Sparrow Migrations (3 page)

“Was there a fire?” Robby asked.

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, if there was a fire it would probably still be going. Or at least we’d smell smoke. Or something. Airplane fires take a long time to put out.”

“Even if you crash on water? Wouldn’t the water just put it out? Like a campfire?” Robby let the binoculars hang around his neck and mimed dousing a campfire with a bucket.

“Good question! But no, it wouldn’t go out that fast because of all the fuel airplanes carry. It would take a long time to burn off. Even sitting in water.”

Robby considered it. Then he picked the binoculars back up and returned his gaze to the plane.

“Did they get everybody out?”

“I’m sure they did.”

“How do they know?”

“Well, they have lists, you know, passenger lists, that they can check the names of everyone who was rescued against.”

“Lists? Were we on a list when we came here?”

His mom nodded. “There’s a special word for it. What is it—oh, shoot. It’s on the tip of my tongue—”

“Huh. Cool. Who’s got the list?”

“Um, well, I guess the pilot has it.”

“Then isn’t it in the water, too?”

“Well, the airline has a copy, too. On the computer. They can get it to the police and everyone who’s responding.”

“Hmmmmm.” Robby stared out at the river again. A circling pigeon screeched.

Linda lobbed back answers as fast as Robby pelted questions. When he finally paused she called to Sam, who was sitting on a bench up against the cabin.

“This is amazing! I’ve never heard him talk so much. Ask so many questions. It’s been at least ten rounds! Have you?”

Sam shook his head. Linda waited for a moment, hoping he’d join them at the railing. Fun family excursion, remember? Robby was bouncing on his toes, cataloguing everything he saw in his stage whisper voice. For once the headphones were around his neck instead of clapped over his ears. The hood of his Detroit Lions sweatshirt created a pointed silhouette that made him look elfish, more juvenile, though when he was standing straight up instead of leaning over a boat rail, Linda knew that hood would be past her shoulder.

Lately she worried more and more about Robby’s increased inches, which made his autistic behaviors both harder to excuse and more imminently threatening. What would happen when she wasn’t—they weren’t—there to buffer him from the expectations of the neurotypical world?

Sam remained on his bench. Robby swiveled his head, binoculars still pressed to his eyes, and then pointed.

“They’re back!”

“What?” Linda followed his finger.

“The geese! Swimming right by the plane.”

Linda squinted, trying to see what he saw.

“I saw them before. Before the crash. Now they’re back. Twelve of them. Just like me.” He hopped down from the deck ledge and turned to Linda, making eye contact for a rare moment. “After we get off, can we go see the plane? On another ferry?”

“I don’t think so, Robby. This whole area will be secured. They’re not going to let boats near,” Linda said.

From the euphoria the spasm of questions had induced, her voice segued back to the placating tone she used so often, trying to head off a meltdown. She’d been on her guard all day. Since they left home, really. At least a dozen times since Christmas it had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Sam to come alone, that his nephew’s senior hockey tournament would be more fun without them. Robby relied on routines to belay him through the day, so the deviations and unfamiliar place made for ripe conditions. With the cruise being her idea, guilt made her back off about marching him into the cabin, but that was a near miss. So was their check-in at the DoubleTree in New Jersey two days ago, when they’d been out of their damn chocolate chip cookies.

“Isn’t that right, Sam?” she called to her husband, seeking backup.

He finally stood, joining them at the railing. “Isn’t what right?”

“That this area will be secured. We won’t be able to get back later.”

“Oh. Right.” He waved at the other side of the boat. “It looks like they’re letting us off. I’m going to check it out.”

Robby stayed at the railing, staring into the waves. Watching her husband drift away, absorbed in her own head, Linda finally remembered the word.
Manifests. Passenger manifests.
That was what those lists were called.

“We’re fine,” Christopher argued to the EMT conducting dockside exams. “We need to get back to LaGuardia. Our car’s there.”

Aboard the ferry they were given thermal blankets and coffee. Someone had even produced extra uniform sets for the ferry employees, and Christopher and Deborah both now wore the ill-fitting but dry navy pants. The EMT had confirmed all their vitals were normal. Out of danger, either from drowning or freezing, Deborah just wanted to curl up and call Helen back, but her phone was at the bottom of the river.

“Sir, the airline has to do a thorough intake of all survivors.” The EMT was implacable as he steered them to a taxi line. “The Park Central Hotel’s been established as a command center. They’ll provide more information there.”

“All right.” With a loud sigh, Christopher capitulated.

