She awoke late to sunshine through the window and the comforting familiarity of her childhood room. Already, she felt better. Her head was clearer, and the physical distance made everything seem less dire.
Her mom had come home and then left again while she was sleeping. She had scribbled a note for April on the refrigerator whiteboard.
Speaking to the Tucson School District this morning. Two counseling sessions at the hospital after. Early dinner at Schmidt’s? I’ll come back to pick you up. Love, Mom
Schmidt’s. It was where she and her mom used to go for lunch while shopping downtown. Now they only went during happy hour for the specials, which were still an extravagance. The thought of going anywhere in public right now exhausted her.
On the coffee table was her mother’s latest enthralling read: Case Studies in Teen Oxycodone Recovery. She flipped through it absentmindedly as she waited for her phone to power up and then she texted her mom.
Can we do Schmidt’s tomorrow instead?
She read through a string of worried texts from Madigan last night and this morning. She replied to the latest, sent just an hour ago.
I’m home safe. Don’t send the police! I’m sorry for what I said yesterday.
He texted back immediately.
It’s okay, April. Just glad you’re okay. I’m here if you need to talk.
Why couldn’t she have fallen for Madigan instead? They had everything in common, and they got along so well. He was a great guy, and he was cute, with those big blue eyes of his. Most importantly, he didn’t climb three-thousand-foot cliffs without a rope.
There were three voicemails in her in-box, which she found strange, since no one left voicemails anymore. They had to be from Josh, who would have a really hard time texting on that ancient cell phone with his mangled right hand. Her sadness grew heavier.
Her phone rang while she was still holding it. A 702 number. The same area code as one of her roommates who now lived in Las Vegas. She stared at the phone. Josh was in the hospital at this very moment, his cell phone to his ear. With one push of a button, she would be connected to him, their voices flowing to each other across three states.
But then what? He was still a climber, and there was nothing that would change that. The pain from the three hours when she thought he was dead, and all the worry while she waited for him to wake up from the coma, were still too fresh. After a minute of silence, the phone beeped, announcing a new voicemail. She powered off the phone without listening to it.
She tried to revive her anger from yesterday, but her insides were hollow. How long would it take for Josh to understand she was gone for good? The harshness of her thought made her feel unstable.
She went outside and tried to relax on the chaise lounge, but she was too restless. Instead, she changed into workout clothes and went running for ninety minutes on the shoulder of the sizzling highway, the whole time reminding herself that the end of her and Josh had been inevitable from the beginning. With each passing day, it would be easier to be apart from him. That was how these things worked.
By the time she got home, she was feeling better, but as soon as she walked through the door, she was simultaneously hit by the absence of her father and a vision of Josh lying in his hospital bed.
She took a shower and a sleeping pill and passed away the afternoon in bed. Her mother was making a big salad in the kitchen when she got up. April perched on a stool and watched her slice cucumbers. Salad never would have been the main course when her dad was alive. He was a hearty man who wanted hearty meals.
“That salad looks really good, Mom, but I don’t know if I’m going to eat tonight.”
“It’s okay,” she replied. “I’ll bring the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.”
April hadn’t talked to her mom much after the gala, and last night on the phone, she had been vague when she called her about flying home. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she felt she owed her mom an explanation for her sudden return and, now, lethargy.
“Josh fell,” April said. “On that big climb I told you about. We’ve been at the hospital in Sacramento with him for a week.”
Her mom laid down the knife. “Were you there when it happened?”
April nodded.
“Were you filming?”
She nodded again. Her nose tingled with the tears she was trying to hold back. Mom came around the counter and wrapped April in her arms. “You two are dating now?”
“We were,” April said. “But he’s not going to stop climbing.”
Saying it out loud spun her world out of control again. Everything that happened, combined with being back in her home with her dad’s presence, was too much. But one thing weighed on her heart more than everything else.
“He’s still in the hospital,” she whispered. “I left him there alone.”
She cried and cried, supplied with a steady stream of tissues from her mom.
When she finally stopped crying, Mom dished herself up a plate of salad and brought it over to the couch, where they binged on three saved episodes of Pound Rescue, their favorite reality show. After, Mom went to bed and April wandered outside to the soft island of grass in front of the house.
The dappled grays of the valley and the hills beyond it were visible in the starlight. Crickets were chirping, and the breeze was gentle and warm. It was a totally different environment, but it reminded her of Yosemite. She might not have ever been tent camping before she arrived there, but she had grown up in a beautiful, wild place.
Tonight, the solace of her surroundings wasn’t seeping in. All she felt was the absence of Josh. Her mother had been very kind to not bring up her PTSD theories tonight, but April kept thinking about what Madigan had said about his friend and wondering if the crash was coloring this situation. What happened to people like her when they faced a completely different trauma in addition to the old one?
She went into her room and turned on her phone. There was just one more voicemail for the whole rest of the day. Not a good sign. She sat on the carpet, leaned against her bed, and hit play.
