Wreckage (9 page)

“Um, the next series of questions on my list are all about survival. Have you ever noticed everyone seems to find that part fascinating? Genevieve is going to be a little disappointed, though, because I wasn’t as involved in all of that. It was more a Dave and Kent thing. I was the gatherer and the men the hunters—so very sexist of us.”

“I think the feminist movement will forgive you this one time.”

“We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of letters saying otherwise. Everyone seems to have an opinion on everything, not that I care. Anyway . . .” she faltered, pulling in closer, tucking her hands, suddenly cold, under his body. “Then we’re gonna talk about everyone: Margaret, David, Kent, and then . . . Paul.”

She whispered the last name, like a secret. Jerry’s jaw went taut against the crown of her head. Lillian was glad she wasn’t looking at him.

“I’m sure Genevieve Randall will enjoy that thoroughly.” He sounded furious but Lillian couldn’t tell at whom. “Maybe I’ll come down for the last bit, when you get rescued. After the part with, well, you know.” The words cut, and even though they were lying in each other’s arms, at that moment it felt like they were still thousands of miles apart.

“You know what Jer? Don’t come. It’s fine. If it’s gonna be that big a deal, I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“God. You know that part of the story is hard for me. I can’t hear it again.”

Lillian pushed off of Jerry’s chest, bolting upright. “Oh, well, I’m sorry it’s hard for you, Jerry, goodness knows we wouldn’t want to make
you
uncomfortable. I think you forget it’s not some
story
to me. It’s my life.”

Jerry lifted up on one elbow. “Come on, can you blame me? The way you talk about him. How much you loved him. How can I not be jealous?”

“I don’t know. I get you being jealous of David, really I do—he’s a plane flight away in California. But Paul? Paul is gone, Jer, what’s there to be jealous of?”

Jerry found an excuse to pick at one of the dark blue buttons on his jacket. “Damn right I’m jealous of
David
, that man is clearly in love with you. But I can stand it because at least you picked me over him. When you made it home you could’ve been with Dave. God knows even to this day he’d leave poor Beth in an instant if you asked him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, you trying to deny it is ridiculous. You don’t see what I do so claiming otherwise makes you seem naive.” He sounded like he was in a courtroom. His condescension incensed Lillian.

“Me naive? How about ‘poor Beth’? How naive can you be? If you knew what I know about that woman, you wouldn’t feel so badly for her.” She slapped at the cream-colored duvet cover.

“Please, explain. I’m all ears because, you know what? That little display,” he pointed at her with a trembling index finger, “sounded more to me like a jealous lover than a concerned friend.”

“No, it’s nothing.” She waved her hands in surrender. “Never mind, please. I don’t want to go through this whole Dave thing with you again.”

His forehead creased as he searched her face. Lillian could only guess what he hoped to find written there. She held her head up high as if she had nothing to hide. Then she saw that his normally flinty eyes were wet and filled with uncertainty. It wasn’t often she saw self-doubt in this naturally self-assured man. The button Jerry was fussing with fell onto the bedspread. He picked it up with the kind of sadness reserved for the loss of something substantial, something more than a mere suit button.

“I guess we’re still not ready to talk about him,” he said, still staring at the button. “I can deal with it. You picked us. In a way I’m a little sorry for Dave. Don’t get me wrong, I still can’t stand the guy, but at least we understand each other. I’m envious of the time you two had together and he’s envious of the future we have together. I can’t blame him. But Paul?” He paused, looking up at her, uncertain. “I don’t think there’s anything you wouldn’t do for him. You’d give up all of this if you could bring him back.”

Lillian opened her mouth to deny it but she couldn’t. Losing Paul, burying him next to Margaret in the hot, dry sand, was the biggest regret of her life. All the sorrow in the world couldn’t explain how she felt about him. She had lain by his grave until Dave had to drag her away. When she lost him, she had been so full of grief she didn’t think there’d be room for anything else ever again. Denying that would be like saying he never existed. It would be like losing him all over again.

Jerry wiped a tear off her face with his thumb, cradling her cheek for a moment.

