by Amy Giles
Charlie once said he doesn’t lie. I believed him. I still do. But I never said the same back to him.
It’s a date.
now
Grandma and I take seats next to each other in Linda’s office. Linda comes in, followed by the man who has been trying to speak with me since the day of the crash.
“Hadley?” He reaches his hand out to shake mine. They’re scratchy and calloused. “I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I do,” I say, and leave it at that. The crinkles around his eyes deepen, reassuring me again that he’s a good guy.
Linda finds her seat at her desk.
“I’m Gerald Brady,” he says, “senior air safety inspector from the National Transportation Safety Board.”
“Okay.”
“How’s your arm?” His eyes travel down my cast, before landing on my wrists. He looks away as if he saw something he shouldn’t have.
“It’s fine, thank you.”
“Are you up to talking today?” Brady asks, the creases around his eyes easing into a kind smile.
I nod.
He holds up a black device in his palm. “Digital recorder.” He holds it out for me to see, as if I were a dog that needs to sniff it. “Do you mind if I record our conversation? It helps me later when I have to file the report.”
“I don’t mind.” The sun reflecting off the snow outside blinds me. Holding my hand up in front of my eyes, I ask, “Can we shut the blinds, though?”
Linda gets up from behind her desk and pulls the cords, lowering them. “Better?”
I nod.
Brady says, “Quite a storm we got the other day, huh?”
I nod again to be polite. He exhales and cuts to the chase. “Hadley, what do you remember about the crash?”
Grandma watches me. It’s something she’s wanted to ask all along, I’m sure.
“Everything.”
There’s a shocked stillness in the room. Brady’s eyes tighten, and he nods.
He sits down on the edge of Linda’s desk, which I can tell by her pursed lips she doesn’t appreciate. But it puts him in a better position to speak directly to me.
“Was there any kind of engine trouble?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
“What then? Why didn’t anyone radio in for help?”
“It all happened too fast.” I flinch, remembering how the plane tossed me around.
“What did?” he asks.
My heart pounds against my chest as the ground dips under my feet.
“I wanted to land the plane, and I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t?”
“He wouldn’t get out of the seat. And my mom—” I stop, her shrieks present, piercing the air around me, her eyes, one moment wild and terrified, the next blank, lifeless blue marbles.
“Hadley?” His eyes, so kind, search mine. “What happened?”
Everyone stares back at me, waiting for me to answer.
then
“Where the hell is my coffee grinder?”
I open my eyes with a start. Outside the window, the sun is just starting to rise, just like Christmas morning. I glance over at my clock: 7:02.
Pots clatter and cabinets slam downstairs. My toes curl into the white shag throw rug as I glance over at my calendar, today’s date circled in a red bull’s-eye. I get dressed and clasp my claddagh necklace on. I hold the charm between my fingers for a moment, closing my eyes in a prayer, before slipping it under my shirt.
Downstairs, my father’s hostile mood is palpable. I pad cautiously into the kitchen.
“Morning,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
“What’s so good about it?” Dad slams another cabinet. I want to point out that I didn’t say “good,” but I bite my tongue. He’s already showered and dressed, wearing dark-blue jeans and his favorite Cornell sweatshirt.
Mom is on her hands and knees scouring through the bottom cabinets.
“Hadley, have you seen the coffee grinder?” she asks in a panic.
I shake my head and reach in the refrigerator for the orange juice.
“Were the cleaning ladies here yesterday?” Dad barks at my mother.
“No, of course not. It was a holiday,” she reminds him, most likely a dig at Dad’s expense for being gone all day.
“Well, where the hell is it?”
I sit down at the kitchen table, making myself invisible as his fury crackles in the air around me.
My mother holds the countertop to pull herself up. “It couldn’t have just walked away.” He growls something, and she raises her hands to placate him. “We’ll just get coffee at the airport, okay?”
Before he can get another word in, Lila walks in, hunched over, holding her stomach.
