Angel Flight

by R. D. Kardon

  Q: Is that how you feel about your own situation? That your illness, your ALS, is something you need to stay organized for? To plan for?

  A: That’s exactly how I feel about it. I remember when my father died, oh, I was about seven years old. He committed suicide, so we weren’t expecting it. My mother just got on the phone, calling all the people who needed to know, the mortuary, the cemetery, everyone. She gave my brothers and me duties to perform. She managed the process. That’s how we got through it. There was no time for her to fall apart. She had three children.

  Q: What about the famous Kübler-Ross model—the five stages of grief. Do you subscribe to that model?

  A: Of course. But those are internal reactions. What I’m talking about are external actions we use to accept the grief. Feelings, well, no one can truly control them. All we can ever control are our actions.

  Q: Are you grieving your own death?

  A: My husband Erik and I have the luxury—and I feel that way about it—of being able to make decisions now. So that when I’m gone, Erik can truly grieve, can feel the loss, can process it and, I hope, move on.

  Death is a project to be managed.

  Tris dropped the article in her lap and closed her eyes. Step by step, putting together a death plan, making your wishes known. If she’d only known Bron would die that night. If he’d known. What more might they have accomplished in their time together?

  “Hell, no,” Tris whispered, and shoved the article back in her folder. “I’d have stopped him.”

  The red light went off, and Tris popped out of her chair, pacing a few steps in each direction before Dr. C appeared and invited her in.

  “So,” Dr. C said, after opening pleasantries. “What do you have to share today?”

  It all came racing out. Mike, their relationship, having sex with him for the first time, his background, his marriage. Bron—the unexpected guilt she’d experienced, mostly in her dreams, as she emotionally pulled away from him. And work, the incredibly stupid mistake she made in Burbank.

  “Why are you so upset about that trip, Tris? It seemed like all that really happened was that you got home a little late. Is there more?”

  Dr. C just didn’t understand.

  “No, it’s critical that these trips leave on time. Our passengers pay ridiculous amounts of money to leave when they want. Not when it’s convenient for us. Woody is furious about it.”

  “How do you know? Is that what he said?”

  “Yes. He suggested without actually saying that I might not be—that I might not be ready for . . . that I might not get the Chief Pilot job.” Tris looked for something to dig her fingernails into other than her palms. She forced her hands to grip the arms of the upholstered chair she sat on.

  “You’re making yourself upset by anticipating something that hasn’t happened yet. Why do that, Tris?”

  Sometimes she just wanted Dr. C to slide down the rabbit hole with her.

  “Because it was a bad mistake. And I’m still competing for the Chief Pilot job. I mean, he hasn’t made a decision, but this really puts me behind Mike. And Mike . . .”

  Dr. C had been making notes, and when she finished, took a moment before she spoke. “Is there something more about Mike’s involvement here?”

  “It’s not Mike, it’s me. No, it’s not Mike.”

  “Sounds like you may be trying to convince yourself of something. What’s going on with Mike, Tris?”

  Pilots are trained to handle distractions and pride themselves on that skill. Mike’s background, his first wife, Legacy. Why didn’t she check the paperwork before going to bed? She’d done it hundreds of times before. But her mind had been full of Mike—his issues, and her need for him. Her want.

  “It was nothing he did. It’s that he was there in the first place. Or not. I don’t know.”

  Dr. C waited while Tris gathered her thoughts.

  “It’s like I let everything else go because of him. He told me about his past, things I wanted to know, answered the questions I’d been asking him—about his ex-wife, for example. And then we made love. And I wanted so much to stay in that space, that moment. I ignored my responsibilities. I wasn’t on vacation, a trip out of the city for fun. I was supposed to be working.” Tris swallowed her own self-disgust. It burned.

  “I mean, how can I expect Woody to trust me with operational authority, Chief Pilot authority, if I can’t keep my eye on the ball? Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She rose from her chair, and went to look out the window, at the parking lot. She started to catalog the people she saw: Nope. Don’t know him. Or him. And, uh . . . nope, not her either.

  “Tris, can you please sit down?” Dr. C’s patient voice implored. “You know, we’ve talked about this. How you’ll take an event and start tying it to a series of dreadful outcomes that haven’t happened. Imagining everything that might go wrong, almost like it’s pre-ordained, like you deserve the trouble. Is that what you’re thinking now?”

  Tris was steadfast. “No. I’m not. But I will admit, sometimes I can’t get a break.”

  Dr. C made a note, nodding the whole time. “I understand that. You’ve been made to bear quite a bit. But the important question here is how do you wish to move forward?”

  Tris’s eyes closed. She visualized calmly explaining to Woody earlier that she had made a mistake, and the steps she took to correct it. If you fuck up, fess up, and fix it. That was one of Bron’s sayings.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to respect Woody’s faith in me. If he still has any.”

  “Has he given you any indication he’s lost that faith?”

  “You mean other than hiring Mike and having me compete with him for the top job? Other than questioning my—my fitness?” Her anxiety spiraled again, and Tris couldn’t figure out how to stop it. Breathe? Punch a wall? Neither seemed helpful.