Deborah felt grateful for the quiet of the cab and the blast from the heater. Behind the Plexiglas divider, the backseat felt like a cocoon amid the Midtown rush hour traffic. She closed her eyes. Christopher reached for her hand.

“You OK?”

“I think so.” Her mind felt numb now. As her body thawed, she became aware of the soreness in her rib cage, where the seatbelt had restrained her as they’d smacked onto the river.

“That was pretty intense.”

She nodded.

“I mean, you were pretty intense. Right at the end, just before we got on the ferry.”

“I guess it’s true what they say about near-death experiences. It really puts life in perspective.”

“Yeah. For me, too.”

“You mean about having a baby?” She opened her eyes eagerly, searching his face.

“Not exactly.” He shook his head.

“Then what? What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about how grateful I was for our lives. Together, as a couple.”

She squeezed his hand. “That’s sweet.” What was he getting at?

“But I feel like . . . like we haven’t been living them these last two years.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

“Ever since we started trying to get pregnant, we’ve been stuck in this limbo loop. We haven’t made love spontaneously since 2007. Waiting for the right time to try. Waiting to find out. Waiting to try again. The IVFs made it worse.”

“Worse how?” She slid her hand out of his.

“You get so obsessed, so fixated on the results. It’s total tunnel vision. And then you’re so depressed.”

“Well, it is depressing. Not being able to do what normal women can. Normal
couples
,” Deborah amended, stressing the last word.

“I wanted children, too, but I don’t think it’s abnormal if we don’t. Especially in our circles. We’re both professionals. We do work that matters. We—”

“
‘Work that matters?’ Christopher, are you honestly telling me that after what we just went through, work is more important than having a family?”

“I have a family already. We’re a family, Deborah, you and I. I want to protect that family first.”

A protest rose to Deborah’s lips, but they were arriving at the hotel. Another horde of media swarmed the sidewalk. Stepping out of the cab, Deborah saw the woman she’d noticed on the wing, the mother and her baby, at the center of the cluster of microphones and cameras.

“Where are you from?” someone shouted. “How old is the baby?”
another asked
.
“What was it like out there in the river? Isn’t New York the greatest city in the world, to have handled the rescue so quickly? Do you have anything to say to family at home?”

The woman opened her mouth. The media stopped shouting, waiting breathlessly.

“Well, of course it was terrifying when the pilot told us to brace for impact,” the woman said. “I just prayed my baby would be OK.” She patted him—Deborah was pretty sure it was a boy—on the back and smiled at him. At his round, drooling face, not at the cameras, Deborah noted.

“Come on, Deborah. Let’s go.” She felt Christopher tugging her hand. She pulled it back, as mesmerized by the woman as the media.

“And now I’m just so grateful. To God, to the pilot, to the other passengers who helped me. It was a miracle. A true miracle,” the woman said, shifting the baby to her other hip.

“A miracle on the Hudson,” offered one of the reporters.

“That’s right.” The woman nodded.

Security burst from the hotel. “All right, press conference is over. We’ve got to get these folks inside ASAP.” Shouting questions again, the media turned their cameras as the lead guard placed a protective hand on the shoulder of the woman, below the baby’s head. They looked like a family, Deborah reflected with a pang, watching him shepherd them into the hotel.

Where was Christopher? There he was, already through the revolving door, inside the lobby, talking on his phone. Checking in at the university, no doubt. She knew he was waiting to hear whether his department had won a big grant application, five million dollars from the US Fish and Wildlife Service for a study on the nesting habits of migratory birds. Tunnel vision, my foot. She also noticed he had used the past tense in the cab. He’d “wanted” to have children.

Silently she walked right by him, to the registration desk. “Two beds, please.”

THREE

A
manda flew around the kitchen, pouring juice, popping a bagel in the toaster, turning on the TV. She glanced out the window at their backyard bird feeder. Her mom was right, it needed refilling. She’d do it on her way out. She really wasn’t late, but when she created a commotion she didn’t feel so lone
ly. Her dad was already gone, leading a “prayer breakfast” that he’d told her about the night before over the Chinese takeout he brought home, apologizing because some counseling session had run late. He hadn’t blinked when she told him her mom was staying away another night.

“Well, I guess it’s father-daughter night, then. We don’t do this very often, do we?” said the Reverend Richard Stevens, segueing automatically into grace over the kung pao chicken and egg rolls. “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed . . .”

After his “amen,” silence prevailed. Amanda wouldn’t have known what to talk about even if she hadn’t been preoccupied with both her missing mom and the auditions.

