The Seat Beside Me (12 page)

“I didn’t hear—”

She cleared her throat and tried to get the words out again. “It’s your father.”

“How do you know?”

How
did
she know? Was her Henry the type of man who would hand off the line, letting someone else go first? Yes. Absolutely. But would he continue to do it when it was a danger to his own life?

“Don’t do it, Henry.”

“What?”

She blinked herself back to reality. “We have to pray, Joey. Pray that the last survivor—whether it’s your father or not—is saved and is brought back to his family.”

“But if it isn’t him? Mom … what if Dad is already dead?”

All the tenets of their faith rushed forward like eager children wanting to be chosen to answer the teacher’s question.
Death is not the end; it is a new beginning in heaven, with Jesus. God is in control. Henry believed. His eternity is assured. Even if
 … 
even if
 …

“If he’s already dead, we pray for us, Joey. We pray for us.”

David walked past the break room at work and saw a crowd gathered around the small television on the counter. He stepped inside. “What’s up?”

“Where you been, David? A plane crashed in the river. They’ve been pulling people out—by helicopter.”

A cold rush swept over him. He pushed his way through the crowd until the television screen came into view. He saw a tail section of a plane in the water. The Sun Fun logo laughed at him.

“Tina!”

Everyone turned around.

“What’s the flight number?” David asked.

“What?”

“My girlfriend. What’s the flight number?” As he screamed the question, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the piece of paper on which Tina had written—

“Flight 1382.”

Sun Fun flight 1382
. He stared at the note and mouthed the words but nothing came out.

“David? Are you all right?”

He handed the note to the questioner and bolted from the room.

As David ran for the exit, he heard the commotion behind him as his coworkers realized what had happened.

And what
had
happened?

The impossible. Tina’s plane had crashed.

“Where is he? Bobby? Where’s the hero?” Reporter Dora Roberts screamed at the photographer who’d come with her and pointed to the sinking tail section.

Bobby turned his 35mm to the area beneath the helicopter, adjusting the zoom. “We were so busy watching the rescue of the others that we didn’t pay any attention to him.”

Dora stepped closer to the water’s edge, on the shore down a ways from the rescue operations. The circling helicopter told the story. “They can’t find him. They’ve gone back for him, but they can’t find him.”

“No!”

The exclamation came from a couple standing nearby. The man’s head was buried in his collar, a stocking hat pulled to his eyes. The woman who’d screamed was burrowed under his arm.

Dora moved close. “Did you see what happened to the man in the water?”

The woman put a mittened hand to her mouth, and Dora saw tears on her face. “I should have been watching him. But I was watching the other rescues. Oh, they
have
to find him. They have to! He gave up the line. Over and over. We saw him.”

Dora agreed with every word she said.
Come on, helicopter, find the hero. Bring him home safe. We
need
him to be safe
.

Bobby moved along the edge of the water. Dora wasn’t sure if he was taking pictures or merely using the zoom to do his own search. They all scanned the river, aching to help. It was growing dark, plus it was hard to see through the blizzard and chunks of ice. The blocks of white floated like pieces of glass in a church window
with the blackness of the water serving as the leaded seams. Everything was gray and darker gray. The only hint of color was the logo of the plane on the tailpiece, a splash of happiness among the desolation.

A shiver coursed through Dora, and it had nothing to do with the weather. The thought of that brave man, finally realizing he would not be saved … did he feel resigned? Scared? Did he pray? Or did he merely lapse into a frozen unconsciousness until his grip loosened, and he floated down into the dark—

She shook the image away, knowing it was one that would remain with her for days—if not years. The last lonely moments of a man who had given everything so others might live.
Lord, bless him
 … 
Bless him
.

Suddenly, Bobby sprinted to the right and pointed frantically. Others closed in on him, trying to see. The chopper pilot must have seen the commotion, for he turned and hovered over the area where Bobby and the others were pointing. But as the whirring blades churned the water, the object was revealed to be a seat cushion that must have loosed itself from the wreckage below.

There was a groan from the crowd as the chopper moved back to the tail section to resume its search. But as darkness fell and the minutes passed, it was evident that the last survivor of the crash had become its last victim.

Dora’s body was leaden—from the cold and from the shock of knowing the hero was gone. She felt as if she’d lost a loved one.

The woman beside her sobbed, and Dora heard sniffs from the man. Suddenly, she wondered who they were and needed to know their story. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“Excuse me … where were you when the crash happened? Did you see it?”

The man nodded and pointed up the embankment. “That
blue car there. We’re hemmed in. Can’t move. We were just driving by on the highway when we saw the plane struggling. We see planes come close to the highway all the time, but not low like that.”

The woman’s eyes flashed with a memory. “It was so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves cry out.”

“And it hit!” The man let go of his wife and slapped the palm of one hand into the other; his fingers tilted upward like the nose of the plane seeking the sky. “The tail just ripped into the parking garage, then the plane broke apart and fell into the water. If it had been to the north just a hundred feet, it would have landed on the highway. Maybe on us.” He shook his head.

His wife squeezed his arm. “But it didn’t, honey. We’re safe. But the passengers. We swerved onto the shoulder, got out of our car, and raced down the embankment to help.” She put the mitten to her mouth and the sobs started again.

“Can I have your names, please? I’m a reporter for the
Chronicle
.” They gave their names and a phone number. Bonnie and Ted Gable.

Mrs. Gable continued, her voice under control again. “There was so much noise. Then quiet. Unearthly quiet.”

