A Soft Place to Land: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  Julia couldn’t have been in an airplane crash. It was impossible. Impossible that Ruthie nearly lost all three members of her immediate family by virtue of heavy machinery falling from the sky.

  “Wait,” said Ruthie, trying—somehow—to negate Julia’s story. To make it not true. “They said that plane was going to Charlotte. Why would you be going to Charlotte?”

  “I was going to stay at a friend’s house near there. She teaches at Davidson, but she’s on sabbatical in France. I was going to use her house as a writing retreat.”

  “Oh. That’s right. You told me about that in the e-mail you sent. Oh god. Julia. You almost died. I’m so glad you didn’t die.”

  Ruthie glanced up to see a pretty woman walking toward her, toward the swing set, wearing jeans and a khaki-colored barn jacket, her dark hair pulled into an efficient ponytail. She held the hand of a young girl, three or four years old, who wore a red coat with Paddington buttons over leggings and tiny brown boots. Mother and daughter, surely, come to use the playground. Ruthie looked at them with a mixture of irritation and envy. She did not want her conversation with Julia interrupted or overheard—and yet she couldn’t help but notice their easy contentment. To wonder, briefly, what it might feel like to hold your own child’s hand.

  “Listen, Ruthie, I need to tell you something. I need to tell it to you right now. Before this moment passes and something happens to make you hate me again.”

  Ruthie started to cry at Julia’s use of the word “hate,” though Ruthie knew it was true, accurate. For a long time now it had been easier just to hate her sister. Easier to try to define the relationship with that simple emotion than to live with the conflicting set of feelings Julia brought forth.

  The mother and her child were standing by the swing set now, the mother looking quizzically at Ruthie, who was clutching the phone to her ear, snot hanging from her nose, her face wet with tears. Ruthie did not look up but shielded her forehead with her hand, as if she were trying to block out the sun.

  “Let’s go on the slide, sweetheart,” the mother said.

  “Why is that lady crying?” asked the little girl.

  “Shh,” said the mother. “Come on with me.”

  They walked toward the curvy plastic slide. Ruthie heard the girl ask her mother if they could ride it together, heard the mother say that she had an even better idea: she’d be waiting at the bottom to catch her daughter when she came sliding down all by herself, like a big girl.

  “Remember how we used to try to imagine what Mom and Phil’s last few moments were like? On the Trimotor? Well, now I know. I mean I know what happens when a plane is going down. When the engine is silent because it’s no longer working and the smell of gas is so strong you can’t ignore it. And you look out the window and see a fire coming out of the engine. And then the skyscrapers are coming toward you, or you are going toward them, and the pilot comes on the loudspeaker and says, ‘Brace for impact.’ And the flight attendants are telling you, ‘Feet flat on the floor! Heads in your laps! Seat belts tight as they will go! Link arms with each other!’”

  “Oh God,” said Ruthie, crying harder. She felt sick, nauseated. That Julia had to live through this.

  “And the funny thing is part of you is still in denial. Part of you is thinking, ‘This can’t be happening.’ But on a physiological level, you know. I knew I was experiencing a plane crash. I started hyperventilating. The woman next to me, whose arm I was linked with, an older black southern woman, soothed me. Murmured, ‘It’s going to be okay, baby. Keep praying to Jesus. Everything is going to be okay.’ But things were not going to be okay. We were about to die, and I imagined it was going to be an excruciating death by fire, or drowning, or, God forbid, having our bodies dismembered when the plane broke into pieces on impact.”

  “Julia, I can’t—”

  “No, listen, the crazy thing is, in the midst of that terror, I experienced a brief moment of peace. I was so scared, and so sad that my life was going to end just like Mom’s—”

  Julia’s voice broke, and for a moment all Ruthie heard was her sister crying, while in the background the little girl at the bottom of the slide was saying, “Do it again, Mama. Let’s do it again.”

  After a moment Julia spoke again. “I’m shaken up. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay; of course you are. It’s okay.”