She knew what
not
to say, though: anything about the musical. Not after that one time in the choir. At least not until she’d gotten a part. Then it could be about keeping her word to the cast and director. Fulfilling a commitment she’d made would trump the risk of appearing proud and vain.

The bagel popped up. Amanda spread cream cheese thickly, thinking. Before yesterday, when was the last time she had eaten breakfast by herself? Her mom was always there in the mornings, even as the church’s food pantry consumed more of her evenings—evenings when they used to make experimental omelettes with whatever happened to be in the fridge and play Scrabble or cards or watch movies while her dad offered counseling or Bible study at the church.

So, measured by meals, it was official, Amanda thought, chewing another bite. Everyone and everything at Fellowship of Hope got a piece of her parents before she did.

The TV anchor intruded on her thoughts. “Investigators will begin to work in earnest today to learn the cause of yesterday’s emergency landing in the Hudson River, which riveted New York and much of the nation for hours.” The plane appeared, balancing gracefully on the waves again, the passengers backlit.

“CNN has learned that the probable cause of the crash is assumed to be a bird strike,” the anchor continued.

Bird strike. The words reminded Amanda she was supposed to fill the bird feeder. Swallowing the last of the bagel, she found the bird feed sack in the pantry and lugged it outside.

Sharp cold greeted her. Filling the feeder took half the burlap bag. Back in the kitchen, the clock read 7:39 a.m. She had to get going. Dropping the sack on the floor, she searched for the TV remote. The crash story was still on.

“. . . Ted Ramsey, thanks for your time this morning. Coming up next we’ll have a preview of the upcoming presidential inauguration. By the way, we understand that Captain Sullenberger and his family may be on their way to that event next week, at the invitation of President-elect Obama. But let’s take one more look at some of yesterday’s stunning scenes.”

There it was, next to the toaster. Amanda aimed the remote over the kitchen counter carefully. It was an old set. You had to press the “Power” button just right for it to work. The shot of the plane balancing on the waves, passengers strung out along the wings, had been stylized into a logo. “Miracle on the Hudson,” she read as a video montage started. She waved the remote. Come on, already. A close-up of a mother holding a baby aboard the ferry deck. The camera backed up, widening the view. A man was talking and gesturing with his phone. Behind him, a woman leaned against the deck rail, her red coat bright against the gray waves.

A red coat.
Your mom is on. OMG.
OMG. Oh, my God. But yes, it was her mom, now turning toward the camera, walking toward it, her blond hair blowing across her collar, walking behind the man on the phone. Just like Kelsey said. No way. No
way
, Amanda had said, but it was her mom in her red peacoat, right there on the deck of a ferry. Nowhere near a conference room. What was she doing there? And why didn’t she say she was, after Amanda asked her straight-out?

The montage changed again, to an aerial of the emergency vessels surrounding the plane and then cut to a commercial for blood pressure medication. Finally, the remote worked, vanquishing the image from the screen. But Amanda still saw the stark fact.

Her mother had lied.

Brett stood in the lobby of the Times Square hotel, wanting to meld her body to Jackie’s as they said their good-byes. Neither her hands, nor lips, nor mind were behaving like a proper pastor’s wife’s would.
How ironic
, Brett thought. It was Richard who had set her on course to this moment, when he said the congregation expected her to be more visible. It was important to him, to his career, he said. To their stability there in Scranton, where Amanda was doing so well in school, he said, expertly manipulating the mantra that guided her life: do what’s best for Amanda.

Brett hadn’t balked then, two years ago, nor did she now. She yielded to expectations, waving to Jackie’s departing taxi and turning to the parking garage.
Expectations, damn expectations
. Like the church’s, expecting two-for-one when they hired a pastor. Amanda was an excuse at first, but she was getting older and had some good friends. She probably needed more breathing room, anyway.

Instead of co-leading the Bible study or fund-raising for a new church carpet, she decided to expand the existing food pantry into a community meal program. Once, she and Richard had both believed social justice was a major mission of ministry. Ever since he’d accepted the pastor position at Fellowship of Hope, though, Richard had seemed to grow more judgmental and closed-minded, like the congregation. The meal program not only allowed her to re-embrace her old ideals, but it meant spending time with non-members.

She’d considered carefully how to broach this to Richard.

“The Lord has told me we’re meant to serve the entire community, not just those who are already in our flock,” she had told Richard.

Richard nodded solemnly. “Matthew, chapter six: ‘Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
’ 
” He nodded again. “God will bless your efforts, Brett.”

