“You’re right,” her words were rough and filled with sorrow. “You did the right thing. As hard as it is to admit we aren’t those little kids by the lake, we aren’t the ones hiding from the nuns, and we aren’t family anymore. We haven’t been in a long time. I love you, but we’re just two people whose lives crossed paths a long time ago.” Then she took off her ring and handed it to me. “We’re just two people dancing under the stars that were blinded by the light from the sun.”
“Just two friends saying goodbye,” I countered when I heard her voice break as I took her hand and pulled her back in to finish the dance. “This ring is yours,” I told her as I slipped it back on her finger. “It might not mean what it did when I gave it to you, but its my mothers and I don’t trust anyone else with it,” I slid it on her finger as she began to sob. Then I leaned in and kissed her wet swollen lips. She kissed me back and it was almost more than I could take, so I pulled away and put distance between us. My heart was dying, my soul was leaving, and my faith in us was broken.
I took steps to get away before she saw me break, but as my ears heard her cries muffled from her blanket I turned back and blew her a kiss.
“You’ll always be my apple even if its not my basket you’re in.”
The hours turned to days as time went by with a heavy sandbag hanging off the eternal clock keeping the minutes from ticking by faster. Every day was slower, longer, and more depressing than the last. I tried dating as soon as I got back. I was desperate to bury my loss, but no one could measure up to London. I needed time and distance to put her out of my head.
“Hey Patrick,” I answered when our scheduler called. He still hated me, but after he heard about London and I he was doing his best to keep me in the air. Somehow I still found peace in the clouds, and bitterness on the ground.
“Do you want to take over the New York to Dublin route?” He asked and I immediately said yes. “Nate is being retired.”
“Why?” I asked because people always talked about his American Bandstand flights and how much they enjoyed them even though I didn’t.
“He fell asleep on a flight with no co-pilot. We had to talk a flight school student through landing the plane. Now that person who landed it wants Nate gone and a big check,” Patrick explained and I understood.
Nate joined the company when they started offering international flights. He too loved to be in the air, but not like I did. He loved to fly over the ocean as if he was invincible. He was like a bird without wings, he flew over the water so he could see the sea life and told stories of the Loch Ness Monster he claims to have seen. Every trip to him was a new adventure.
“I’ll take over,” I agreed and Patrick gave me my dates. I would start by co-piloting with him while they worked out his retirement package.
“Good. You start tomorrow,” Patrick seemed happy I was taking this on, but my heart just wasn’t in it.
I no sooner put my phone down before it rang again.
“Keenan,” I answered thinking it was Patrick, but then a familiar voice came on the line.
“Hey Logan, this is Avery and I’m trying to reach London.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I admitted. “We split up six days ago and last I knew she was going to stay at the school in London. Did you try her cell?”
“I did. I have called and emailed every day for nearly a week. She was supposed to get me an answer yesterday on something and its not like her to just disappear,” Avery seemed worried or angry. I couldn’t tell.
“Try calling the school,” I offered up the only thing I could think of. “If she’s not there Sister Katherine will know where she went.”
“Thanks,” Avery spoke and then hung up in a rush. I mouthed a you’re welcome to the call ended sign on my phone. Everyone seemed to be moving on in their own lives except me.
“Flight Two-Eleven Alpha what is your status?” Tower control asked again. They had been asking every fifteen minutes since we took off from this trip. Nate sat across from me snoring already. This was his last flight. He didn’t even make it to thirty thousand feet before he was out like a light. His age had taken a toll on his ability to fly long distances, and we all covered for him for too long.
“Flight control this is Pilot Logan Keenan, our coordinates are fifty-two by negative thirty two point one with an elevation of thirty-nine thousand feet. We are over the North Atlantic Ocean and will be arriving in Dublin inside the next three hours. Please be advised I have full manual control of the plane as Pilot Nate Richards has taken ill and will be my navigator for the remainder of the trip.”
I heard some static on the line, and hoped that would suffice. Someone had told headquarters that one of the flight attendants had to fly a plane for Nate when he fell asleep at the controls. She was in flight school, and without her it could have been a story on the news where people cried and lit candles for the loss, but this time I was here and I wasn’t going to fall asleep. This trip was a long one for Nate as he was leaving behind a forty-four year career, but from the snoring next to me I had to admit it was way past time for him to hang up his wings.