“That’s what I thought.” He sat up, his forgotten papers crackling beneath him. “It was a tragedy he died. I’m sorry you had to suffer through that, but I wish more than I’ve wished for almost anything in my life that you’d let him go and remember that your family is still here and we need you.” Jerry’s voice cracked, eyes filling with tears again. Seeing him break like this knocked out Lillian’s fortifications.

“I miss him so much, Jerry. He shouldn’t have died. I should’ve kept him safe. I wish you knew him, that you could understand, and I hate that you don’t. And it hurts so badly to talk about it, to go through it over and over again. You know,” she said, tracing a finger down his blue silk tie, “sometimes I wish I never told you about him, never told anybody.”

Jerry wrapped his large hand around hers until it disappeared.

“Sometimes I do too.” He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest where she hid her face from Jerry and the memories he didn’t want her to carry.

He whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry I brought all this up, Lil. After today you don’t have to talk about him anymore if you don’t want to. I love you and you’re home, that’s all that matters.” She nodded, her nose rubbing against the starchy fabric of his dress shirt. “I want to make it up to you. Let’s go out tonight, just you and me. I’ll get a sitter while you finish your interview, okay?”

“That’s sweet but I don’t want go anywhere tonight, Jer,” she said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her blouse, leaving a dark trail down the expensive green fabric. “Damn it! Not what I need right now.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll fix you up nice and pretty.” He pushed away a few stray strands of hair stuck to the wet trails on her face. “But tonight, I’ll put the kids to bed and make dinner, maybe a movie? Nothing about planes or natural disasters, I promise.”

He gave her that rueful smile, the one Josh used when he trailed mud through the living room and Daniel used when he wanted pizza for dinner instead of chicken casserole. She was utterly vulnerable to its power.

“Now, go get cleaned up before they start shooting again.” He patted her hair, frozen in place by numerous hair products. “I’m afraid my shirt may have messed up your makeup.” Smears of black mascara and eyeliner were streaked across the front of his shirt along with splotches of powdery foundation.

“Oh no, your favorite shirt.” Lillian traced the streaks and smudges, adding another item to the list of things she’d ruined.

“Don’t worry, it’ll come out.” Jerry waved her off. “Even if it doesn’t, it’s only a shirt.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Lillian began to argue when he leaned forward. When his lips met hers, they fit in that exact way they always had, spreading warmth through her chest and to her fingertips, where she felt his heart pounding through the stain in his shirt. Taking her by the shoulders, he flipped her over onto the paper-strewn bed, making her giggle against his pursuing lips. As he traced a hot path down her neck and shoulder, then followed the aggressive plunge of her neckline, she forgot about all the chaotic thoughts moving frantically through her brain and remembered one very important fact—she was home.

CHAPTER 10

LILY-DAY 2

Somewhere in the South Pacific

Warmth seeps through my shirt, rousing me from the fitful sleep I’d fallen into during the night. It all comes flooding in on pulsating waves. Memories of the crash wash over, nearly drowning me, shockingly clear like they were recorded in HD. The violent bucking of the plane, the crunching sound Theresa’s body made hitting the ceiling, the onslaught of blood—hot and thick—rushing down Margaret’s face, Kent’s wild, ferocious eyes. If I focus on one memory too long, the video of memories starts playing over in my mind like I’m living them again.

But I don’t want to remember, not like that. It’s too painful, too raw. I fast-forward to the endless hours after the crash, a numb, cold, wet blur of rain. I don’t remember many specifics, mostly the sound of my teeth chattering through the thunder and the slapping of waves. Much better.

Now, with the sun beating down, I have no idea how much time’s passed since our plane crashed. The sun on my skin means I’m alive, but it also means we haven’t been rescued. My eyes prick like they’re trying to make tears out of whatever is left of my bodily fluids. The sun filtering through my eyelids is a bright yellow that hurts even before I open them. Reason number fifty-seven to keep them closed.

Too bad my mind is running along, tumbling over all the what-ifs and maybes that I’d been holding at bay. I stumble upon one realization that shocks me awake. My lap is empty. Margaret is gone.

Even in those hazy last memories before the blankness of sleep, I was peripherally aware of the comfort of her deadweight on my legs. Now there’s a heavy emptiness, like the first time I held Josh and knew that the fullness in my arms matched the vacant spot inside my womb. I have to find her and take her home and bury her next to Charlie.

