As Far as the Stars

by Virginia MacGregor

  I was tired after working so hard on the research paper.

  And stressed about the wedding.

  And so I made a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life.

  But I don’t say anything else. Because none of those reasons are good enough. It was my fault. Period.

  Everything goes silent. Jude’s fingers slip into mine.

  ‘He’s not coming back, Mom,’ I say.

  The words feel like stones in my throat.

  Mom’s face folds in on itself.

  Behind her, I see a TV screen. The news is on. An aerial shot off the coast of Ireland. And then they’re interviewing a guy standing on the shore next to a fishing boat. The guy’s pointing at the sky and shaking his head. A rolling banner with a phone number for friends and relatives of the victims comes up on the screen. And a tag line: No known survivors.

  ‘Blake got a plane into DC,’ I explain, as calmly as I can. ‘He was meant to fly into Nashville – as you know, that was the plan.’ The words stick in my throat but I force myself to keep going. ‘I was going to drive down and pick him up and bring him to the hotel. But I booked a flight to DC instead. And the plane never made it.’ I pause. ‘So it’s on me.’

  Everything goes very still.

  Stephen takes Jude’s other hand.

  Dad puts his arm around Mom.

  And I sit there, Leda still at my feet, staring at the TV screen.

  Silence.

  I’d tried to prepare myself for this moment.

  For all the questions I couldn’t answer.

  For making sense of the Blake-shaped hole that my family was going to have to face.

  For Mom being Mom and jumping in and trying to solve the problem before I’d even finished explaining.

  And then for it really sinking in. That if weren’t for me, Blake would be with us. He’d be alive.

  But I wasn’t ready for this. For silence. More than silence. A stillness, like everyone and everything around me has stopped breathing.

  And that’s when I get it. Really get it. That I’ve known all along that Blake wasn’t coming back. But that I couldn’t let myself believe it. Because of this. Because of what it would do to them.

  Jude’s stopped crying. Her eyes are rimmed red. She’s leaning into Stephen, staring into space. I guess she’s used up all that strength she had getting through the wedding, and now it’s sinking in, what I said to her as we sat on the stairs under the roof terrace.

  Dad’s holding Mom’s hand, stroking it over and over with his thumb.

  All the colour’s drained from Mom’s face. She keeps shaking her head slowly from side to side.

  Even Leda’s quiet, her head between her paws, her ears flopped over her eyes.

  Then the silence breaks.

  ‘What do we do?’ Mom’s voice comes out small and wobbly.

  My heart sinks. Not once in the seventeen years of my life have I heard Mom ask this question. A meteor as big as the Empire State Building could crash into our back yard and she’d know what to do. She’d take charge.

  ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ Dad says.

  Every one of us shifts a bit and looks at Dad like we’ve never seen him before.

  He clears his throat. ‘It’s the middle of the night, so we’re going to go back to our rooms and get some sleep and then, tomorrow, we’ll work out what we’re going to do next.’ He looks around at us, catching each of our eyes. ‘We’ll face it, together.’ He pauses. ‘Like we always do.’ Dad speaks in this strong, confident voice like, for once in our family’s life, he’s going to get to make a decision. And like he knows it’s the right one.

  Mom shakes her head. ‘I want to go to DC now.’

  ‘And do what?’ Dad asks. ‘By the time we get there, everyone will be asleep. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’

  Mom looks from Jude to Stephen. ‘But they were meant to leave for their honeymoon – we haven’t booked a room for them. And the hotel’s full. The wedding guests. The people who came to see the eclipse—’

  ‘We’ll find them a room, my love,’ Dad says, gently.

  Then he takes Mom’s hand and kisses it. I notice that her skin is red and chapped from all the flower arranging she’s been doing for the wedding.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ Dad says. ‘We all are. Let’s go and get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’

  Mom looks up at him, her lips trembling, and nods. Then she leans into his chest. He kisses the top of her head and closes his eyes. I can feel his relief that Mom’s agreed to stay here rather than tearing off to the airport in the middle of the night.

  Jude starts sobbing. Stephen holds her.

  Dad opens his eyes and looks over at me and I can tell that he’s grateful I’m here with him, to hold the family together.

  I think about how, already now, before any of us have had the time to process any of this properly, the concentric circles of our family have shifted.

  And then I think about Christopher. About how he came all this way. How he sat with me for hundreds of miles while I kidded myself into believing that if I got to the wedding in time, Blake would be here and everything would be okay. And how he went with it. More than that, how he helped me. Because he understood, somehow, that that was what I needed to do.

  I realise how I’m not ready to go back to the hotel room Mom booked for me and to lie in bed unable to sleep, replaying all the details of what’s happened.

  And I don’t want to be alone.

  Jude has Stephen, and Mom has Dad. Blake was the one I turned to when things fell apart. Not because he could do anything to sort it out but because just being with him made things feel better.

  More than anything, I think they need space from me: the person who got things so badly wrong.

  I stand up slowly.

  ‘They can use my room,’ I say. ‘Jude and Stephen.’

