Flight (40 page)

But Margaret isn’t angry. Her predominant feeling is pity. Pity for Leanne, who can’t put her hands on one single thing she knows for sure; for Kit, who wants something Leanne can’t give; even for Will and Carol, who want only to do the right thing and will be faced with a situation where the right thing is unclear. She’s sorry for herself, too, not now, but years ago, when she should have done what Leanne did but couldn’t, because she can’t commit to uncertainty the way Leanne can. She chose certainty instead, a certainty that turned out to be wrong.

What should she do now? It’s unlikely she’ll be able to sleep anymore. Still, she could use some more rest. Her head is throbbing, and her stomach feels off kilter. She climbs back into bed, pulling the sheet and blankets tight to her chin. She’s tense, waiting for something. She’s not even aware of what, until she hears the sound of her car starting up. There’s a pause after the motor starts, as if Leanne is considering. Then there’s a thud and the sound of wheels moving forward. Margaret can hear the wet sound of the pavement sucking against the tires. The motor revs, then quiets at the edge of the driveway, waiting. A truck roars past with a high-pitched whine. As it fades away, Margaret hears her car’s engine revving again as Leanne pulls out onto the road. It slows down, then speeds up and zooms off, growing fainter as it moves out of hearing.

-------------------

It’s before seven when Will wakes up. No one else is stirring. Beside him, Carol’s chest is rising and falling with a heavy rhythm that means she’s in a deep sleep. One hand is thrown over her face.

Everything is off balance. The house feels like a plane out of trim, pulling in too many directions at once, subject to every bump and bubble in the air. Will thinks of Leanne last night, her vaguely hysterical laugh, her wobbliness on her high heels. He thinks of the toast Margaret made, the bomb Carol dropped last night. Nothing is going to work out as he expected.

Gently, so as not to disturb Carol, he climbs out of the bed. The worst thing is to lie still when he feels like this. He puts one hand on the door while turning the knob, easing it slowly open and slipping out. It has already closed behind him when he remembers there are guests in the house, and he should probably be wearing a robe over his bare chest. It was too muggy to sleep with a T-shirt on. But no one is up yet. He’ll go downstairs and have a snack, maybe a cup of tea, then come back up and get dressed.

He takes the stairs softly and walks silently across the foyer, his right ankle snapping once in the still house. When he gets to the kitchen, he’s shocked to see that he’s not alone. Bernice is sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of tea in one hand. Steam rises toward her face, which is turned to the sliding door, looking out. She turns and smiles as he freezes in the doorway.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’ve seen a man in pajama bottoms before.”

Will hadn’t even thought of that—he was just taken aback at having his solitude disturbed. He glances down at himself, embarrassed, and turns to go back upstairs.

“Shhh,” she says, making a fed up expression and waving one hand dismissively. “Don’t bother. Really, what do you think I am, an ingenue?”

Will isn’t sure of her tone, but he steps tentatively back into the kitchen. He’s aware of a slight tension in himself. He’s sucking in his gut. “I just thought I’d have a cup of tea,” he says.

“The water’s already hot,” she answers, gesturing at it. “And I’d be glad of the company.”

Will gets himself a tea bag and a mug, setting it on the stove and sloshing the hot water in. He goes to the table, still feeling self-conscious about his bare chest. Bernice looks much as he would have expected her to. She’s wearing a pastel-flowered kimono, and her hair is loose at the sides of her face, free of sparkly barrettes. One on one, in the morning light, she looks pretty. He glances away.

“Well,” he says. “Carol’s not going to like this day.”

Bernice turns to regard the gray drizzle, falling steadily to the ground. “I think it’s perfect,” she says. “It lets you know what to expect.”

Will can’t help but be surprised. He hadn’t taken her for bitter. “What, lousy weather?” he asks.

She smiles. “No, not that. Just surprises. Things you didn’t expect or plan for. But you go on. That’s what marriage is.”

“Ah.” Will buries his nose in his tea.

She nods, watching him. “It’s different when you live alone,” she says. “Then everything can be kept how you want it. Most of it, any-way.”

“Or at least the things you have control over,” Will says, surprising himself by speaking.

