What Remains

by Radziwill, Carole

  I detach myself. This is a story I’ve been assigned, and now I have to figure it out. When working on a story, you start with what you know, and I know this: they left Caldwell after eight o’clock. Or was it seven o’clock? Think, think, when did she call you? No, it was after eight; I had already watched the news. They were dropping her sister Lauren off on the Vineyard and then flying to Hyannis. That was over four hours ago, so he must have landed in Hyannis. Pinky was wrong. He just didn’t see them.

  I call Hyannis airport, and Nick, the overnight maintenance man, answers. He is the only person there.

  “My cousin was supposed to land there around ten,” I tell him. “Has a plane landed?”

  “I just got on duty. What’s the name?” he asks me. “Maybe it’s in the logs.”

  I hesitate because when I say the name everything will change, and I’m not ready for that. “It’s John Kennedy’s plane.”

  There is a familiar pause, the silent double take, and I know Nick won’t hang up the phone and go back to watching TV.

  “Oh, sure, I know John’s plane. They were expecting him earlier. He parks at the far end so it’s probably there. Let me check and call you back.”

  I wait in the quiet kitchen while the seconds tick off the clock. I wait for Nick to call back and say, Yes, the plane is here. They landed early, that’s what happened. Pinky wasn’t there, so they took a cab to the house. He probably passed them on the road. Of course this is what happened. Pinky’s back at the house by now, I’m sure, and they’re all making a joke of it, John teasing him for being late. They’re all sitting in the kitchen, laughing at Pinky for waking me up. Pinky might even call first, before Nick. Sorry, Carole. I screwed up. They’re here. Sorry I woke you.

  But when the phone rings, it’s Nick again. “Carole? Hey, I don’t see his plane. I checked the logbook, and he hasn’t checked in yet. Maybe he landed somewhere else. Are you sure he took off?”

  His voice sounds distorted, like a record playing on the wrong speed, and I am trying to think of something else. “Wait, are you sure it’s not there? It’s a new plane. Can you look again? Please?”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, but John definitely did not land here tonight.”

  I call the airport in Caldwell, where they took off, and the phone rings and rings. It stops and I call again. Someone named Matt picks up, and I have the same careful conversation—my cousin, John Kennedy, I’m trying to find his plane—speaking slowly because I don’t want the answers to come too fast.

  “His car is here,” says Matt. I picture the white Hyundai parked in a far corner of the lot, where he can get in and out without too much attention. “But he keeps his plane in a hangar, and the hangar’s locked.”

  “Is there a window? Can you look under the crack of the door? Can you just please go and look?”

  I hear footsteps as he walks with the phone to the hangar that I know, before he tells me, will be empty.

  “Okay, I need some information,” I say calmly. There is silence.

  “Um, tell me who you are again?”

  I tell him who I am and what I know. I make him understand this is serious, that I’m not kidding around.

  “Matt, I need his tail number and his flight plan.”

  He tells me there might not be a flight plan. That it was visual flight rules, so he wasn’t required to file one. He gives me the number of Bridgeport Flight Service, and I write it down on a yellow Post-it. “They track all flights in and out of the area and they might be able to help you.”

  The man who answers at Bridgeport confirms there is no flight plan. “Radar shows a plane leaving Caldwell at eight fifty-nine p.m., heading east,” he says. This is all they know. He tells me the tower at Logan won’t have any more information, but I ask for the number anyway and I call. There are hundreds of planes in the air, they tell me; if a pilot doesn’t check in there’s no way to track his plane. I call LaGuardia, and they say the same thing.

  No, I tell myself, don’t panic. This is just a story, getting information, reporting, that’s all. What’s next? You’ve done this a million times.

  Of course, they were dropping off Lauren first, so either there is someone on the island wondering where she is, or she is here and can straighten it all out.

