by R. D. Kardon
Danny looked into his wife’s eyes and patted her forearm for emphasis. “Em, listen to me. It never has, it never could. Bruce . . . well, I don’t know, but according to Tris, what happened to him had been brewing for some time.”
Em slid off the barstool and started to pace.
“Tris. Yes. His captain. His friend. Why didn’t she do anything to help him? Where was she when her first officer needed her, huh? And Mike? Her boyfriend. Who knows if he’ll ever recover? My brother-in-law and my cousin. Both . . . damaged. On her watch. Your precious Tris.”
“That’s crazy. C’mon. Be fair. Bruce froze at the controls. Mike got shot.” And Tris could have died. She could be gone.
“Why didn’t she take care of them?” Em cried, then sobbed, her body crumpling.
This was dangerous territory. If Danny jumped to defend Tris, which was his first instinct, the conversation would decay into their typical dispute about how he wasn’t over her, on and on. He didn’t have the strength for that today.
“Look, I know you’re upset. Let’s not talk about this right now. It’s not productive.”
“Well, that’s a first,” she shot back. “You not wanting to talk about Tris. That’s never happened before.” She flung the empty soda can into the recycling bin and stomped back to the bedroom. He heard the door slam shut.
Danny squeezed his empty beer can so hard the aluminum split on one side and cut his hand. He licked the blood off his palm before he pressed it into his jeans, staring at the jagged red dash still smeared on the side of the can.
Fifty-Nine
The sight of the homeless guys milling about outside the Westin hangar comforted Tris. Billy-Bob had a cigarette in his mouth—unlit of course. He knew the rules.
“Hey girlie girl, where ya been?” he called. She shot him a quick wave as she walked by.
When the hangar door cracked open, Tris was assaulted by an unfamiliar and decidedly unpleasant smell, like industrial cleaning fluid. Maybe Woody had finally called a professional service to scrape the grime off the place.
When she saw the Royal perched in its usual spot on the concrete floor, the smell made more sense. What kind of solvent could erase the remnants of the horrendous events that occurred on board?
Tris stood at the bottom of the air stairs, took a step up, thought better of it, and stopped.
She wasn’t ready to see the inside of the plane. Not yet. Someday, probably soon, she’d come in early for a trip and spend some time alone in the cabin; try to make a type of peace with what had happened there.
Phyll sat at the flight-planning desk, on the phone. Tris tapped her on the shoulder, and without interrupting what she was saying, Phyll exhaled like she’d been holding her breath, smiled up at her, and went back to consulting something on her computer screen.
The schedule was packed. A few trips were listed under an airplane tail number Tris wasn’t familiar with. The second Royal?
“Hey Tris.” Woody poked his head out of his office door and beckoned her inside. He walked out from behind an unruly stack of books and papers and hugged her. That was a first. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, Woody. I don’t even know where to start.”
Woody looked her up and down, as if checking to make sure she was still in one piece. They’d spoken on the phone a few times but hadn’t seen each other since before she left for Iqaluit. “I see you got the aircraft back. I haven’t had a chance to look inside yet. Glad it’s home.”
Woody hesitated. “Me, too. The FAA won’t stop sniffing around. They came down hard on me for not doing a better background check on Mike. If I’d have known . . . Geez, I’d known the guy for years, you know?”
The old boys network? Oh, I know.
“It’s over, Woody.”
“I sure hope so.”
She could hardly fault Woody for not looking closely enough at Mike. After all, she didn’t, either.
Tris shrugged. “Is that it?”
Woody raised his hand. “Tris, relax, okay? Just let me talk for a minute. Look, things are all over the place here. I can’t begin to calculate the amount of money this whole disaster has cost us, and all at the exact same time Jimbo and I committed to buy that second airplane. I’m tapped. Completely tapped. And you can bet that after this, Tetrix isn’t giving us any spillover flying.”
“Have you talked to Zorn?”
