As Far as the Stars

by Virginia MacGregor

  ‘I should probably get back on the road,’ I say.

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Amy says. ‘It’s a long drive back to Nashville.’

  So she knows about Nashville. And there’s something about the way that she’s been acting all afternoon that makes me think Christopher must have told her about Blake too. I keep catching her looking at me, her brow crinkled up, as if she’s checking that I’m okay.

  ‘You’d be welcome to stay the night; we have a guest room made up. You could leave first thing in the morning.’

  Although I know I should be heading back to my own family right now, I like it here. It’s helping. And I haven’t had the chance to talk to Christopher yet – not alone. I want to know whether he’s okay. Really okay.

  ‘She’s right,’ Christopher says. ‘You’ll be fresher in the morning.’

  I’m relieved that he wants me to stay.

  ‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble,’ I say to Amy.

  She smiles at me. ‘No trouble at all.’

  She seems so easy, I think. So ordinary. Good ordinary. And kind too. She doesn’t look like the type of person who’d abandon her baby. I don’t know what I’d expected when Christopher told me about her, but it wasn’t this.

  When we go upstairs to bed, Christopher shows me his room: his actual room. Amy’s been keeping it for him, hoping that he might come and stay one day. It makes me feel both really happy for him – that she wants him this much – and sad too, that all these years, he could have come here and had her as a mom.

  When we say goodnight, I want to ask him to come into my room to talk; I want to hear what happened in those hours when I was asleep in the car and he was chatting to his mom. But once he’s walked me to the guest room, all he says is, ‘See you in the morning, Air.’ And then he turns to go.

  ‘Christopher…?’

  He turns back round. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

  ‘Yes…’

  No, I want to say. No. I want you to stay…I want you to talk to me…

  I thought I’d taught him something on that long road trip – and on our trek up that mountain. But I guess he’s not ready.

  I take a step towards him.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, hoping I might get him to open up. ‘We haven’t had much of a chance to talk.’

  He shrugs and says:

  ‘We’ll see…’ And then he leans in and kisses my cheek. ‘Goodnight, Air.’

  And before I can say anything, he turns around again and heads down the hallway to his room.

  I get into some PJs that Amy put out for me on the bed and then call Dad to give him an update on where I am. I tell him that I’m staying the night with Christopher’s family. I can feel that he’s worried about where I am and who I’m with but he doesn’t challenge me. I guess he trusts me that I’m not going to do anything stupid. Not with everything else that’s going on.

  He tells me that Mom’s been on the phone to DC non-stop. That she’s pulled a few favours and got some more information about the plane. Though, from the sound of it, more information was really no information. They’re saying that it’s unlikely they’ll find any bodies. That we have to prepare ourselves for that.

  I thought it would upset me – hearing that they couldn’t find Blake. But, after we finish the call, as I lie in bed, looking out through the open window, I think about how, if Blake could have chosen a way to go, this might have been it: to disappear between air and water and earth. He would have found it poetic. He would have wanted to write a song about it, if he’d had the chance.

  My eyes well up. I miss you, Blake, I whisper into the dark room.

  I try to sleep; my limbs are aching with tiredness but my mind won’t stop whirring. Every time I close my eyes I see the dashboard of the Buick, the clock, the speed dial, and then I’m standing on the rooftop of the hotel, at the wedding, singing and then I’m in Dad’s arms, my body shaking…

  I find an old bathrobe on the hook behind the guestroom door, wrap it around me and walk downstairs, out through the back door and into the garden.

  It’s a clear night. And there are stars, of course. But they feel so far away that it hurts to look at them.

  I sit on a bench swing, tuck my legs up and hug my knees.

  It’s nice to be outside, the cool night brushing my skin.

  ‘You still awake?’

  I look up. Christopher stands in front of me in his boxers and T-shirt, his bare feet in the dew-wet grass.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ I say.

  ‘Me neither.’

  He sits down beside me.

  ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Us being here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Though it’s probably the sanest stop on our road trip so far.’

  He laughs. ‘Yeah, I guess it is.’

  ‘An ordinary house and an ordinary family…’ I say, thinking back to what Christopher told me about how he wished that he could just do normal things with his dad rather than shooting off around the world.

  He nods.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ I ask.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to,’ I say.

  He raises his eyebrows and smiles. ‘Really? I get a choice about not talking? That’s new.’

  I punch him playfully in the arm. ‘Hey.’

  He leans in to me and gives me a small nudge. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘I don’t mind talking. I just didn’t want to burden you.’

  ‘Burden me?’

  ‘You’ve got your own stuff to deal with. You can’t be worrying about me.’

  I look at him and wait for his eyes to find mine.

  ‘I want to worry about you,’ I say.

  Even though it’s dark I can see the tops of his cheeks flush pink. I want to touch them, to feel whether his skin is as warm and soft as it looks, but I’m scared that would totally freak him out.

  He leans back and looks at the sky. I follow his gaze and notice a red tail light in the sky. We must be under a flight path.

  I wonder how many times Amy must have looked up and thought about him. And his dad.