  Mom stares at me, like she can’t process any more information right now.

  ‘Air,’ Dad asks. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s something I’ve got to do,’ I say. ‘Somewhere I’ve got to go.’

  All four of them look at me, stunned.

  Leda gets onto her feet and starts thumping her tail against the hotel lobby.

  ‘Where?’ Mom asks, her voice wobbly. ‘Where on earth do you have to go?’

  ‘To Atlanta.’

  I know it’s crazy. But right now, it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. It’s the only way I can get through this.

  Mom lets out a sob. ‘Atlanta – what are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m going with a friend. I met him at DC. At the airport. He had someone on the plane too.’

  I’m starting to walk away already.

  ‘Air!’ Mom calls after me.

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Jude says.

  I come back and take her hands and kiss each palm in turn, like she did mine when we were talking in the stairwell.

  ‘His name’s Christopher. The guy you saw just now – the one who had my telescope. He’s going to Atlanta to find his mom and I need to go with him.’ I pause. ‘He lost his dad – in the crash.’

  Jude’s eyes fill with tears.

  My throat feels thick with guilt at leaving them, but I have to go.

  ‘He’s been here for me – through everything.’ I swallow hard. ‘And he doesn’t have anyone.’

  I wipe a tear from Jude’s cheek.

  My eye catches Stephen’s and although he doesn’t say a word, I can see from how he’s looking at me that he’s going to look after her for me. And everything that’s going on right now, I’m grateful again that he’s here – that the wedding happened, that he’s in our family. That there’s this one good thing for us to hold onto.

  ‘I’ll come back. As soon as I’ve done this, I’ll drive to DC and then we’ll be together, I promise. I have to do this,’ I say.

  I kiss Mom’s forehead, trying not to look at her eyes. If I do
n’t go quickly, I’ll lose my nerve.

  Then I turn to Dad and give him a hug, like the one he gave me before the wedding.

  ‘You got this, Dad?’ I whisper in his ear.

  His head nods against my cheek. ‘I’ve got this.’

  He holds me for a really long time and I know that, once I’ve got back from Atlanta, when I’m back in DC, it’s Dad who’s going to be there for me. He’s the one who’s going to help me from going crazy thinking about what I’ve done.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whisper back.

  He gives me one last squeeze and then I pull away.

  I know that going like this might be wrong. That perhaps I’m running away from things again, like I ran away from the truth that Blake was on that plane. From having to watch Mom and Dad come to terms with what’s happened. From having to live inside me – the person who’s to blame for all this. But I know that even though going might be wrong, it’s right too. And that no matter how crazy it sounds, being with Christopher is the only thing that makes sense right now. And that he deserves to have someone with him.

  I pick Leda up, hold her tight against my chest and feel her head rest into my shoulder. Then I turn and run out through the hotel doors.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  6th Avenue, Nashville, TN

  He’s walking past the Buick when Leda catches up with him. She jumps up at him.

  ‘Hey, buddy.’ Christopher takes her into his arms. Leda licks his face.

  I can tell that he’s avoiding having to look at me. He probably thinks I’m going to lay into him again.

  ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you,’ I say.

  He still doesn’t look at me.

  ‘It was kind of you to come,’ I go on.

  His spine straightens a little.

  ‘It’s just …’ I can’t find any words to say it. That Blake’s gone. That nothing’s going to be right ever again. That although Christopher coming all this way is like the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, it doesn’t make any of it go away.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says, ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’ve told them,’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve told my family.’

  He nods.

  ‘Everything, I mean.’

  Christopher takes his backpack off his shoulders, places it on the sidewalk, kneels down and rubs the soft hairs under Leda’s chin.

  ‘I told them that I was the one who booked the flight,’ I say.

  He stops stroking Leda but he doesn’t look up.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? It was my fault.’

  He doesn’t move.

  ‘I booked Blake onto the wrong flight. I put him on the flight to DC. The one that crashed. It was all my fault.’

  He still doesn’t say anything.

  I slump down on the curb.

  ‘It was all my fault.’

  He sits beside me.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he says.

  ‘How can it not be my fault? I put Blake on that plane.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

  I look up at him, waiting for him to explain. ‘It doesn’t work like that?’

  ‘You didn’t know the plane was going to crash.’

  ‘I know this is true. Logically. Objectively. But the point still stands: if Blake had flown into Nashville – if I’d booked him onto the right plane – he’d still be here.’

  ‘It’s still not your fault that the plane crashed.’

  I look out across Nashville. My brother’s city.

  ‘They’re still in shock, I think, my parents, about Blake.’

  Christopher nods.

  I think about those first hours in the car together. How we were kind of numb too. How I nearly crashed the car when Blake’s voice came over the speakers. Did I already know it then? That he was on the plane? That he was already gone?

  Christopher looks up at the windscreen of the Buick and smiles. I see the scrunched-up piece of paper that was once one of Christopher’s models. And then my words.

  ‘You thought a note would do the trick?’ he says.

  ‘Well, the car’s still here, isn’t it?’ I say.