Brett steered their eight-year-old blue Honda Accord out of the parking garage, looking for a sign to the Lincoln Tunnel. Duly blessed, she had begun to use the rudimentary kitchen facilities in the church basement to cook a weekly community dinner.

The first week, a dozen people showed up. The second week, it doubled. She created flyers and posted them at the library, at grocery stores, at the bus station. After two months, fifty people were gathering regularly. It was fulfilling. What better manifestation of church fellowship was there, after all, than sharing a meal?

Eventually, though people appreciated the meals, she learned that what was really needed was meal delivery. People whose kitchen cabinets were bare often didn’t have transportation, but did still have pride. Bringing the food to them—in their homes, apartments, cars—would truly help people in Scranton who were down on their luck.

That was what had prompted Brett, again with Richard’s blessing, to attend the annual Meals on Wheels Best Practice Symposium, sponsored by the East Coast Conference of Christian Sisterhood and held at the Charlotte Expo Center in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, last September.

Ahead, she could see the tunnel brightening as she approached the New Jersey end. It reminded her of seeing Jackie that first night, at the welcome reception. She was a regular at the conference, the wife of a pastor whose star was rising on the southeast megachurch circuit, according to the conversation Brett overheard.

Her eyes had noticed other details. Jackie’s lean, tan figure. Her honey-colored hair curling around her shoulders. Her perfume, when they wound up sitting next to each other at the second plenary session the next morning.

“Wasn’t that so inspiring?” she remembered saying to Jackie after the presentation ended.

Jackie had turned, her eyes taking Brett in from head to toe.

“Absolutely it was,” Jackie said, her southern drawl thicker and sweeter than a milkshake. “Have we met?”

“I don’t think so. Brett. Brett Stevens. From Pennsylvania.”

“Hell-low, Brett Stevens from Pennsylvania.” Jackie had smiled, clasping Brett’s pale, plain hand in between her tan ones with their coral-painted fingernails.

A pulsing sensation rippled from the handclasp up Brett’s arm and down to her core.
She’s a pastor’s wife. Like you.
The ripple receded.

“First time?”

First time for the sensations? Brett thought back to freshman year at Penn State, in the dorms. Her roommate Donna’s habit of sleeping in her panties and a T-shirt. Brett had requested a single the next semester, the semester she also met Richard.

Jackie was still looking at her.

“Pardon me?”

“First time here at the conference?”

“Oh. Uh, yes.”

“Well, I’m on the welcome committee. So let me be the first to welcome you to Charlotte, Brett Stevens. I think you’ll like it here.”

Absorbed in her memory, Brett let the Accord drift into the left lane. A truck’s horn blast brought her back to the highway, to the present cold, stark January day. So different from the humid, heavy Charlotte air. The air had had something to do with it, she was sure, heating her imagination during their first cup of coffee together that afternoon, as she watched Jackie’s coral fingertips curl around the cup.

She’s a pastor’s wife. Like you. Someone safe
, she told herself again in her room that night, after hanging up from the call she was expected to make home.
Someone harmless
.

But she was wrong, gloriously wrong. Calls, e-mails, and one other stolen day in New York last December, on the premise of Christmas shopping, followed. Then, finally, this rendezvous, under the cover of another fictitious conference. Brett had dared to suggest it after Amanda came home from school talking about registering for her SAT college exams. The offhand remark sent Brett reeling back two decades, to the Penn State dorm room. She’d denied herself all this time, on the grounds of what was right, on the grounds of being a dutiful wife, on the grounds of what was best for Amanda. Now Amanda was a year and a half away from her own life. Brett’s marriage was hollow. And she didn’t know what was right anymore.

Still, she had half hoped that Jackie would cancel. When they finally found themselves together, twenty floors above Manhattan, releasing those so-long-suppressed instincts, yielding to play and passion and pushing away what was best for Amanda, Brett spent three days veering from exhilaration to terror.

Three days they decided to stretch into four, pushing Jackie’s return flight to Charlotte to the next day. Exhilaration. Then, the fateful decision to take the sightseeing cruise. The crash. And getting caught by the camera—according to Amanda’s friend Kelsey, anyway. Terror.

Another horn blast jarred her out of her thoughts. Brett overcorrected, sending the Accord all the way into the right lane just as she crossed the state line.

“Pennsylvania Welcomes You,” declared the broad blue sign. “State of Independence.”

Brett registered another flash of irony, this one cruel, in the instant before the sign disappeared in her exhaust and tears.