“Mommyyyy!” she cries. Lila only calls her Mommy when she’s sick.
“Oh no. Now what?” My mother says, walking toward her.
“I can’t stop going to the bathroom!” Lila whimpers. She spins around and runs to the bathroom down the hall. Mom follows, pressing her ear to the door; her nose wrinkles with distaste.
I watch it all unfold with wide eyes while my father rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers. I’ve seen him do it a million times, trying to erase his mounting anger and frustration with all of us. It never works. He looks over at me, and I smile nervously. Stupidly.
“Wipe that smug smile off your face or I’ll wipe it off for you.”
I stare down into my orange-juice glass.
After a few minutes, my mother comes back to the kitchen, shaking her head in confusion. “I don’t know what it could be.”
I get up and walk to the bathroom door, knocking gently. “Lila?”
“Go away!” she cries.
“Lila, are you okay?”
“What do you think?” She groans as her bowels empty into the toilet, fast and furious.
I walk back to the kitchen. “It’s bad.” I grimace.
My father throws his hands up in the air in surrender and turns to my mother. “Fine! You stay home with Lila. I’ll take Hadley up. We’ll come back tonight.”
Mom gasps as if she’s been slapped.
“No! I was looking forward to this!”
He stares back at her. “Do you have any other suggestions?”
She picks up the phone. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”
As she dials a number, I walk over to her, to try and talk sense to her. “Mom, just stay home with Lila. Please?”
She turns her back to me and plugs a finger in her ear to tune me out.
“Hello, Mom? It’s Courtney . . . yes, I know you have caller ID now . . . I need to ask a favor.”
I tug on my mother’s sleeve. “Mom. Stay home with Lila. She needs you,” I plead. She ignores me and paces, murmuring to Grandma on the phone.
When she hangs up, her grin is back.
“All settled. My mother will come stay with Lila.”
My father complains of being too caffeine deprived to drive to the airport, so I drive them in my car. He sits in the passenger seat, flipping through the radio stations until he finds something with “real” music. He yells at every “asshole” driving too fast or too slow, points his finger in front of my nose to tell me to switch lanes. My nerves are beyond shot. The sudden whoop of the police siren behind me startles me; I pull over.
“He’s not pulling you over,” my father says with a snide laugh as the police car speeds past us. Then he looks at my trembling hands. “God, Hadley, you’re such a wuss.”
I throw the car in park. My legs shake, my teeth clatter, my throat gets tight. Too tight.
“Hadley?” Mom leans forward from the backseat. “What’s wrong?”
I hold my head in my hands. “I don’t know.”
Without a word, Dad opens his door and gets out and walks around the car. He knocks on my window and wags his fingers impatiently at me. We switch seats. After he throws my seat back several inches and adjusts his mirrors, he tears down the road lik
e he’s in the final lap of the Daytona 500.
“I know what it is.” He shoots me a sidelong glance. “I get them too. Maybe it’s hereditary. The one thing you got from me, that had to be it, huh?” He shakes his head, disgusted.
I press my hands between my knees.
“What?” I ask.
“Fight or flight,” he says. “Sometimes you fight, sometimes not.”
I shake my head slowly, still not following.
“Hits me every so often. Sometimes even flying does it to me. You?” He turns to me.
I shake my head. “A little. But nothing like this.”
He nods. “Well, that’s good.”
We pull into the airport and park.
I shake my tingling hands out by my side and take deep breaths. Mom wheels her overnight bag across the parking lot toward the tarmac.
“Coffee.” Dad looks longingly over at the terminal.
“I’ll get it!” It comes out as a shout. “And breakfast. I have to use the bathroom anyway,” I offer, trying to erase the hysterics from my voice. He takes forty dollars from his wallet and hands it to me.
“Hurry up.”
The tarmac is springy under my trembling legs as I run toward the terminal. At the coffee shop counter, I order two coffees for my parents and three blueberry muffins.
“I just need to make sure there are no nuts in the muffins,” I say to the cashier who rings me up.