  There’s no answer at the Martha’s Vineyard airport, but I leave a message, and a few minutes later a man calls back. He tells me there was someone waiting there for a plane that never arrived. There is a note, and he reads it to me. “Lauren, waited for you for a while, then went home. Call when you get in. I’ll come get you. Daniel.” He gives me Daniel’s number.

  I recognize Daniel’s confusion, waking in the middle of the night to a strange voice.

  “Daniel, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Carolyn’s cousin Carole Radziwill, and I was wondering if you’ve heard from Lauren.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he says. “Actually, I thought this might be her. It’s not like her not to call. Is everything okay?”

  Every other call I make is to Pinky. He’s trying to reach Senator Kennedy in the main house on the compound, where he is staying. He will know, we think, exactly what to do, but no one is answering the phone.

  “Keep calling,” I tell him. “We have to find him, Pinky. Are you sure he’s in the house? Can you get inside?”

  The wall by my phone is covered with yellow Post-it notes: Tisbury police in Martha’s Vineyard, Martha’s Vineyard airport, Hyannis airport, tail number, local coast guard office in Menemsha.

  Maybe they turned back, I think, landed at a different airport, Teterboro, went back to the city. I call their apartment and yell into the answering machine. “Hey, are you there? Please pick up!” I call Carolyn’s cell phone and leave a message.

  I run back to the bedroom and shuffle through papers for the number of John’s flight instructor, Jay. It wakes Anthony.

  “Everything’s fine, go back to sleep,” I tell him. I leave the room quickly, before he has a chance to ask anything.

  John’s been flying with an instructor all summer because of his cast. If Jay was with him, I think, everything will be fine. I run the scenario through my head: Jay’s wife will answer the phone and tell me she just heard from him. Emergency landing, she’ll tell me, but everyone is okay, thank God.

  But Jay answers the phone, and I feel sick. I tell him John never landed at Hyannis. He is quiet. “Don’t worry,” he says. “He knows the area. He’s made that trip so many times. He’ll be fine.”

  I can tell from his voice he doesn’t believe it.

  It’s after two in the morning now, and Pinky hasn’t reached the senator. I have to make a decision. I have to call someone who can help. I place a phone call to the United States Coast Guard to file an official report. They are missing.

  I am very calm on the phone, but when I hang up I am terrified. What if they didn’t believe me? What if they did, but this is really a big misunderstanding, and I have panicked and jumped to conclusions?

  The coast guard lieutenant gives me another number to call, and I speak next to Lieutenant Porter with the United States Air Force. I tell him everything I know except what I’m not saying yet—that it is too late—and then I call Pinky. “I just reported John missing with the coast guard, Pinky! And the air force. We have to find someone over there, anyone!”

  Anthony is in the kitchen now. He is hunched over like an old man. He sits down at the wooden table by the window and scans the Post-it notes while I’m on the phone.

  Boston Air Traffic Control: reviewing radar tape

  Coast Guard District 1: sending out vessels

  NE Air Defense Sector: reviewing radar tape

  NY Civil Air Patrol: sending plane

  He puts his hands over his face and cries. I hang up. And then I start to cry so hard I can’t breathe. We can’t look at each other.

  Effie is sleeping in his bedroom off the kitchen, and I knock on his door. He gets up and looks at us and takes in the room, and then his body goes slack, and he
just shakes his head. His hands hang at his sides; none of us know quite what to do with our bodies—they seem so insignificant now. He stares at the ground; he knows what I know, that this can’t be fixed. And I am crying now, hysterical. A wall of grief, frustration, anger that I’ve kept dammed for five years has just been punctured hard. There is nothing to hold on to.

  Between phone calls I rehearse the conversation we will have when they show up. It wasn’t funny! I will scream. Don’t ever do that again. You can’t do that, you fucking asshole. I won’t talk to them. I veer between hating them and being sick, all night, waiting for them to call.

  Joe Kennedy is the first one to call from Hyannis. He is cool and efficient. On a cell phone, I can tell, probably walking across the yard at the compound. I can’t put a face to his voice, his name so late at night. I can’t remember if we have met. I am struggling to remember, in fact, which cousin or brother or nephew he is to this one, son to that.