“Practically every day,” Woody replied wearily. “He’s been involved in every detail of the investigation. He never misses a chance to point his finger, does he? ‘Well, Woody,’ he starts out really nice, ‘you were the one that chose Warren Marshall as your Chief Pilot. You put him in charge of that flight. You couldn’t trust Tris Miles?’ That guy’s a piece of work.”
Tris was all too familiar with her former boss’s penchant for exaggerating to make a point. It was one of his many unattractive qualities.
“What about business? There are plenty of charter customers out there. What about the stuff you had on the schedule? Sounded like Phyll was booking a trip when I came in.”
Woody smiled slyly. “So, like I said, things are disorganized, and I’m cash poor. But it turns out,” he paused for effect, “that angel flight was a boon to our business after all, thanks to all the press our ‘hero pilots’ have gotten. I’ve been hiring rent-a-pilots left and right to fill in next to me while you’ve both been out, so I didn’t have to cancel every single trip on the schedule. I’d forgotten how much hard work goes into these trips.”
Tris gripped the metal sides of the guest chair. “Okay . . . ?”
Woody’s fingers twitched at the edge of the desk. “Tris, I’ve got, well, I’ve learned something. I gotta hear it from you.”
She was sure he could hear her heart pound. “Hear what?”
Woody paused, swallowed hard, and ran the palm of his hand against his forehead as he leaned into the desk.
“Are you seeing a shrink?”
He must already know, or he wouldn’t have asked. Either way, she wouldn’t lie to Woody.
“Yes. I am. I started seeing one after I left Tetrix. To get over my ex-boyfriend’s death, and that horrible job experience. And it helped. It made me a better person. And a better pilot, Woody.”
“Of course. You should talk to someone. But these guys, you know—” Woody raised both forearms in a gesture of surrender. “Tris, I don’t care. Your personal business should be yours. Just know that it might not be as . . . as secret as you thought.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
He continued. “With all the attention on us, maybe this isn’t the right time for you—I mean, if someone gave you closer scrutiny . . . well, it’s a risk. Crap on a cracker, Tris, you know the feds.”
He didn’t have to spell it out. If the government was investigating Westin Charter’s hiring and training policies, surely someone would learn about her therapy.
She would politely resign and offer to help him hire a new Chief Pilot. Tris owed him that much.
Woody pushed up the bill of his Ridgid Tool baseball cap and scratched his forehead. Then he tented his hands in front of his eyes, which briefly shielded his face. When he looked up, his eyes were rimmed red. Tris had never, ever seen him like this.
“Right.” Woody’s voice broke, so he paused to collect himself. “Since the beginning, everything I ever asked you to do, you did.” He put both of his forearms on the desk and leaned forward. Then, he stretched his arms out and pushed his chair all the way back into the bookcase, which wobbled. Luckily, nothing fell off and hit him in the head.
“I’d completely understand if you said no. But, please. Please be the Chief Pilot of Westin Charter. Make this company the way it should have been all along. I need you. And the risks . . . I’ll take them if you will.”
A barely perceptible nod passed between the two pilots. The industry signal of mutual respect.
“Of course I’ll do it,” she said.
“Thank you. I don’t kno
w what . . . just thank you.” Woody sniffed.
The two rose to shake hands, and as Tris took his, Woody awkwardly pulled her toward him and hugged her again.
“Good. All right. Good,” he said, sat back in his chair, and grabbed a phone message.
There was one loose end nagging at her. “Hey, Woody, can I ask you something? How’d you find out? About the therapist?”
He exhaled. “Someone . . . close to you saw you at your doctor’s office. They put two and two together.”
It could only be him, the person whose career she’d stalled, who went behind her back, who helped Mike get the Chief Pilot job. This must have been what he apologized for at the hospital.
“So, Bruce told you, eh?”
Woody’s right eyebrow lifted. “Bruce? No, Mike. Mike told me.”