“Nope,” a guy not much older than me answers, handing me back my change.
“Positive?” He looks back at me with uncertain eyes. “Because my father is deathly allergic. And he’s flying. Can you check with Lou?” I gesture to the manager’s broad back a few feet away from us.
He walks over to Lou and taps him on the shoulder. “Lou? This customer wants to make certain there are no nuts in the blueberry muffins.” He points to me.
Lou walks over with a grin. “Hey, Chamomile. Where you been?”
“Haven’t had a lesson in a while.” I force a smile.
He lifts his hand and pretends it’s shaking. “No nerves today? No magic herbal tea cure?” He laughs, teasing me for my typical order of chamomile tea, which I need to calm my nerves after every flight lesson with Phil.
I shake my head. I don’t trust my voice. “Nuts?” I squeak, holding up the bag.
“No nuts. You allergic?”
“My dad is.” I take the receipt and shove it in my purse. “I always have to double check.”
I walk off to the ladies’ room. When I’m done, I go back outside and find my parents waiting by the plane. I hand the bag over, still holding the coffee tray in my hand.
Dad peeks in the bag and frowns. “Muffins?”
I clear my throat and try again to shake out the pins and needles poking at my hands. “It’s not like they had a huge selection.” Then I remember. “I made sure there are no nuts.”
He nods, and we all climb aboard. I take the seat behind Mom.
Within fifteen minutes, we’re up in the air. Once we’ve reached the right altitude, Dad says to Mom, “I’m starving. Hand me one of those muffins.”
While Mom and Dad scarf down breakfast, I stare out the window at the white blanket of earth below.
Dad clears his throat. Once, twice. He takes a sip of his coffee to clear it.
Mom glances over at him. “Are you okay?”
He clears his throat again, then tugs at his collar. “It’s just nerves,” he says, his words lacking confidence. From my seat, I can see sweat pouring down his temples; the backs of his hands glisten with perspiration.
“Hadley!” he yells over his shoulder. “Look in my coat pocket for my pills.”
“What pills?” I pull his jacket off the seat next to me, tearing through the pockets.
Mom rests a hand on his arm.
“It’s fine,” he says to Mom, clearing his throat. “It happens sometimes. I took a pill this morning though . . . I don’t know why it’s not . . .” He clears his throat again.
“Miles . . . your face!” Mom cries out.
I lean forward to see my father’s cheeks erupting in red blotches.
now
Everyone’s eyes bear down on me as I tell them about the muffins I bought at the terminal cafeteria. How Dad thought it was nerves at first, and some pill he usually took wasn’t working. How we saw the blotches and figured out it was an allergic reaction. How the EpiPen didn’t work.
“Mom gave him two shots,” I say.
Brady nods, as if he knows. “We saw that in the toxicology report,” he says. “Your father was on beta-blockers. Patients on beta-blockers who develop anaphylaxis are often resistant to epinephrine.”
Beta-blockers and my father in the same sentence make absolutely no sense. “That’s . . . no, that’s impossible. Beta-blockers are for people with heart conditions. Right? Dad didn’t have a bad heart. He ran every morning.” I turn to Grandma, who lifts her hands up and shakes her head, looking as confused as I feel.
“We spoke with his doctor. Your father used them on occasion for anxiety. Not the way they’re supposed to be dispensed,” Brady says.
“Is that why the pen didn’t work?”
“They were already in his system. His doctor never should have prescribed them, not with his allergies. He probably didn’t want to take any of the other antianxiety meds because of their side effects. They can dull you, cut your edge.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, digesting this new information. My father, who bullied us into facing our fears, to be better than everyone else, suffered from anxiety?
“Hadley.” He leans forward. “Did you know about the security cameras at your house?”
“Sure . . . Outside by the front door and the garage.”
“And inside.”
My mouth opens and closes. “Inside?”
“Hidden throughout the house.”
An anxious tremor runs through me. Oh God. “Where?”