“Oh yes, well, you’re right about that.” Bernice sets her mug down on the table, placing it very carefully in what seems like a designated space. “And the world is allowing us less and less control now, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say.” Will eyes the cupboard, wondering whether there’s anything good left after the party. With Bernice sitting there, he feels a bit shy about rummaging bare-chested through the cupboards. Again he resists the impulse to glance down at his own chest, to see how saggy and aged it looks.

“You must feel like you have a lot less control than you used to,” Bernice says softly, fixing him with that expectant look. Will wonders what she’s talking about—control over his family? Over his marriage ending and his daughters going their own ways? Or his
career—his pension fund, his investments, his status at the airline. All those are things he thought he had control over once but have now slipped from his grasp.

“I mean”—Bernice takes a sip of tea—“you must feel as though you have less control over the airplane. After September eleventh.”

“Oh, that.” He traces a circle on the table with his mug. “Yeah. I guess so. I fly a lot of the transcontinental routes, you know. That could easily have been me up there. But TWA and American weren’t integrated yet. And that American flight—that was a Boston crew.” He pauses, but she seems interested. “The captain was a few years younger than I am. I didn’t know him. But we had a lot in common—air force pilot, tour of duty in Vietnam, then the airlines. He had three daughters, not two.” He glances at her quickly, embarrassed to reveal how much he knows. The airline newsletter did a long profile of the guy. Will carried it in his suitcase for a month, reading and rereading it when he was alone in his hotel room.

“The funny thing is,” he says, “I didn’t feel like I’d gotten lucky when I heard about it. I felt guilty.” He leans forward. “I guess that’s a pretty common feeling. Like in war.”

Bernice nods. “I would think so,” she says. She hesitates, then hiccups, a small noise, and places one hand over her mouth. In that gesture, Will sees through the graciousness and the calm to the real Bernice, and his heart clenches in sympathy for her. She’s alone.

She’s a quiet, aging lady who has organized her life with great precision to downplay its central fact—loneliness. For her, sitting downstairs alone in the silence of morning is not a hard-earned treat, or even a quietly stolen pleasure. It’s how she starts her day.

He looks at her, wishing he could think of something to say to show he sympathizes with her situation.

“Are you expecting someone?” she says.

“What?”

“Someone just pulled into the driveway.”

A stone drops in Will’s stomach. He didn’t hear it.

“I’ll go check it out,” he says. He glances at the clock as he passes the stove. It’s 7:20.

He knows who it is when he opens the door, because then he does hear something: the distinctively heavy idling of a police cruiser. What could they want? Stepping out on the porch, he automatically pulls the door shut behind him. The cruiser idles for a moment longer, and then the engine switches off. Will stands on the porch and waits.

A noise complaint from last night—that’s all he can think of. The last time the police came to his house, it was to tell him that one of their horses had leaped the fence and been hit by a car. The car had sheared the horse’s leg cleanly off, and the state trooper called to the accident scene had shot it in the head. But there are no animals on the farm now, with the exception of a few barn cats who come and go periodically. Carol had been encouraging him to get a flock of chickens or a couple of goats. Something kids who stay at the bed-and-breakfast can pet. It will add to the authenticity, she said. Will she do that alone, with him in Hong Kong?

“Mr. Gruen?” The sheriff walks toward him, his boots and sunglasses—in the rain, no less—making him imposing, even though he’s the same height as Will. He doesn’t look familiar.

“That’s me.” Will looks at the second officer. He does know him: Jim Kovacs, the son of a friend of his father’s from way back. Old Jan Kovacs is dead now, from cancer of the mouth. Chewing tobacco, people said.

“Hello, Jim,” he says, and the man nods.

“Will.”

The sheriff looks down the highway, putting his hands in his back pockets as if regretting what he has to say. Will realizes that he’s standing there in his pajama bottoms. He puts one arm across his chest, hanging it from his shoulder. The rain, he notices idly, seems to be tailing off.

“Mr. Gruen, we’re looking for your daughter Margaret.”

There’s nothing Will has been expecting less. Still, he doesn’t
blink, just stands there, his face blank. A pair of barn swallows is swooping and diving in the sky above the road. It looks as if they’re making perfect circles, circles that intersect at two exact points. Could they be doing it on purpose?

“She’s not here,” Will says. He holds himself perfectly still, so that his thought waves will beam themselves into the house.
Nobody come to the door.

Jim clears his throat. “We understand she came up here for your younger one’s wedding,” he says. “With her son.”