Mr. Gable nodded. “Then came the screams from the water. There was nothing we could do. Some people tied scarves and belts and jumper cables together, but with the river’s current. Even if we could’ve gotten it long enough, we had no way to get it out to them.” He shook his head. “That’s the worst of it. There was nothing we could do. Nothing anybody could do for the longest time.” His voice softened. “Nothing we could do …”

“Except pray.”

He nodded at his wife.

Dora looked to their vehicle. It was undamaged but blocked in by other witnesses and the curious. Their nice warm car. “Why aren’t you waiting in your car? It certainly would be warmer.” As
she asked the question, she knew the answer.

“Warmth isn’t important. Not with those people out there. They were cold. And we decided we could be cold too, to support them by being here.” He shrugged. “I know it seems stupid, but—”

“No, it doesn’t seem stupid. It seems right. I understand, truly I do.” Dora noticed how the crowd that had gathered along the water’s edge had moved closer to each other, as if they were unconsciously pooling their wills and their strength to help the man in the water. Strangers stood shoulder to shoulder, touching, hugging, talking, crying, praying. Their emotions and the overpowering desire to survive bound them. Without understanding what they were doing, they had created a community out of suffering—a community
of
suffering.

Mr. Gable looked to the sky and seemed to notice for the first time that it was nearly dark. “I suppose we should try to get home.”

“I suppose.” Mrs. Gable sighed.

Their attention was drawn to a man, stumbling down the embankment toward the water. He slid on the snow and tumbled the last few feet. A police officer tried to stop him because he gave every impression that he was going to jump into the river, but the man shook the restraint away. He came toward Dora and the couple, his eyes focused on the water—eyes that streamed with tears.

At the river’s edge, his legs buckled beneath him and Dora ran to grab his arm. “Are you all right?”

His head shook no with a rhythm that seemed to have no end. “My brother’s down—” He pointed to the black water and covered his face with his hands. He collapsed to his knees. The Gables got on the other side of him and offered what comfort they could. “I have to help, have to do something. He was taking a vacation to Phoenix. A much needed vaca—”

Phoenix?
Dora’s heart stopped. She looked at the tail section in the water. Sun Fun Airlines. The airline she was going to use to visit her mother in Phoenix.

She felt a hand on her arm. “Ms. Roberts? Are you all right?”

Sun Fun Airlines, an afternoon flight, Phoenix
. The full implications of the information raced through her mind and crashed into the wall that protected her emotions from such knowledge. “I … I was supposed to be on that flight.”

The Gables and the man looked at her, their faces sharing an incredulous stare.

Dora’s voice gained strength as she pointed at the tail section, jabbing the air with her finger. “That might have been me in that water!”

“Or under the water.” Mrs. Gable slapped a hand to her mouth and looked apologetically toward Dora and the man who had lost his brother. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have …”

The man stared at Dora as if she were guilty of something. Maybe she was guilty of living when his brother had died. “Maybe your brother is one of the survivors.”

The man’s jaw tightened. “You mean like you?”

“I’m not a surviv—”

“You’re here, aren’t you? You were supposed to get on that plane but fate kept you off.”

“I’m so sorry.” It was a stupid thing to say, but Dora couldn’t think of anything else.

The man stormed away, up the embankment, as if the sight of Dora disgusted him. She turned to the Gables. “It’s not my fault I didn’t get on that plane. He’s acting as if I did something wrong by not dying.”

Mrs. Gable put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s mad. Like he said, fate kept you off. You should be thankful.”

Oh, she was; she was. But not to any vague notion of fate.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving me
.

She’d allow herself to think of the whys of it later.

Without a word, the couple turned to leave. Dora followed. There was nothing else to do. Nothing else to say. But plenty to think about.

David drove over the speed limit when he could—which wasn’t often. Traffic was terrible and grew more congested the closer he got to the crash site.

Finally, it slowed. And then stopped. He craned his head, trying to see. Horns honked. He added his to the mix and rammed the palm of his hand into the steering wheel. “Come on, people!”

But nobody moved. And after five minutes of immobility, he realized he was stuck—mentally, emotionally, and now physically—in a limbo land where nothing was certain. Nothing was known. And worse, there was nothing he could do … except …

“God, help them. Oh, dear God, help them.”

If Dora heard her photographer, Bobby, say one more time, “I can’t believe you were scheduled for that flight but didn’t go. And to have your mother’s condition be healed.” there would have been one more casualty due to the crash of Flight 1382. The guy was a broken record. Dora knew the coincidence was amazing, and she needed time to let it fully sink in—time alone. Unfortunately, she did not have that luxury, and wouldn’t have, for quite some time. She had a job to do—with an angle unlike anyone else’s. How ironic that her first big break in a story involved herself.

By the time Dora dropped him off at the paper so he could develop his pictures, the lobby of the hospital where the survivors had been taken was crammed with news cameras and reporters surging and vying for position in a feeding frenzy.

She drew on her adrenaline reserve and scanned the room for a friendly face, a sympathetic rival who might fill her in. She spotted Jon Cunningham, a TV reporter. Since their mediums were not in direct competition, he was a good choice. She waved at him. “Jon!”

He looked up and motioned her over. As she snaked through
the crowd, one question hummed from every island of conversation: What was the name of the hero?

She reached Jon and shook his hand. “What’s the news?”

He was not offended by her lack of pleasantries. He tilted a notepad in her direction. She pulled out her own, along with a pen, and wrote as he talked. “The original survivors are Tina McKutcheon; Belinda Miller; George Davanos; Merry Cavanaugh and her son, Justin; Sonja Grafton; and Anthony Thorgood.”