“Please be advised that your flight is not approved and the transponder is not functioning, please advise of location every three minutes until landing.”
“Nate,” I shouted as I pulled the headset off. “Wake up.”
“What? Are we in Ireland?”
“What happened to the black box?” I asked as I saw wires hanging down by his legs. Nate merely yawned as he shrugged his shoulders. “Nate, we could be in a lot of trouble, did you steal this plane?”
“There was no pilot listed on the board, and these people needed to get to Dublin,” he tried to defend himself and I wondered what the ramifications were.
“They’re going to arrest both of us for this the minute we land,” I scoffed in disbelief. I had lost my heart in London, my soul at the school, and now I was going to lose my freedom. I had broken my own rules and now the one place on the planet where I usually found solace now left me with anxiety and fear about what would happen. Sing song voices echoed in my head saying things like ‘community showers’ and ‘don’t drop the soap.’
“Fly into Heathrow and they won’t find us,” Nate smiled.
“They’re tracking the plane with three minute updates,” I replied.
“No they aren’t. The man that paid me to turn off the transponder said they were only logging it as a technical problem,” Nate acted as though this was a solution, but instead this could be seen as not only theft, but we could be kidnapping these people or worse.
“What man?” I asked as lights began to flicker and engine one shut down. I reacted on instinct as everything else became white noise in my head as I focused on leveling out the plane and shifting the lines to get us as close to Dublin as we could get for maintenance.
“Tower Three, Tower Three, we have lost control of engine one. I am rerouting fuel and will be manually landing at the next available airfield. Please advise where that landing will be.”
“Here,” Nate pushed buttons on his cell phone as more alarms went off inside the cock pit. My Heaven was turning to hell with echoes of bird chirps and siren like noises filled the air, and people screamed when their oxygen masks fell.
“Flight Two-Eleven Alpha, there is a small air strip approximately seventy one minutes northwest of you in Greenland. Change your course to sixty four point nine seven by negative forty point seven. Ride that in.”
“Here, he said when you started asking questions to call him,” Nate replied as he transferred the call into my headset.
“Who?” I stuttered not knowing what to ask first if I could even think of questions while I was trying not to kill everyone.
“Hello Logan,” a familiar voice came through my head set. “I’m enjoying my new office without the baby birthing carpet in the room.”
“Avery?” I asked and he laughed. “What the hell is this?”
“This is me forcing London’s hand to
do her job,” he replied and I had no idea what was going on.
“That’s between you and her,” I countered and he tsk’ed through the phone.
“No, now this is between you and God, because your plane is set to crash before you ever reach the green rolling hills of Ireland.”
The plane swayed as another engine faltered and I steadied her as best I could and dropped altitude just in case.
“This will show London that no matter where you are I can reach out and touch you. I did all of this to get my wife and son back with no recognition. No fame, no glory, nothing. I want my place in history, and she is the dog that will fetch me my title.”
“Avery,” I bellowed, but the line went dead as the plane’s malfunctioning engine burst into flames and the nose of the plane started to drift down.
“Ladies and gentlemen it seems we have a mechanical problem. Move quickly to the back of the plane, buckle up, and hold on we will be landing soon,” I told everyone as I heard the screams through the door.
“I’m gonna get to see my wife,” Nate smiled as the story came back to me about his wife who died from the bombs at Pearl Harbor all those years ago. He wanted to die, and he was going to take us all with him. Avery was going to hurt London, and there was nothing I could do about it.
As the final blow to the engine came I lost control of the plane and prayed to God. I didn’t ask him to save us. I didn’t ask him to help me guide the plane down safely. I asked him to help London because my death and Avery’s mission would be the end of her.
Chapter Thirty Eight
London
“Losing Logan was the worst feeling in the world,” I admitted to Sister Katherine. “Seeing how much I was hurting him nearly killed me, but I couldn’t let him in. I couldn’t let him see the ugly inside me from the choices I had made. I couldn’t let him get taken down by the choices I will make.”