Josh’s first message was playful, telling her how hard it had been to wrestle her phone number from Madigan (like he doesn’t know about us, jeez) and how strange it was that they’d never called each other on the phone before. The cheerful tone in his voice stabbed her straight in the heart.
The second message, at five yesterday evening, was worried. Where are you? Did something happen? Is your family okay?
The third made her tuck into a ball and cry. His voice was raw and dejected, distant and slow.
April, it’s almost midnight. I still haven’t heard from you. I was sure you’d been kidnapped or something, but Madigan assures me you’re fine. He’s still here, by the way. He didn’t go back with Danny. But he’s dodging all my questions, which makes me wonder—I don’t know. Are you not coming back at all? I must have done something wrong. I can’t think of what it would be, but if I did, I’m sorry. I love you, April. Please call me as soon as you can.
The fourth message, the one he left this morning, was cold and hard, resigned and resolved.
April, I don’t know what is going on, but I know how to take a hint. I am going to call one more time and then I’m going to stop calling. You have my number. It won’t ever change.
She couldn’t stand to listen to the fifth. She hung up and pressed the cell phone to her chest and sobbed. Madigan was right. What she had done was unforgivable.
…
April stood in front of her house with her video camera. That’s all it was without her dad in it: a house, not a home. But it was also a theater, where memories came to life spontaneously and replayed themselves in the exact location they had happened. Like right here in the driveway, she remembered games of catch with her dad, and the one time when a downpour hit right as they were leaving for April’s dance recital and her dad pulled the car all the way up to the porch so she and her mom wouldn’t get wet when they got in.
She couldn�
�t hide out at home forever, and by the time she could afford to come back for a visit again, her mom might be living somewhere else. She needed to document everything about the house so she could preserve the memories it invoked. She hit the record button and walked toward the front of the house, capturing the details of the adobe-and-wood front porch and the carved front door with the brass knocker her mom bought at an air show up in the Pacific Northwest.
Inside the house, she went naturally to the right, where her dad’s office was. In high school, her days were long because of sports, and he’d get home before her. She’d come in the door and go right to his office to say hello.
Now, she stood in his office doorframe with her camera, panning from left to right. Her father’s desk was built into a cherrywood bookshelf that spanned an entire wall. The shelves were filled with books, framed pictures, and all sorts of aviation memorabilia. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling, with the largest, a 1930s glider with a six-foot wingspan, soaring over the leather couch under the window, where one of her dad’s jackets was still draped across the arm.
April stopped recording. The office seemed untouched, except that the sunlight streaming in the window revealed no dust. Also, the bills in the in-box were new.
She stepped inside and took a closer look. Paycheck stubs, some lawsuit documents, a copy of her latest UCLA bill with its blaring six-figure balance. It was the eviction notices from the bank that scared her the most. There wasn’t a for-sale sign in front of the house, but foreclosure proceedings had already begun and the house was on the market.
April couldn’t wait any longer to give permission to sell her dad’s business. He’d always put his profits right back into it, and everything there was owned outright: the planes, the hangars, the maintenance equipment. When he’d first died, April had scorned him for putting his business finances ahead of his family’s financial security, but now that the lawsuit had succeeded and everything in her parents’ names was gone, she saw it differently.
Life insurance for a stunt pilot was tricky business; perhaps her father had been planning all along not only for the worst case but the worst case with a lawsuit. In that light, putting everything into the business and then the business into April’s name had been the right move. Perhaps her ownership of the company had been more of a financial consideration, rather than her dad setting her up for a career as a stunt pilot.
Even though the money wouldn’t save the house, there might be enough for a small condo in Tucson, and without mortgage payments, her mom would have enough money to make ends meet until she was old enough for Social Security.
And maybe, just maybe, there’d be enough left over for April to make the minimum each month on her student loans until she could work her way up to a job that paid rent and the loan payments.
She sat on the couch next to her father’s jacket. His smell was still present in the office, which confused her senses. She’d only been in there once or twice since he’d died, and it was only to grab something and leave. It surprised her that it didn’t feel strange. Furthermore, the metal airplane replicas and the smell of the leather couch triggered only happy emotions: the excitement of heading down to the airstrip with him as a child, his laughter during the slapstick movies he loved so much, and the anticipation of hanging out with him when she came home from college on breaks.
April dropped onto the floor and opened the cabinet next to his desk chair, pulling out the big, turquoise photo album that was inside. She had pored over all their family albums as a child, but this one was her favorite, as it was the one with the earliest pictures of her parents when they started dating.
Her parents were so young in these photos of picnics, air shows, goofing off at parties, barbecues, tubing on a river, dressed up for dinners downtown, and poolside sunbathing. And every single picture showed how much they were in love. They couldn’t have hid it if they’d tried.
