’t call for her services lest she leak the news that the survivors were meeting. If the media found out afterward, or even during their gathering, so be it. He’d leave it up to each individual to talk or not talk.

Yet he wasn’t keeping the media at bay for his comrades, but for their surprise guest. He even sent Suzy to the hotel where Ellen had been staying because he knew that his own presence might draw attention. He understood that an anonymous life was a thing of the past—until the next headline got the spotlight.

Suzy was late. The other guests would be here any minute. George checked the coffeepot: brewed and ready. He had a Caesar salad and bread delivered from a grocery store, and he even resurrected Irma’s china from the hutch and polished the sterling forks. Merry said she’d bring a pan of lasagna and a cake. There was a two-liter bottle of Sprite for those noncoffee drinkers, and napkins, sugar, and milk for the coffee—they’d have to make do without cream.

Irma would have been so proud.

He heard a car in the drive and hobbled to the window. A pretty woman got out. He’d seen her before and tried to place—

The reporter! What did she want?

He hurried to the door to head her off and get her gone before the others arrived. He opened the door to find her hand reaching for the bell.

“Mr. Davanos?”

“If you’ve seen the news today, you’ll understand when I say I’m not interested in talking to the press—though that hasn’t stopped you from printing lies.”

“I haven’t printed anything, Mr. Davanos. You told me the name of the hero long before it came out, and I kept your confidence. The
Probe
is your problem. Not me. I’m not one of those … 
others
.”

She was telling the truth and he reconsidered. Perhaps he’d
been unfair. He looked down the street. There were no cars.

“May I come in? It’s cold out here.”

It was stupid having the conversation in an open doorway. “If you must. But I just have a few minutes.” Good reporter or no-good reporter, he didn’t dare say he was waiting for the other survivors to arrive—or their special guest.

She came in, and he closed the door but did not invite her to sit. “So what is it? Why did you come over here to my home?”

She handed him some papers. “I’d like you to read this.”

“What is it?”

“Something I wrote about Henry Smith—about all of you actually.”

George read the first line:
No one plans to be a hero
. Not bad. He read the first paragraph and was hooked. He looked up at her. “This is wonderful.”

She blushed. “Thank you.”

He read more, his eyes rushing over the words like a starving man being fed. His eyes filled with tears. He felt a sob in his throat and looked up. “Wow.”

She had tears in her own eyes and nodded. “It’s what I feel.”

“You’re
not
one of them.”

She shook her head.

He made an instant decision. “Come sit down.” He looked at her name printed on the front page. “Dora Roberts, welcome. Have I got a surprise for you.”

Dora listened to George. She couldn’t believe her luck. Coming over to his house on the very day, the very hour that the survivors were coming? And as for their surprise? But then she realized it was too awesome to be luck. It was God’s doing.

“I feel very honored you’re letting me stay.”

“No problem,” said George, moving to the front window and
pulling the curtain aside. “You’ve earned it. I want all of them to hear what you’ve written.”

“Hear?”

“I want you to read it to them.”

Dora’s stomach clenched. Writing was one thing. Performing another. “I’m not sure I can—”

“Of course you can. And they need to hear it. Case closed.”