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that in the middle of that surreal terror, when my mind finally caught up with my body and I knew this is it, I was given a moment of grace. I don’t know of any other word to describe it. It was like, even though I was about to die, some distant part of me realized that it was okay, that the world would keep right on spinning. It wasn’t that I wanted my life to end—I did not—but in a very impersonal sort of way I knew that what was about to happen to me, death I mean, was basically unremarkable. That eventually it happens to everyone.

  “And then my brain turned to you, and to Molly, and I felt a sickening sort of grief again because I didn’t want either of you to have to go through losing me. You especially, Ruthie. I wasn’t sure if you could survive another person lost. And then the terror returned because now I was fighting the outcome again.”

  Ruthie watched the mother standing behind her daughter, holding her arms protectively near but not on her daughter’s legs, as once again the girl climbed the ladder to take her to the top of the slide.

  “So what does that mean about Mom and Dad? That they died terrified?”

  “I don’t know how to explain this, Ruthie, without sounding really New Age, but I know that Mom and I experienced the same thoughts during those moments of knowing we were going down. I know it. I’ve been writing so much about her, it’s almost as if she’s become a part of me. And I know that in the middle of her terror, Mom reached a sort of peace with death. And then her thoughts turned to us, and she was overcome with grief that she was leaving us behind. She died thinking of us, Ruthie, hoping that we would be okay without her. That we would live good lives.”

  “What if you had died, Julia? What if I had lost you and Mom and Dad, in two separate plane crashes? How messed up would that have been?”

  Julia laughed, and then Ruthie laughed, too, because there was no way to articulate her dismayed wonder at what might have been without sounding trite.

  “I guess I should have known I was going to be all right,” Julia said. “That the gods would have protected you from such a fate.”

  “Me but not you?” asked Ruthie.

  “I’ve never felt more grateful for my life than I do today, but I think it’s fair to say the gods have put me through some shit.”

  It was Julia’s old claim: that she was dealt a worse hand than Ruthie. It had always maddened Ruthie when Julia implied this. She heard it as a judgment, a put-down, a negation of the tremendous loss Ruthie had incurred when she was only thirteen. A way for Julia to make herself feel superior, a way for Julia to remind Ruthie again and again of how much better off she had had it after the accident. But today she took Julia’s statement for what it was. The truth. Besides her parents’ deaths—and that was a doozy—Ruthie had been blessed again and again with love and opportunity. And her sister, starting from when she was just a little girl and Naomi’s love for Phil had taken Julia away from her father, well, Julia had been through some things.

  Yet she had survived. Again and again, she survived. And on the day Julia had come closest to death, she was calling out to Ruthie. She needed her. Three times she had phoned on this day.

  Her sister needed her, and she needed her sister. Her sister, who had always been willing to live on the edge, to skirt near the precipice she might one day tumble down. And Ruthie had always backed away, stayed in the middle, tried to be safe. But surely there were cracks in Ruthie’s middle place, cracks she was too nearsighted to notice.

  And Julia could slip off the edge again. . . .

  Once Ruthie had believed she could catch her falling sister, save her from herself. Now she wo
ndered if she had the capacity to save anyone. Certainly not the homeless men who slept behind her back fence on Sinclair Avenue. Certainly not the neighbor who was mugged while walking home from the bar in Little Five Points, who was made to lie facedown on the sidewalk while two boys stood above him, one brandishing a gun. And certainly not her sister, who couldn’t be saved by Ruthie, who could never have been saved by Ruthie, not today on a plane to Charlotte, and not even all of those years ago, when she had walked away from Ruthie on Haight Street, when she had headed toward Golden Gate Park and Ruthie had not called after her.

  But Julia was calling her now, turning from the edge to find her, like a child scanning for her mother’s face in the crowd.

  “Ruthie?” her sister said. “Are you still there?”