  ‘Or maybe the parking attendants took the day off because of the eclipse.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  Christopher looks down and nods at the bag on my shoulder. ‘Thank you for the loan of the telescope. The eclipse was cool, hey?’

  ‘I was so busy messing up the song I didn’t see it.’

  ‘You didn’t mess up the song.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You showed up.’

  ‘And then I left.’

  ‘You still showed up. And you tried.’

  ‘Yeah, I tried.’

  He looks up at the sky. ‘And we’ll get another chance.’

  ‘Another chance?’

  ‘To see an eclipse.’

  My mind fast forwards to a time, years ahead, when I get to see the world go dark in the middle of the day. I wonder where I’ll be and who I’ll be with and whether it’ll even matter to me, what’s happening up there, in the universe.

  ‘How did you get to Nashville?’ I ask.

  ‘I hitched a ride.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yep. I upped my game.’

  ‘Someone actually stopped?’

  ‘Yeah, someone actually stopped. A red pick-up in fact.’ He smiles. ‘Between the Buick and the pick-up, I’ve had the all-American experience, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  I think back to the first time I saw Christopher at Dulles. The kind of guy people walk right past, that’s what I’d thought. Invisible. And I have the same thought that I had when I watched him coming out of the water after we jumped at Leda Falls: that he’s become more solid, somehow – more here. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s because I know him now – because I know that he’s not invisible – that he’s real, one of the most real things in my life.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  He shrugs. ‘I guess he felt sorry for me. Or maybe he liked my accent. I was shouting pretty loud.’

  ‘I mean, why did you come here?’

  ‘I wanted to hear you sing.’

  ‘You’ve heard me sing.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to be alone.’ Then he shakes his head. ‘No, that’s not true. I mean, it’s true – I didn’t want you to have to face all this by yourself. But I knew that you could do it.’ He pauses. ‘I came for me.’

  ‘For you?’

  He nods. ‘I missed you.’

  My throat’s gone dry. ‘You did?’

  He nods again.

  I think again about how there are a thousand sentences in those nods and those shrugs of his.

  ‘And now?’ I ask.

  ‘I need to go and speak to Mum.’

  He gets up and pulls his backpack onto his shoulders.

  I stand up too, step past him and open the door of the Buick. Leda jumps in and settles on the dress that I was meant to wear for the rehearsal dinner. I put the telescope beside her.

  I think about Blake’s suit and his hat box, how it lay there, on the back seat, for all those hundreds of miles. They’ve probably been dumped in some back room upstairs in the hotel.

  Even with all the news about the plane, I kept believing that he’d find a way of getting to the wedding. That he’d walk in at the last minute, and take over the song. But it was Christopher who showed up.

  I go around to the front, open the door to the driver’s seat and sit down behind the steering wheel.

  I look up at him. ‘Need a lift somewhere?’

  He stares at me, his eyes wide and pale behind his glasses.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’ll be faster than taking the bus.’

  ‘What will be faster?’

  I roll my eyes. ‘If I drive you.’

  ‘But your parents – your family?’

  ‘I told them I had to do this.’

  ‘You did?’

  I nod.

  ‘And th
ey’re okay with that?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone’s okay with anything right now. But yeah, Dad’s going to work things out tomorrow.’

  He keeps standing there, staring and blinking. I guess he’s weighing up whether he can handle it – another road trip with me and the possibility of me blaming him for everything again.

  ‘You getting in, then?’ I ask.

  Leda lets out a yelp from the back seat.

  I turn the key in the ignition.

  And then Christopher takes off his backpack, places it on the back seat next to Leda and gets in beside me.

  DAY 4

  TUESDAY 22ND AUGUST, 2017

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I-24, TN

  After getting out of Nashville, I turn off the I-24 and park the Buick on the side of the road.

  I get changed out of my bridesmaid’s dress and into my T-shirt and shorts, the clothes I swam in, now dry and stiff as cardboard. Then we both sleep. I stretch out on the front bench; Christopher goes in the back and curls up with Leda.

  We know that we can’t keep going if we don’t at least try to rest.

  When we wake up, it’s nearly dawn. A kind of half-light. A few stars, the bright ones, still shining.

  Before getting back onto the highway, we stop by a small grocery store, pick up some sandwiches and then set off for Atlanta.

  Our body clocks are all over the place, so driving at some crazy hour in the morning won’t make a difference.

  And the half-light, the stillness of the early morning, makes it easier, somehow.

  Easier not to talk.

  Easier not to have to think too hard about everything that’s happened. And whether I should have stayed with Mom and Dad and Jude. And whether Dad’s strong enough to hold them together through all this. And what’s going to happen when I get back to DC and Blake’s not there and I have to find a way of living with the fact that it’s because of me.

  Besides stopping to sleep, we only take one break at a rest-stop outside Chattanooga.

  And that’s when Christopher tells me about the news that came in during the wedding. And the news that’s come in since then, while I was driving and he scanned his phone for more information.

  About what really happened to the UKFlyer0217 that left Heathrow for DC on Friday 18th of August 2017. The flight his dad was on. And Blake.