  Dr. C turned and put her pad and pen on the desk behind her. “Of course, that upsets you. Understandably. And your relationship with Mike creates different feelings. Can you share what you’re feeling about Mike in all this?”

  “Jealous. He’s had a relationship with Woody for years, so that could give him a leg-up on the Chief Pilot job. And I’m jealous of his love for his wife. Someone he cared about enough to sacrifice his career for.”

  “Is there something else, Tris?” Dr. C asked.

  Tris nodded sharply. Her right knee bobbed up and down from her anxious leg bounce. “Well, the thing is . . . I’m falling in love with him.”

  Thirty-One

  The Corolla’s trunk banged shut, and soon Diana was in the passenger seat. She looked way better than she had the last time. She’d put on weight and was back to wearing a thick coat of foundation on her face. Tris noticed a few tiny pimples on her chin.

  This time, Tris was the one struggling to explain her new situation as they drove back to her apartment.

  Diana was riveted by the story of the Chief Pilot competition. She sat back and shook her head at the end. “Woody hired that guy? Was it already in the works when you started dating?”

  “Was it? He might have been talking to Mike behind my back for weeks. I have no idea. Maybe. Woody didn’t discuss it with me. Neither did Mike. Not until it was a done deal.”

  “Fuck Mike. Fuck Woody. Fuck ’em all,” Diana spat. “None of these guys is worth the breath we use to say their names.”

  Diana’s brash reply made Tris consider her next words carefully. “You know, Di, this is the guy I’m involved with.”

  Diana looked away. “Fishin’ in the company pond again, eh? How did that work out the last time? He died, right?”

  Diana usually went out of her way to be polite even when she had to deliver a critique. Tris had copied the technique from her as a flight instructor. No, the woman in her car looked healthier than she had last time. But it wasn’t the Diana she knew.

  Tris pulled over to the side of the road, pressed her foot on the brake and glared at her friend. “Bron and I weren’t finished. We would have g
otten back together except—”

  Diana looked horror-stricken. “I’m sorry, I get it. But at work. Can you really trust anyone you work with in this business?”

  “Come on, Di, where else am I going to meet people? All I do is work, and when I’m off, I’m generally on call so I can’t even go over to O’Slattery’s and have a beer.”

  “I know. I know. Not sure what got into me there.” The two women were silent for the rest of the short drive. When they arrived, Diana settled on the couch and rubbed Orion’s belly. He purred like a motorboat.

  “How long have you got, Di? When do you need to catch your flight?”

  Diana pulled a flight manifest out of her purse. “I’ve got two hours, and then you can drop me back.” She gave the walls of the living room a full-circle review. Gray silhouettes surrounded geometric shapes where photos used to hang.

  “You ever gonna put anything up on those walls?”

  “Haven’t gotten around to it, I guess,” Tris said.

  “You mean you haven’t gotten over him.”

  Another zinger from her old friend. Maybe it was the jet lag. Flying all over Europe and then back to the US was exhausting. Every day for Diana was a Ball Buster, the nickname Tetrix pilots gave to their annual ten-day, fourteen-city trip to Europe. Tris had only needed to fly it once to experience its debilitating effects.

  Regardless, there was truth to her barb. “No. I took all the pictures of Bron and me down. I have nothing to replace them with. That’s all.”

  Tris went to get a beer and motioned to Diana who waved her off. Diana was jump seating—technically that meant she was an active crew member and couldn’t drink.

  “Hey, Tris,” Diana called from the living room, “so about that guy at work you’re sleeping with. Or just seeing—sheesh, sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “So. Your guy. Does he respect you?”

  On this point, Tris was resolute. “He does.”

  “And in bed?” Diana knew her better than Tris realized.

  Tris blushed. “He’s a pretty stellar performer there, too.” She walked back to the couch with her beer. “He’s a new captain, so I have to train him.”

  “In the cockpit or in bed?” Diana sparred. Both pilots laughed at that.

  “Just on company procedures. I’ll be giving him an internal check on those in a week or so. But otherwise, we’re essentially equals.”

  Diana sighed. “No, you’re not.”

  “Huh? Woody said we were.”

  “But he’s a guy. It’s different, as you well know. Once a woman has the power to affect a man’s flying career, it’s way different. Tris, you may think this Chief Pilot thing is only going to be a moment in time in your relationship. But it’s not. So, this, uh, relationship. Only casual?”

  “I don’t think so, Di. My heart tells me it’s more. But who knows? Maybe that’s just because I want it to be.”

  Her instincts had let her down so many times of late, she had lost confidence in her ability to read any situation. The uncertainly around her relationship with Mike frightened her. She’d botched things with Bron. All indications were that she’d misjudged Bruce. Floating around her consciousness was a warning: if I make another big mistake, I might not recover.

  Diana’s hard line softened. “Man, I am a jerk today. I am happy for you if you really like him,” she said, and looked it. “But the competition between you . . .” Diana’s voice trailed off. “How do you deal with it?”

  “We try really hard not to talk about it. We both want the job.”

  “Do you want the position bad enough to choose it over your relationship? If it came to that?”