  “Did you call Marta?” he asks me. For him this is just beginning; there must be some mistake.

  “Marta? No, I didn’t call Marta. I called the coast guard and the air force.”

  Then there is an avalanche of calls from Hyannis: Senator Kennedy, his wife. They ask me for phone numbers and tail numbers and flight plans. They are calm, their voices even. It’s reassuring to me; someone will fix everything now. It is just beginning for all of them—their certain advice: Let’s not panic yet, let’s just stay calm. I’m sure everything is fine. You know John, I’m sure he just forgot to tell someone where he was. They start making the same phone calls, asking the same questions. Did you call the airports, whom did you speak to at Langley, did you contact the police in Caldwell, could they have landed somewhere else, did he file a flight plan? Are you sure they were coming tonight? Did you try their apartment? Maybe they just wanted to get away for a few hours.

  We are in the kitchen not talking. Anthony and I are not looking at each other. It makes me sick, in fact, to look at someone who knows. I am horrible. I am thinking, It was supposed to be you. The phone rings constantly.

  I call her cell phone to hear her voice. “Hi, it’s Carolyn, leave a message.” Beep.

  She can’t be gone. Not now. This is not, cannot be, happening. And then I call again, and again. Talking and hanging up and then calling back. “Hi, it’s Carolyn, leave a message.” Beep.

  I have a vague sense of slipping. Of time closing in. Of everything I have vanishing—like a fire sweeping through a house, losing everything. I have a sense of having nothing left of her at all.

  I try to withdraw—hide in my mind somewhere, in an imagined place. Where we played on the beach, dressed for dinner. Kissed our husbands.

  It’s four in the morning now. The sun will be coming up. The press may already have heard, and no one has spoken to Caroline. She’s in Idaho with her family, and we don’t have a number. I call Ed’s secretary at her home in Queens, and she gets out of bed and rides the subway to the office. When she gets there she calls me with the number of their hotel. She does not ask any questions.

  “I’m sorry,” the hotel clerk says, “but there’s no one staying here with that name.”

  I’m sure the clerk is simply protecting their identity.

  “Maybe she checked in under another name,” I tell her. “I know she’s there. This is an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I can’t help you.”

  And then Anthony takes over and tracks down the sheriff of Stanley, Idaho. He finds his home phone and gets him out of bed. “I’m sorry to wake you, sir, but it’s an emergency. I need to get in touch with my cousin at the lodge. It’s important, and the phones don’t seem to be working. Can you go there and tell her to call Anthony at this number?” His polished, gracious manner kicks in, and in the insanity of this moment, here we are, the two of us. I look across the kitchen and see the reporter I met in Beverly Hills. The one who always knew how to find people, knew to call the local sheriff, knew exactly what to say.

  In another circumstance we would have cheered each other. Nice work, huh, Nut? He might have winked. But this is a different story, and when Caroline calls, I pick up the phone and pass it to Anthony. Then I leave the room so I won’t hear him talk about it. So I won’t hear him choke, won’t see his body shake. So I won’t hear him trying to sound calm, both of us trying to sound so calm to everyone. Not wanting to be the ones to say it.

  There is another call to make, the one I am dreading the most, to Ann Freeman, Carolyn’s mother. Her husband answers the phone, and I am momentarily relieved. “I’m sorry to call so late,” I tell him. “It’s just that John and Carolyn haven’t arrived, and there’s a search out, and I’m sure it’s fine, but I didn’t want you to hear it on the news.” I have barely hung up the phone with him when it rings again.

  “Carole? It’s Ann, what’s going on?”

  I have a little speech prepared by now about mixed signals and misunderstandings, and when I give it to her she is quiet. I have met her a handful of times: at the wedding, at the apartment. She is a strong woman, not easily impressed. I have always liked her.

  “Oh, my God. Well, everything’s okay, right?” And then, before I can say anything, she asks, “Was anyone else on the plane with them?”