I force my gritty eyes open, sand raking across my eyeball. No, it’s not sand, but the underside of my eyelid rubbing against my eye without the lubrication of tears. Am I that dehydrated already?

It takes a few thousand blinks before I can stand to keep them open. Even then, I’m blinded by the direct sunlight, like a mole emerging from the safety of his underground tunnels. Just when I’m sure I’ve gone permanently blind, a flood of tears leaks from the corner ducts. I close them again, afraid to let even a millimeter of liquid evaporate before my eyes fully rehydrate. But I have to open them eventually. Keeping my eyes closed doesn’t make her alive again, does it?

It’s like that weird experiment I learned about in physics class in college, where the cat in the closed box is both dead and alive at the same moment. What did those kooks say? It’s not until you look that there’s only one outcome or the other. I guess you’ve got to look eventually or else you’d always end up with a box of dead cat goop.

I open slowly, blinking against the light. I’m in the same general spot I fell asleep in. On the opposite side of the boat, Kent sits with his back to me, still in his lookout spot, probably still searching for signs of Theresa in the endless blue that surrounds us.

The top of his head is bright red, sunburned through his thin blond crew cut, hairline receding noticeably. The white pilot’s shirt gapes open showing a tight, thin undershirt tucked neatly into a belted pair of khaki shorts, the tops of his knees the same boiling red as his head. My nose twinges with the familiar pang of sunburn when I bump it while rubbing my eyes.

To my right, Dave is asleep. His head rests on the side of the raft and bounces up and down with every subtle ripple, his face buried deep in his folded, sun-browning arms. Apparently he’s one of those people who tans instead of burns, a lucky attribute with the sun high in the sky bearing down on us. His back rises and falls steadily. I’m not as scared with him here.

I roll my head around, shoulder to shoulder and chin to chest. The physical movement is painful but wonderfully distracting. Pausing mid-stretch, I notice a lump of fabric next to Dave. It’s Margaret’s retro suit coat lying across the bench next to him, far too big and lumpy to be empty.

Creeping along the bench, I feel my arms ache like I had a hard workout at the gym the day before. My shoulder hurts in a different way, a new way, but I can’t stop to inspect it. I need to find her. I’ll deal with my shoulder when the rescue boat comes.

Her feet stretch out toward Dave, who’s still passed out. Her head and shoulders are covered by the coat, one side tinged pink from the blood I’d sopped up the night before. I swallow hard, my throat so dry it feels like the skin is sticking together inside.

I don’t want to remember what she looked like last night. The blood, how hot it was against my hand, her skin gaping open, and how the one time I tried to inspect the wound closer—I saw her skull. My empty stomach cramps. I don’t know if I want to see what’s under the coat.

No, I need to see her one more time. I need to know for sure that she’s gone. So much of last night seemed like a nightmare; I need to know it was real. With a trembling hand, I reach forward until my fingertips graze the white fabric, stiff with blood and salt, then I hold it between thumb and forefinger and lift.

First, her sandy hair. It looks soft, like the poofy part of a dandelion. I reach out to touch it but as I pull the coat higher, black streaks of dried blood stick her hair together in thick chunks.

I have to do this fast or I’ll never go through with it. Licking my lips, I dig my fingernails into the polyester and, gathering the remnants of my courage, I pull upward in one swift movement. The coat drops onto my lap and I force myself to look.

I expected a gory mess, eyes gaping open, blood, skin, bone . . . but instead there’s only a sleeping woman. Someone’s bandaged her head and cleaned her face. Her eyes are closed, and in a way she looks peaceful. Using one finger, I trace down the unbandaged side of Margaret’s face, running along the smile lines, parentheses around her mouth. In this tiny moment, I love her and grieve like she’s my mother.

Something reflective flashes in the sun. A gold strand is nestled in the folds of Margaret’s neck, snaking down her collarbone. Margaret always wears Charlie’s wedding ring on a long gold chain. Always. I don’t care that her skin will be cold and stiff or that I’ll have to sink my hand into the crunchy black blood–crusted hair to find the clasp. I want that ring. It’s part of Jerry and home.