Sixty
It had been so long since Tris bit into a toasted coconut donut, she’d forgotten how sweet they were. She blanched at the first explosion of sugar in her mouth but acclimated quickly. It got her wondering when she’d last eaten something for the pure enjoyment of it, and not solely to keep herself alive.
She picked a small flake of coconut off the cake underneath, so she could enjoy every bite, and then washed it down with a swallow of the delicious black coffee from the donut shop. Danny was a few yards away on his mobile phone talking to Em. He rarely walked away from Tris for privacy during calls, and she sensed that things were not going well at home.
Danny gestured constantly as he spoke, poking his free arm in the air. It made Tris sad. She really hoped that Em and Danny made it. But who ever knew about relationships? Only the people in them, and even then, who could ever really be sure?
Danny was frustrated. He grumbled that Em had become a different person since the fiasco with Bruce, Heather, and little Jacob.
Tris had finally met Jacob when she stopped by their house to drop off a baby gift. Bruce told her about his therapy sessions with Heather. Both pilots wished that he’d gone sooner.
Poor Bruce. He’d been percolating for the longest time. “My therapist said it was Lemaster,” he told her. “Something about that fire raised issues—repressed memories that I’d buried since childhood. She said they’d lain dormant for years.” Tris, having wrestled with her own demons, could only imagine his.
Yet when Bruce’s issues erupted, they’d almost killed him and her—more than once. His decision to stop flying was the right one.
Danny slid his phone back in his pants pocket and joined Tris on the bench. There was no breeze, the high sun gave little heat, and the temperature was a perfect fifty-eight degrees. Diffuse sunlight poked through the full branches of the oak tree the two old friends sat under.
“So?” She ended the comfortable silence.
“Yeah, Em’s pissed,” he responded.
“Same stuff?”
“Some version of it, I guess. But it’s weird, you know? I know why she’s upset, and I really don’t blame her. There’s been so much stress lately. And, of course, she’s still not pregnant.”
Tris didn’t look at him. “No? You guys still trying?”
“On and off. This is not a great time for us. But Heather and Bruce, they’re doing great. He’s so devoted to Jacob, and he really loves Heather. You know, Bruce’s parents are coming out to stay with them for a while,” he said between bites.
Bruce talked all the time about how much he disliked his parents. But Jacob was their grandchild. “Yeah. He told me. They sound like they’re a piece of work. When I was a kid, I thought mine was the only screwed up family out there. It was isolating. And now, of course, I know better. I really feel for Bruce.”
Danny nodded, finished off donut number one, and reached into the bag for the second. She admired his consistency. Two glazed, coffee light, no sugar. Every time.
“It’ll work itself out. But what about you?” He hesitated. “Have you talked to Mike?”
She shook her head, and the two sat in silence.
Had Mike loved her? Was he even able to love anyone but Christine?
A whistling sound signaled that the wind had picked up. She pulled her jacket tight around her chest. “You tried to warn me. And I didn’t listen. Didn’t want to hear it, not a word. Dismissed it as crew-room gossip. But of course—”
“Gossip starts somewhere down the road as truth,” he finished her sentence. “It’s all right Tris. I understand. I’m just grateful you weren’t hurt. That Bruce wasn’t hurt.”
Oh, but aviation claimed its casualties, and not just on the angel flight. Bruce, Diana. Mike. Their stories were the stuff of daytime television. The Jerry Springer Show. Not real life.
Danny changed the subject. “What happened at the meeting? With Woody?”
Tris turned to Danny, lips spread in a smile of pure joy and spoke the words that would move her forward.
“He made me Chief Pilot, Danny. I’m the Chief Pilot of Westin Charter.”
Danny dropped the remains of his donut, stood and reached for her. She rose, and they came together in an embrace bonded by enduring friendship.
They’d shared hundreds of flight hours, a tragic loss, and a career that had both disappointed and delighted them. They held each other tightly.
There was no need for words. The past was behind them, the future not assured. There was nothing but the present. No day but today.
June 3, 2000
The movers had filled their truck with Tris’s belongings. She’d be in her new place this afternoon in time for them to be delivered.