  Ruthie answered, echoing the words of the mother nearby. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to Suzanne Gluck, and a million red velvet cakes to Rebecca Oliver at William Morris Endeavor. Thank you so much to Trish Grader, who launched this project. And a huge thank you to my editor, Trish Todd, whose enthusiasm and support for this book, along with her fine edits and general loveliness to work with, have put me in a permanent good mood. Thank you also to the amazing Marcia Burch, the wonderful Kelly Bowen, and the rest of the team at Touchstone.

  My talented writing group, Sheri Joseph, Peter McDade, Beth Gylys, and Megan Sexton, held extra meetings this summer when I was working under deadline, and provided much-needed insight and companionship. “Uncle Ken” talked with me about airplanes. Will Becton gave me invaluable help with chapter eleven. Dixon and Stephanie made sure my description of Roman candles was copasetic. Ellen Sinaiko stopped me from placing Ruthie and Dara in a coffee shop that had yet to open in San Francisco in 1993. Jessica Handler taught me how to research a novel as if it were a piece of journalism, and Kitty and Todd provided sympathy and laughter.

  Had it not been for my parents, I don’t know how I could have written this book. Thanks to my mom who—among other things—told me about the Ford Trimotor, and helped me figure out the ending. And thanks to my dad for his boundless love and his seemingly boundless supply of pertinent details, from where Naomi would have bought Phil’s ties to the name of the Peachtree Plaza Hotel. Thank you to my sister, Lauren, who continues to inspire, both in writing and in life. And finally, thank you to my husband, Alan, who serves as fact-checker, mentor, shrink, friend, and love. I am forever grateful to whatever divine force brought him to me.

  TOUCHSONE READING GROUP GUIDE

  A Soft Place to Land

  Description

  After their parents are killed in a plane crash, half sisters Ruthie, thirteen, and Julia, sixteen, are shocked to learn of the instructions left in the will. These tight-knit sisters, who grew up in the shadow of their parent’s romance, will be sent from their Atlanta hometown to separate coasts, to live with very different families. Cautious Ruthie adjusts to a new life with her generous, fun-loving aunt and uncle in San Francisco, but rebellious Julia struggles against the conventionality of her birth father and disapproving stepmom in a small town in Virginia. The vast differences in their new lives strain the sisters’ relationship to the breaking point, and they drift in (but mostly out) of each other’s orbits for the next twenty years, until an unexpected turn of events brings them together again.

  Discussion Questions

  1. Why do Ruthie and Julia so obsessively imagine their parents’ ill-fated Vegas vacation and the airplane crash that killed them? Julia feels “to tell the story was to control it, somehow.” Do you agree?

  2. White gives clues early on as to pivotal events in the girls’ futures: that Julia will become a writer, that Ruthie will have an abortion. Why does she include these flash-forwards? How did anticipating these events change your reading of the story?

  3. When she hears there has been an accident, Ruthie’s first fear is that Julia has been hurt, not her parents. Discuss the sisters’ bond. Why are the sisters so intensely connected? Do you think Julia and Ruthie would have been as close if their parents had not been so centered on their romance with each other?

  4. Was Phil and Naomi’s romance worth the pain it caused others, particularly the pain it caused Julia? Ruthie realizes she “had always viewed her parents’ story through their eyes, the eyes of the victors.” How do you think Julia viewed Phil and Naomi’s relationship?

  5. Did Naomi and Phil have any choice but to leave instructions in their will that in the event of their deaths Ruthie and Julia would go to separate guardians?

  6. How does San Francisco shape Ruthie? How does Virden shape Julia?

  7. Were you angry with Julia for writing about Ruthie’s abortion in her memoir? Are you able to see both sides of the issue?

  8. As girls, Ruthie and Julia’s relationship is filled with games of Julia’s imagining. One simple but meaningful game they play is “Biscuit and Egg.” As children, what are some of the games you played with your siblings and friends? Retrospectively, what insights about your childhood do these games reveal?

  9. How did you feel about the book’s ending? What do you think happens next, for Ruthie and Julia, and for Ruthie and Gabe?