  Her first instinct was to respond of course. But doubt immediately set in. She hadn’t considered whether the Chief Pilot position was more important than Mike. It’d never occurred to her that she’d have to choose. How naïve.

  “At this point, I swear I don’t know.”

  Thirty-Two

  Tris and Mike lay side by side on the futon in his bedroom.

  “So, what was it like to be married?”

  Mike groaned a little and twisted his body to change position. “My arm’s falling asleep. Let me up.” He pushed against her and rose from the bed.

  Tris followed him out of the bedroom. When she rounded the entryway into the kitchen, Mike had his mouth under the running faucet. Tris loved to watch him drink water. Her grandfather used to do the same thing. She grabbed a cold slice of pizza from the box on the counter and wandered back to the bedroom. He still hadn’t answered her.

  “So. Marriage. Yay or nay?” she asked again.

  Nothing.

  She’d found a painting of a New England landscape to go over his dresser: a gorgeous Cape Cod home, its wraparound porch dusted with snow, frozen lake in the background. It was the first gift she’d bought him, and they had just finished hanging it. Mike loved it and referred to it as their “someday.”

  Tris could see them there. She could actually see it.

  The new artwork looked at home among the few photos Mike displayed. They were of his family, his youth growing up in Alabama, and one vintage shot of his grandparents’ wedding.

  Mike’s southern upbringing was rarely evident, other than the Southern accent he occasionally put on as a joke. But his mother was what he called a quintessential Southern Belle, a woman who “wouldn’t check the mailbox unless her hair was freshly fixed and she was fully dressed, heels and all.”

  Tris had picked up his ringing landline one day to find her on the other end, and that’s exactly how she sounded. “Well, hello, Tris. Now that’s Patricia, right? This is Jeanne, Jeanne Mahhhshall,” she drawled. “And how are you today?”

  It was Mike who suggested that they meet each other’s parents. Tris avoided the subject with a joke about having to have her hair teased and get a string of pearls in order to meet Jeanne. She was in no hurry to have Mike meet her mother and stepfather. She hadn’t told them about Mike yet.

  Mike had returned from the kitchen and leaned against the bedroom doorframe. “I heard you, you know.”

  “Then tell me about it. Good. Bad. I mean, other than at the end. I know that was hard for you.”

  He stroked his beard, deep in thought. Words would come eventually.

  Mike threw a question back at her. “Do you want to get married, Tris?”

  “Uh . . . wait. Married? To you? Or just, you know, generally?”

  He laughed. “I gotta do some laundry. Want to throw anything in?”

  “No. And, as to marriage, maybe. Someday. Now I’ve answered your question, you answer mine.”

  “I will. Another time, though. I have to do laundry. And clean the kitchen. You relax,” he said, and started collecting dirty clothes, bath towels, and soiled kitchen items. He threw them into a laundry basket he’d tucked under his arm.

  Tris followed him. It was a simple question. Tris had never been married and really wanted to know what it was like.

  Mike had grabbed the key to the building’s laundry room and a bunch of quarters. “Last call.”

  “Nothing. I have to do laundry when I get home, anyhow.”

  Mike stood in front of her, mere inches separating them. “Sounds like wasted effort to me.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she chided. “You want to come over and share folding duties with me?” Folding was her least favorite household chore.

  He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Maybe that’s not all we could share,” he said softly.

  A flash of déjà vu caused a moment of panic which quickly gave way to calm. She’d been here before and gotten it wrong. Dead wrong. Right here, right now, was her second chance.

  “So, you’re saying you want to do all my household chores along with your own? Clean up after the cat?”

  The corners of Mike’s eyes crinkled in a way that left no question about his sentiment, or intentions. He had never said those three words, and Tris hadn’t either. Neither
wanted to be the first—another competition between them, this one to see who could hold back the longest from admitting the feelings that lived inside them both.

  He smiled down at her and ran the back of his hand lightly across her cheek. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we’d share them. If we lived together.”

  She pulled away slightly, but still faced him. “Well, offers to clean the litter box don’t come along that often. Hard to resist.”

  “Then don’t.”

  Tris considered this kind, loving, gentle man. She didn’t have the right words, not yet, and desperately did not want to say the wrong ones again. So, she said nothing, and simply held him. It was the best she could do.

  She and Mike were quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his tone was soothing, almost reverential. “Tris, look. We can talk about this. Discuss it. I’m not going to walk away.” He paused. “And I’m not going to die.”

  “Thank you,” was all she could muster.

  He wriggled out of her grasp. “Still got laundry to do,” he said. There was no hint of disappointment or hurt in his voice. No, she hadn’t screwed this up. They’d revisit the issue, she was sure. And soon.

  “Seriously, though. Now that we’re talking about taking a step forward, I really do want to know. What was marriage like?”

  His body tensed. “Oh, it’s the best. Right up until your wife starts sleeping with someone else.”

  IQALUIT, NUNAVUT

  CANADA

  April 11, 2000

  CHRISTINE

  Since they convicted Kevorkian, and I don’t have access to a prescription pad as a Ph.D., I had to figure out another, better way. I simply could not have you find me at home. In my work, I’ve learned that finding a loved one . . . like that . . . is the hardest part for people to overcome. I would never do that to you.