  I had assumed she knew that Lauren was with them. I was wrong. There is no sound for a moment, no breathing. And then a muffled scream, like she has pressed something to her mouth. The kind of scream you try to hold back because you feel like you don’t know it.

  And I know once I say it to her, once I tell her about Lauren, that it is too late. Too late for this all to be a mistake. Too late to have a different ending. I want people to scoff at me, not believe me, think I am overreacting, silly. But someone has screamed. It is almost five in the morning, and for all I know the story is already on the news. It isn’t mine anymore, and Pinky’s. It is everyone’s now.

  By early morning the news programs have preempted all regular programming. They are showing viewers the choppy water off of Gay Head. We have the television on in Effie’s room. We don’t want to watch, to listen, but they might know something before we do. ABC News Special Report: A small plane carrying John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late president, is reported missing at this hour. We have confirmed that the coast guard has launched a search-and-rescue operation. We will have more as details become available.

  By noon they are showing file footage of his father and the famous boyish salute. They are speaking of them in the past tense. I hear myself tell people, until late Sunday, that we are hoping for the best.

  5

  There are many theories. There is the motel theory: that they checked into a motel without telling anyone, to get away by themselves for a weekend. There is the gas theory: that the plane ran out of gas and they were forced to land on one of the small islands and their phones aren’t working and they are cursing their luck waiting to be spotted. This is the one I cling to, but by the time the sun comes up I have, for the most part, let it go.

  There is that time after something happens when you can tease yourself with other possibilities—flirt with the chance you’re mistaken, tell yourself it can still be fixed, that someone can fix it. When it was just Pinky and me on the phone, making guesses about whom to call, we could still pretend nothing was wrong. But now they are saying it out loud, all over the news.

  I sleep on the couch most of the day, all of the night. On Sunday I take a long walk down to the beach and then to John’s cabin on the far side of the property—a small one-room shack with a wood-burning stove. I fall asleep on the bed in the cabin to the sound of helicopters. There is nothing left to do.

  Monday, the coast guard changes its effort from search and rescue to search and recovery and we begin to plan the funerals.

  There is a meeting in New York on Monday night and Carolyn’s mother asks me to go with her. The heads of the families—each of the Kennedy families, and the Bessettes—are assembling to decide where and
how they will be buried, assuming they are found, and she does not want to go alone.

  “I’ll go with you,” I tell her. But there is a hierarchy. There are rules, after all, and not everyone involved in the situation understands them. It is carefully, delicately, explained to me that I cannot go. I’m sure you understand, Carole. We just can’t have everyone there. I decide I will go anyway, for Carolyn’s mother, but then my plane is fogged in at the Vineyard and I don’t get to New York in time. Someone suggests that John be buried in Brookline, Massachusetts, in the family plot, alone. We are all confused, stunned. Private thoughts are spoken out loud.

  Lisa, Carolyn’s other sister, meets me at my apartment and we go to John and Carolyn’s on North Moore. We go over the list of who should be invited to the funeral. A group of their friends are here; no one wants to leave. Lisa and I spend the night. There is a crowd of mourners outside the apartment. Some of them spend the night there on the street, with their candles and prayers. When I leave in the morning the news crews are interviewing the people on the sidewalk and filming the wall of flowers. Diane charters a plane and flies Anthony to Holly’s house in East Hampton, so I rent a car and drive out to meet him.

  They are found seven miles from the Vineyard on Tuesday. Anthony and I learn this from the television, from CNN. It is a sickening sort of relief, this news. We don’t say anything to each other. We focus on process, on times and locations, and on who is reading what at the memorial services.

  There is one task force in Hyannis and another at Caroline’s house in Bridgehampton. People come and go. Everyone, it seems, is on the phone. There is no end of decisions to be made; we bury ourselves in the grim practicality of it all. I am thankful to be assigned a task, to type the interstitials—small prayers to be read at intervals during the mass. I type a master list, along with the names of the people who will read.