His eyes search mine. “The foyer. The den. The study.”
I take a deep breath. “Anywhere else?” A trickle of sweat snakes down my back.
His eyes narrow. “Not the bedrooms or bathrooms, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
My heart is pounding against my rib cage so hard, I’m certain he can hear it, can see my body throb with panic.
Brady stares back at me, waiting.
He knows.
then
When I come home through the mudroom door, Mom gives me her exasperated sigh.
“Let me guess. Library?” she snaps, slipping her arms through her coat sleeves.
As she buttons her coat she mutters under her breath, as if I’m not in the room with her. “New Year’s Day, and she has to run an errand. She thinks I’m stupid, like I don’t know everything is closed.”
I watch her gather her things, flipping her carefully tousled blond hair over the collar of her coat, jingling her keys in one hand.
Once she was a mother to me, taking me to the playground where we’d swing next to each other then walk hand in hand around the park’s huge pond, pointing out the turtles and goldfish swimming just beneath the lily pads. There were hugs and laughter, but so much time has passed since then, the memories are blurring, faded.
As she goes to walk out the mudroom door, I rush after her.
“Mom? Wait!” I throw my arms around her, squeezing, burying my head into her neck.
She inhales sharply, then pats me on the shoulder . . . one . . . two . . . three times. The exact number it takes to make unpleasantries go away.
“Hadley, I’m late. The Wileys said to be there at six,” she says, pulling herself away from me to meet her friends.
And then she’s gone. But she’s been gone for so long.
I check on Lila, who’s upstairs in bed listening to music.
“You okay up here?”
Her eyes are droopy.
“Mom gave me a pill,” she says, her voice mushy, her tongue too tired to enunciate. I gro
an. I should have flushed the whole damn bottle. But for today, it might not be the worst thing.
“All right. Just sleep.” I pull her door closed behind me.
I go back outside to my car, grabbing a bag from the trunk.
Yes, Mom, everything is closed today. Everything except the grocery store.
Back in the kitchen, I reach under the cabinet for Dad’s coffee grinder and plug it in. Then I grab the metal can from the bag and pop the lid.
The fact that Lila only broke her arm on the mountain is a miracle. It could have been worse, much worse. She has a mouth; he has a temper. I can’t live with the possibility of any more “accidents.”
Except for this last one.
Staring at the empty grinder bowl, I pour two generous handfuls of unsalted mixed nuts inside and flick the on switch.
Whirr, whirr, whirr.
I find the recipe for blueberry muffins in one of Mom’s cookbooks and pull out all the ingredients, measuring out flour, sugar, salt, baking powder . . .
My skin prickles, hot and clammy, and my stomach turns to liquid like I’m coming down with something. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep, forget, even for just a few hours. But that’s no longer an option.
To steel myself, I replay all the kicks and slaps. For leaving the garage door open . . . getting a B-minus . . . missing the early decision deadline . . . getting benched . . . doing a shitty job raking the leaves . . . forgetting to give him an important message . . . dinging his car in the parking lot . . . leaving a water mark on the table . . . liking a boy . . . laughing when I should have been invisible . . . being invisible when I should have been shining . . .
But mostly, the one thing that sees me through is knowing that I was the same age as Lila when it all started. Lila is Dad’s new pet project.
I fold in the flour mixture with the pulverized nuts, swirling it all together.
Placing three paper muffin cups in the tin, I carefully ladle in the batter and bake at 375 degrees for twenty minutes. A warm sweetness wafts through the air as the muffins bake. I open all the windows downstairs to chase it out.
When I’m done, I scrub the muffin tin, mixing bowls, measuring cups, and spoons, drying them carefully before putting them all away just as I found them. I wipe down all around the blades of the coffee grinder, inspecting for hidden residue. But I’m not convinced I’ve gotten every last trace. I can’t risk Dad making his morning coffee and having a reaction before we even make it to the airport, so I toss the coffee grinder in the trash.