Orion wandered around the empty apartment, standing on parts of the floor his paws had never touched. Surely, he must be thinking, “Where the heck is everything?” When the time came to leave, she left her apartment keys on the kitchen counter as she’d been instructed, scooped him up, scratched his belly, and plopped him in his carrier.
Soon, she and Orion would head to a new home, a fresh start away from blank walls which bore the shadowy outlines of her memories. But she had one stop to make first.
On this day, four years before, she’d gotten that early morning call from Danny, the one that told her Bron was gone. It was why she chose this day to move out and move on.
In a shady spot in the cemetery parking lot, Tris cracked open the Corolla’s windows and put a light sheet over Orion’s crate. Turning away, she walked the familiar path to where Bron lay.
“Hey, baby,” she greeted him, as she always did, before she sat down on the grass by his headstone. The gold-tinted paint that filled the etched letters of his name, dates of birth and death, and beloved status had started to chip a bit over the last year. Tris made a mental note to call the grounds keepers and let them know.
In the still afternoon, Tris silently carried on her conversation. Sometimes, she spoke to him out loud. Other times, her body language punctuated a point that she made only in her head. Eyes closed, she saw the two of them together. Then Mike popped into her mind, and her heart caught, just for a second. Bron wouldn’t care. He’d have wanted her to be happy, and she almost was.
Almost. The only communication she’d had with Mike since the angel flight was through his mother, who’d left an answering machine message imploring Tris in her thick southern accent to stop calling. “Wahhhren doesn’t want to speak to you,” she drawled. She offered no update on his condition, no clue about the progress of his recovery. Just like that, Mike was gone.
All her life, Tris had believed in “the one.” Mike was “the one.” Before him, Bron was “the one.” Tris had no future with either man.
What if there was no “one?” What if that was just something that existed on the Lifetime channel, or in greeting cards? Something conjured by advertisers to keep everyone searching, moving around and away, never settled or satisfied?
“Okay, baby, it’s time for me to go,” she finally said. “Just one more thing.” She inhaled deeply and reached into her pocket. Her fingers easily found the folded piece of paper with the small metal lump inside.
Tris blinked back tears as she placed the tiny metal adornment at the base of his stone. Recognition for all that had been sacrificed. She kissed her fingertips and pressed them against his name.
Then she stood up and brushed the dirt from her jeans.
“See you,” she whispered.
So much longing, so much loss. It was time to heal.
Without glancing back, Tris strode the sunlit path to her car, and toward her future.
Acknowledgments
ANGEL FLIGHT was inspired by a trip I flew as a pilot for Baxter International in the late ’90’s. Our crew was assigned to pick up a woman who had a severe spinal cord injury and bring her to treatment at the Mayo Clinic. She was the wife of a Baxter executive, and the company donated its jet and crew—at great expense—to transport her. She was immobile, and a medical transport would have been prohibitively expensive for the family.
I’ve never forgotten that flight which, to this day, is probably the most important I’ve ever flown. Our crew was comprised of a female captain and first officer. Our passengers included the injured woman’s husband. I remember thinking how lucky I was to work for a company that would help this family, and knew I’d write about an angel flight someday.
While real-life experience provided the story seed, no novel enters the world as a published book without the help of many generous people.
First, the experts. Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Weinstein, a childhood friend, gave me expert insight into the workings of Aviation Medical Examiners. A number of people who I’ve never met also made substantial contributions to the authenticity of this story. Jennifer Pierce, an Air Traffic Control Specialist with the Houston ARTCC provided insight into what happens on the ATC side when a pilot declares an emergency—thankfully, something I never had to do. Author and retired Milwaukee Police Department Sergeant Patrick O’Donnell and Bangor Police Sergeant Wade Betters made sure I correctly described police procedure. Mary Jo Lagoski, MA, LPC answered all of my questions about therapy from a therapist’s point of view. To all of you, my deepest gratitude.