Will looks up at the swallows. Swoop and dive, swoop and dive. No one can tell him they don’t do that for fun.

“Nope,” he says. “Too busy. She’s a professor, you know. Down to Chicago.”

The two cops glance at each other.

“Well,” Jim says—the sheriff seems to be letting him do the dirty work—“we drove by here last night and ran into a car in your driveway with Illinois plates. It was hers.” He shuffles a little and glances at his superior. “We didn’t come in then. We didn’t want to ruin your party.”

Will’s gut runs cold. The car. Involuntarily, he looks out over the driveway. The Rabbit is gone. It’s providence. Or maybe he’s missing it in his eagerness to make it gone. His mind races. Did Margaret pull it into the barn? Did she foresee this and leave? She must have. But what on earth could she have done to make the police come after her? As soon as the question forms, it fades to a small footnote at the back of his mind. He glances once more, but the car really is gone. Maybe he made it disappear by wishing it would.

“Well,” he says, sweeping a hand toward the driveway, “it’s not there now, as you can see.”

The sheriff follows Will’s hand. It’s clear the Rabbit isn’t there, or they couldn’t have pulled into the driveway themselves.

“Mind if we look around a bit,” the sheriff says in a voice that suggests it’s not a question.

Will takes a deep breath and looks up again. The swallows are
gone. It’s probably not that much fun after all, flying around in the rain.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he says. “Unless you can show me a warrant.”

Jim makes a reflexive gesture. “Now, I think we’re all reasonable people here,” he says. He glances at the sheriff, but the other man nods, once, slowly.

“Okay, then,” the sheriff says. “We’ll let them know.”

Who’s them?
Will wants to ask. But he knows better than to say a word. The cops turn around and walk back to the car. He can see Jim glancing surreptitiously at the house windows, but the sheriff walks with his face forward, his arms stiff at his sides. He doesn’t look back at Will as they climb into their car.

Will thinks of Carol, asleep behind him. Leanne and Kit, too. Is Margaret there as well? And Trevor? He knew something was up. No one told him anything. They’re going to have to tell him now.

He stands on the porch, unmoving, as the cops start the car. They sit there for a moment, the sheriff talking into the radio. The other one—Jim—glances over at Will, then back to his superior officer. Finally, the sheriff puts down the radio, and they move forward. They don’t pause at the end of the driveway, just pull right onto the road. It’s a good thing no one is coming. Will waits until the cruiser has sped up and disappeared, obscured by the Peddets’ tree line. Then he turns around, wipes his palms on his pajama bottoms, and steps back into his house.

The rain patters against the windshield. When Leanne hits the lever, the wipers drag themselves across the window, driving silvery rivulets before them and toward the hood. This is no day to get married, even if she were sure it was the right thing to do.

She doesn’t know where she’s going. But as she gets away from the house, her mind grows clearer. Her stomach feels sick, and her head is killing her; she should have thought to take some aspirin before leaving. Even her hands on the steering wheel are shaky.
She’s as hungover as a college kid. It seems to be getting hotter in the car—the windows are steaming over. She cracks hers. A little rain sprays in, but it feels okay, as refreshing as anything could feel right now.

She’s ruined everything. She might have made it through last night if she hadn’t started drinking. But even then she would be facing the same problem. Kit, she knows in the cold light of day, is still expecting to marry her. He has known about her drinking all along.

Tears fill her eyes, and instinctively, she bats the wiper lever. Things are still blurry, and she sniffs, rubbing the back of each hand in turn against one eye. How could he still want to marry her? How could he have known and never mentioned it? Didn’t he worry about being married to someone so weak and feckless?

She takes a deep breath and steps on the gas. She’s doing the right thing. It will be hard for Kit, but it’s better this way. He deserves someone more solid, someone sure of what she wants.

She slows down to drive through Ryville. After Ryville, she’ll come to the expressway, and there she’ll have to make a decision: east or west. It seems clear. She’ll go Chicago. Maybe she can stay with one of Margaret’s friends and help her sister find a new place. Things in Cold Spring will be okay without her for a while. She has already lined up her best assistant manager to take charge of things for a week. She and Kit were supposed to be honeymooning, flying back to Atlanta with his mother, then renting a car and driving down to the Keys. She has at least a week before she has to decide whether to go back to Cold Spring.