  Christopher goes really quiet. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get used to planes flying overhead.

  I take a breath.

  ‘So you guys talked,’ I say. ‘This morning, while I was sleeping in the car.’

  He nods.

  I hear a clattering of paws on the patio. Leda runs across the lawn, jumps up onto the swing and sits between us.

  ‘Like old times, hey?’ I say, rubbing her behind the ears.

  He smiles. ‘Yeah. Like old times.’

  The golden lab lumbers over too and sits at our feet.

  ‘Did you talk about what happened – when you were a baby?’ I ask.

  ‘She said she was sorry.’

  I wait for him to go on.

  ‘She was young when she got pregnant. She said she was scared that she wouldn’t be able to cope – that she wouldn’t be a good enough mum. She said she understood books and science but not babies.’ He pauses and looks up at the house. There’s a light on in what must be Mitch and Amy’s bedroom. I wonder whether they’re talking about today too – about Amy seeing Christopher after all this time. ‘She admitted that she never really wanted kids. That kids didn’t feature in her plans.’

  ‘But she got pregnant…?’

  ‘Yeah, she did.’ He goes quiet for such a long time that I think he’s decided he doesn’t want to talk about this after all. He pulls Leda onto his lap and buries his hands in her raggedy fur.

  And then, he starts talking again.

  ‘She’d decided not to go through with the pregnancy.’

  ‘Wow…she actually told you that?’

  He nods.

  ‘That must have been kind of crappy to hear.’

  ‘Not really. I guess I was glad she was honest. Saying it like it is. Dad would never give me a straight answer. And it wasn’t pe
rsonal – it’s not like she knew me.’

  ‘What happened then? She obviously did go through with the pregnancy.’

  ‘When Dad found out she was pregnant, he said he wanted her to have me. He didn’t believe in abortion. And he said he wanted to be a dad.’

  I think about all the things he’s said about his dad – how they never really spent any proper time together, how Christopher didn’t feel seen for who he really was. The funny thing is that I get the sense that things would have been different with Amy. And yet she was the one who was scared that she wouldn’t be a good mom. I guess it goes to show that we can’t always tell, in advance, whether we’re cut out for something. Especially not when it comes to being parents.

  ‘But it was still her choice, though, right?’ I say. ‘It was her body.’

  I’d had this drilled into me by Mom more times than I can remember. She’s worked on human rights abuses in countries where really young girls get pregnant and then don’t have the option to end their pregnancies because men make the decisions for them. It’s one of the things she feels really strongly about: that a woman gets to decide.

  ‘She said that she thought he would be a good dad, that he’d do right be me – and that if he really wanted me, then maybe it was the right thing, to go through with the pregnancy.’

  ‘So, she had you for your dad?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘That must have been hard.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And then, when she had you, she didn’t change her mind? She went through with giving you away?’

  ‘She said that giving me up was the hardest decision she’d ever had to make. Dad came to the hospital with a ring and asked her to marry him. He thought he could persuade her to stay and give it a chance. He told her that they could make it work. But she got scared. On the day she was due to be checked out of the hospital, she left early. Dad was in another room giving me a bottle. By the time he came back to see her, she’d gone.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘But she’s had this room waiting for you all this time – something must have changed?’

  ‘She said that she tried to get in touch a few times. That she talked to Dad about wanting to see me. But he was still angry with her for walking out on us all those years ago. He told her that she’d given up her right to be my mom.’ He pauses. ‘Dad’s always had this really strong sense of justice – of right and wrong. He felt that she’d made the wrong decision and that she had to live with that.’

  ‘And your mom accepted that?’

  ‘She said that she felt she had to respect his wishes. That he’d brought me up, done all the hard work. She didn’t want to push him.’

  ‘But she always hoped, right? To see you again?’

  ‘She thought I might come looking for her one day, when I was older, when I got to decide.’

  ‘Are you angry with your dad, for what he did?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Dad was trying to do the right thing. He didn’t want me to get hurt. I guess he didn’t know that Mum had changed.’

  ‘That she’d had Nina, that she was a mom?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he knew about Nina. I suppose he couldn’t wipe it from his head: the picture of her running out of the hospital. Of how he she just left us. Or the fact that she’d wanted to end the pregnancy.’

  ‘You’re being amazingly calm about all this.’

  ‘It’s still sinking in.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

  I look back up at the house. The light in Mitch and Amy’s bedroom has gone out now. Nina must be asleep too. Maybe she’s dreaming of the new brother she has. How easily people can come into our lives, I think. And how easily they can leave too.

  ‘So, are you going to stay here for a while?’ I ask.

  ‘I suppose so. I haven’t thought ahead, really. School starts again in a few weeks, back in England – Mum and I talked about that. But she said that, for now, we should just take things one day at a time. Get to know each other.’

  I lean my head against his shoulder and look up at the sky. I notice a comet dashing by. And the stars, they feel a bit closer again.

  ‘I like her,’ I say. ‘Your mom. I mean – not taking into account the whole giving you up thing.’

  ‘Yeah, I think I like her too.’