This was the kind of love she grew up wanting for herself. Even the way her parents had met was absurdly special. Her mother had been standing on top of one of the Rose River bluffs, doing a photo shoot for the petite clothing section of a world imports catalog. Her dad had been practicing for a show in his red Stearman biplane and had flown directly overhead, tipping his wing to get a better look at her.
The photo taken at that exact moment had ended up on the cover of the catalog. There hadn’t been any breeze that day, but the airplane caused a gust that blew her mother’s white cotton sundress out to the side and made her grab her straw hat. Her father had flown back to the airstrip and raced out to the filming location in his car to introduce himself.
The plane had been cropped out of the cover picture, but the photographer had given her parents a precrop enlargement as a wedding gift. It now hung in a frame above the fireplace where, forevermore, her father’s bright red biplane streamed over a goddess in white on a desert hilltop. Even her own name was a tribute to this momentous meeting: it had happened on the second day of April.
She remembered looking though the turquoise album after her freshman year in college and doubting such a love really existed. In the dorms, relationships were all about hookups and drama. That continued at her apartment sophomore year. After the crash, there hadn’t been any relationships at all.
She examined one of her parents’ candid wedding pictures at the back of the album.
Natural, easy, passionate, best friends, comfortable.
Now she knew what it was like to have this kind of connection. She put the album away before her mind could wander back to Josh.
Her dad’s closet door stood a few inches ajar, just like always, and she nudged it the rest of the way open. His smell was even stronger there, with his flight suits still on hangers. She buried her face in the fabric, wanting to unsee the conspicuous empty hanger among them and the bare patch of carpet in his line of boots on the floor.
All of the sudden, she was overcome with a desire to go down to the airstrip. After pumping up her bike tires in the garage, she coasted down the driveway to the highway. The first left turn put her onto a gravel road that would take her the back way to the Rose Valley airfield, four miles away.
Chapter Thirty-Three
One of the training aircraft was chocked out on the tarmac, ready to fly. Hal—a thin, stoic, mustached man, ten years younger than her dad—was in the small, glass-walled office in the corner of the hangar, working on a flight plan with a teenage boy.
“April! What a surprise!” Hal said, stepping out into the hangar.
She hadn’t been to visit since her father died. Actually, since six months before that—when she’d taken Sophie on a flight.
“So what brings you in today?” he asked in a casual tone that made her feel guilty for staying away so long. Until the crash, Hal had been like an uncle to her.
“I’m doing an internship in Yosemite right now with Danny Rappaport. He’s the one who directed Isles of Winter.”
“I’ve seen it. You made me watch it with the boys, remember? It was really good.”
She had always been such a cinema fanatic.
“Your mom keeps us updated,” he said. “I can’t believe Mitch’s little Ultra Light is graduating college.”
She flinched at her father’s ancient nickname for her. “Well, I have to finish my internship first.”
Hal waved his hand like it was an insignificant detail, which only made her aware of the oppositeness of the truth. The longer she stayed in Arizona, the weirder it would be when she went back. If she stayed too long, the only excuse that would work would be the truth. Later tonight, she would email some sort of explanation to Danny and tell him when she would be returning.
“How are the boys?” she asked.
“Aiden’s starting at Embry-Riddle Prescott in the fall. Aviation management major. Joey’s working on his private license.”
“Joey? Already?” She thought about the towheaded boy whom she’d occasionally babysat.
“He’s right there,” Hal
said, nodding to the office.
“That’s Joey? He’s huge! Why didn’t he say hi?”
Hal laughed. “He’s a little shy around the ladies these days.”
The teenage Joey joined them in the hangar. “Dad, I’m done.”
“Joseph George, don’t you remember me?” she asked him.
“Hi, April.”
She gave him a hug. He participated, but with limp arms and a wide space between them.
Hal rolled his eyes. April laughed.
It was wonderful to be back here with people who were like family. How long had it been since she’d been so at ease?
Since two days ago, at the hospital with Josh. A lump formed in her throat.
“April, do you mind if we finish catching up later?” Hal asked. “I’ve got to get Joey up before my other students come in today.”
“Sure,” she said.
She moved outside and watched Joey do his preflight checks around the blue-and-white trainer plane. She herself had done the same thing many times on that very plane and could probably still do it today with her eyes closed.
Hal grabbed the chocks and climbed in with Joey. They taxied to the end of the runway and took off. The sound of the engine as it flew by made her homesick for her life when her dad was alive.
She went into the office. For as sharp as Hal had kept the planes and hangar, the office—which had been her mother’s domain—could use some help. There were stacks of papers on every surface, and it clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.
Her father’s desk was now being used to store student ground school binders and logbooks. She slid open the middle drawer, curious if her dad’s stuff was still inside. Yep. A broken watch, greasy pencils, the butterscotch candies he’d kept there for her and, in later years, for Aidan and Joey.
She looked through the other drawers, subconsciously hoping to find something he’d left for her. A letter he’d written to her in case of his death or an object of significance that would give her the answer to a crucial dilemma in her life.
Lessons In Gravity Page 25