  10. How do you think the sisters’ lives would have turned out if their custodial arrangement had been switched?

  11. Discuss the title of the book. Think about where Ruthie and Julia have “landed,” both physically (Atlanta, New York), in their careers (chef, writer), in their relationships with others, and in their relationship with each other.

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. Play “Seven Steps to an Unlikely Outcome” or “Who the Hell Is He?”

  2. Ruthie becomes a chef, and the book includes many delicious descriptions of cooking. Reread the Thanksgiving dinner preparations in Chapter 8, and try making one of the dishes Ruthie and Uncle Robert create together. Or make Ruthie’s signature dessert, “Elvs” (peanut butter cookies filled with roasted banana ice cream, the sides of which are then rolled in crumbled caramelized bacon).

  3. A Soft Place to Land focuses on the relationship between two sisters. Talk about your relationship with your own siblings and family members. Is there anyone you feel compelled to reconnect with?

  Author Q&A

  What inspired you to write A Soft Place to Land? How did you choose to include real-life events, such as 9/11 and the plane crash on the Hudson? Did you begin with the end in mind, or did those elements simply find their way in?

  Frankly, I was inspired to write A Soft Place to Land because my mind is filled with morbid “what ifs.” These morbid thoughts especially come to play when I’m on an airplane. Now on a rational level, I know that air travel is actually the safest form of transportation. And on a spiritual level, I think travel is a sublime practice—

  it’s important to experience new places, new cultures, new foods. But these are all thoughts my mind only allows on the ground. Once airborne, my rational thinking flies right out the pressure-sealed window. I think it’s because airplane crashes, while rare, are so dramatic. Usually everyone on board dies, and the last few moments are a horror. Add to that the fact that if parents are on the same plane, a child’s family can be wiped out in one swoop. And what if those parents had daughters, and the daughters were actually half siblings, and one still had a biological parent living . . . ?

  I’m going to jump ahead to the third question and then work my way back to the second. I had no idea what the ending of this story would be when I started writing about Ruthie and Julia. All I knew was that I was going to tell of half siblings who were split apart after their parents died in a plane crash. In fact, initially I had four siblings in the story, but the more I wrote, the more I realized I needed to boil the sibling relationship down to its essence: that it needed to be about a particularly intense relationship between two sisters. I knew, too, that after the crash the girls needed to land in very different places, and that those places needed to have a pr
ofound impact on who they would become.

  In terms of incorporating real life events: well, 911 occurred during the time span of the book (1993—2009), and it was such a terrible and defining event with such long reverberations. I don’t think there was any way not to include it. Especially because the actual day of September 11, 2001, was one where so many former grievances seemed petty. It was a day when people reevaluated their lives.

  The “Miracle on the Hudson” was, for lack of a better expression, a strangely happy accident. (Not to diminish the horror experienced by those on the plane as it went down; still, the outcome was astonishing.) I first heard about US Air Flight 1549 while driving in my car. They were talking about it on the radio, how a plane had crashed but it looked like everyone on board might survive. I burst into tears while driving. It was just so poignant. Here was this hope, this proof that doom was not always inevitable. It was such a powerful story; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. (Who could?) And then it occurred to me: let Julia be on that flight! That way she could experience what her mother went through in the last moments of her life, an experience that would allow her to try for true reconciliation with Ruthie.

  I know that you have a sister; can you tell us a bit about your relationship? Are there any parallels between you and your sister and Julia and Ruthie?

  I actually have two half sisters and three half brothers. I have many memories of being the youngest of all of those kids, being caught in the giddy and chaotic swirl of a big family. But my oldest sister Lauren and I did have a special bond. She was, simply, a great deal of fun, and she and I spent an enormous amount of joyful time together. So yes, I absolutely based the love and intimacy that Julia and Ruthie have in their early years on Lauren’s and my relationship. Lauren was a fantastic inventor of games and stories, and I wanted to create that sense of childhood play on the page. (Full confession: Lauren and I did play “Biscuit and Egg,” and if she were beside me now she would insist I tell you that she was the one who made it up.)