  ‘I guess that’s a start, hey?’

  He nods. ‘It’s a start. And how about you? How are things?’

  I look down at Leda, sleeping beside us. ‘I can’t believe Blake’s not coming back.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I keep expecting him to jump out and surprise me, like he has a million times before. I can see him giving me that apologetic smile of his, knowing that he’s messed up but that I’m going to forgive him anyway.’

  Christopher takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine.

  ‘I keep expecting Dad to send me a text, confirming that he’s landed, asking me to meet him at arrivals.’

  ‘I guess we’ll feel like that.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess we will.’

  We let the pictures in our heads sit between us: images of the people we love showing up, like they were meant to, two days ago.

  ‘So, you’ll drive back to Nashville tomorrow?’ he says after a while.

  ‘I thought I might drive straight back to DC. Meet Mom, Dad and Jude there rather than in Nashville. I kind of want to do the trip on my own. I’ll take it slow. It will give me time to sort things out in my head. I want to be in Blake’s car, on the road, to have a few hundred miles not having to do anything but drive.’

  ‘You sure you’ll be okay?’

  ‘I’m going to fly to the moon someday, remember? I think I can manage a few highways.’

  He smiles. ‘I remember.’

  ‘And I won’t have you distracting me, this time.’

  ‘I was a distraction, was I?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Our eyes lock for a moment and then we both smile.

  Then we sit there, swinging gently back and forth, Leda falling asleep between us and I wish that this moment could go on for ever – that we never had to face tomorrow.

  But after a while, he stretches out his legs and says: ‘I’d better get some sleep – and you should too. You’ve got a long drive tomorrow.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay out here for a bit longer,’ I say. ‘I’ll come in soon.’

  He stands up. ‘Okay.’ He leans in and his lips brush my cheek, right up, close to my mouth. ‘Goodnight, then.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ I say.

  As he walks away, I call after him:

  ‘I think you’re doing the right thing, you know.’

  He turns around.

  ‘Giving your mom a chance,’ I say.

  He gives me a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  And then he keeps walking until he disappears into the house.

  When he’s gone, I lean back in the swing and close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, I see the stars, pulling in closer and closer. I feel Leda’s breath, heavy and warm beside me. And, far overhead, I hear another plane making its journey through the dark, night sky.

  One Year Later

  Chapter Fifty

  August 2018 London

  ‘Cabin crew, please take your seats for landing.’ The captain’s voice comes over the speakers.

  I wonder what Edward Ellis would have sounded like. And how many times Christopher heard him say those words. And whether, when Christopher was small, he said the words too, pretending he was the pilot. Maybe there was a time when he wanted to be like his dad.

  In those hours we spent together in the Buick, on the way to Knoxville and then on to Atlanta to meet his mom, Christopher and I talked for hours. But there’s still so much I don’t know.

  I look out of the window. Mom booked a night flight but I haven’t been able to sleep. Too much sky to look at through the window. Too much to think about.

&
nbsp; Blake was in a window seat too. 27A. Looking out at the sky and sea. Except, for him, it was light.

  Jude pulls off her sleep mask and yawns. ‘Are we here yet?’

  ‘Nearly,’ Stephen says. He’s sitting on the other side of her.

  I’m by the window. Mom and Dad are across the aisle.

  This trip to London is going to be the honeymoon Jude and Stephen never had. They’re going to spend a few days with me, Mom and Dad in London, doing touristy things, and then Jude’s going to take Stephen to Scotland, back to Loch Leven, show him where our ancestors came from. We’ll fly back together in two weeks, in time for me to start at MIT.

  It’s the first time I’ve been on a plane since what happened to Blake. Even before that, I’d only flown once or twice, mostly short, internal flights. I’ve never been this far from home.

  I lean over and look through the window, down at the Atlantic. Blake wrote a song about it once, how vast it was; how, on our planet, there was more sea than land. How the real mysteries we still had to uncover were not in outer space but down there, in that dark, silent world.

  Maybe, if I don’t end up in space, that’s where I’ll go. Maybe it’s possible to do both, to tie it all together: what goes on above and below us.

  We’ve all been pretty quiet through the flight. Because of the night thing. But also because we’ve been thinking about Blake. How he did this trip in reverse. How he never made it.

  The investigators said that they didn’t think the passengers realised what was happening until the last minute. The cabin voice recording only registered cries in the final seconds before impact.

  It took a few months for all the facts about the crash to come out.

  There was no rational explanation for why the autopilot disengaged. And the wisdom of Edward Ellis’s last-minute decision to change the angle of the plane is still up for debate: some think that it was bound to make the plane stall; others say that it was the only option he had left to try and save the passengers. I guess that even mistakes aren’t clear cut.

  Like there’s no rational explanation for why I booked Blake onto the wrong flight. I was tired. I was used to him coming into Dulles rather than Nashville. But that’s not enough to explain it. In the end, I just got it wrong. And I’m going to have to live with that, just like Christopher’s going to have to live with the fact that his dad might have made a mistake too. That sometimes we mess up.