“You two will never learn,” she scoffed as we carried in apples from the orchard I just bought from the money George had left me. Usually you have to wait to move in till the papers are done, but the owners were so happy with my offer that they considered some of it rent money to move in immediately. Sister Katherine flew with me back to the states, and helped me try to get on with my life, but not without her daily two cents on the matter. “I have prayed for patience, but I don’t think I’m supposed to have anymore when it comes to the two of you.”
“Sister Katherine,” I sighed. “What if I told him everything and he left anyway?”
“Then at least you would’ve given him the option,” she chided. “You gave him no choice in the matter.”
“What if he didn’t agree with the choices I would have to make? What if he couldn’t forgive the person I had become that selfishly put her life ahead of others because she didn’t trust her boss?”
“The boy loves you. Not what you have or will do,” she pulled out some fruit and began to cut it. “You know my favorite fruit is the apple, but sometimes they aren’t ready so I have to settle for something that is second best to my taste buds. That’s what you did to him. You took a man -who let’s face it had an ego the size of the ocean - you took him and made him feel less than a man. You emotionally castrated him and made him believe that you were hiding things because you didn’t want him to be part of your life.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to do,” I admitted. “Sister Katherine can I confide in you?” I asked and she nodded. “If I go back to work I will be doing something good for a bad reason, but if I quit and move on with my life then I will be doing something bad for a good reason. I’m torn. I want to help, everything inside me is screaming at me to go to work and do the right thing, but I know it would be for the wrong reason.”
“You see these apples,” she sat down the basket and picked one up. “Sometimes apples look perfect on the outside, but inside are completely rotten. You just have to cut them open to find out what they truly are.”
“I don’t understand the metaphor,” I admitted. “So, I should go back and expose the ugly at work?”
“No child, it wasn’t a metaphor. Sometimes a spoiled apple is just an apple till someone tells you that it’s rotten,” and just like that I knew she was still using apples to teach lessons even though she was acting like she wasn’t. “I’m not going to tell you to go back to work. Only you and God know what you went through when they took you. I would never ask you to go back into something that could hurt you again, but if you wanted to go back and do something good for someone bad then save the apples you can and then toss out the bad.”
“Hey Brook,” I answered my ringing phone with the fakest happy greeting I could muster.
“Turn on the news,” she nearly shouted.
“Why?” I asked and she repeated it again and again in a panic. I dropped my baskets and ran for the house. I threw open the back door and stumbled over the couch as I reached for the remote. I turned on the television, but couldn’t tell what I was seeing as I flipped the channels.
“What am I looking for Brook?” I asked as my line beeped. I took the phone from my ear to see it was my dad. “Dad’s calling,” I told her but before I could put her on hold I saw Logan’s face on the news. His photo and Nate’s photo were being shown, but I wasn’t sure why.
“This just in - plane from New York to Dublin - flight Two Eleven Alpha has disappeared and believed to have crashed.”
I dropped to my knees as I forgot how to breathe. I felt dizzy as I tried to understand what was happening.
“I’m coming London,” Brooklyn kept saying, but I didn’t know what it meant. I had no thoughts, no memories, nothing. I was completely blank except for the pain in my chest that was killing me.
“London -,” Sister Katherine called me and I tried to look at her, but my body was no longer listening. I heard the sound of the baskets falling and the apples hitting the ground as I leaned against the wall for strength to hold myself up.
It had been three days of searching for survivors when my faith had finally met its tethered end. When they called off the search parties because they didn’t even know where it had crashed. I watched in stupor as they showed the people who were on board the plane. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. As people cried and grieved for their loved ones I watched tv and made pies.
“How is she today?” I heard Brooklyn ask Sister Katherine as she walked into the living room.
“No change,” Sister Katherine replied. I wasn’t catatonic, but I couldn’t remove the numbness I felt to answer for myself. I watched as the airline played videos of Logan when he got his job and completed his training hours. I watched the birthday parties they filmed with the other employees. I saw the smile on his face that seemed lacking.
My phone rang and I looked down to see it was the switch board from the CIA. I knew it was Avery, but I didn’t want to talk to him. I wanted nothing to do with him.
“Hello,” Brooklyn answered my phone. “No, sorry Avery she hasn’t spoken since she found out.” I waited for her to hang up, but instead there was a pause. “I don’t know of any next of kin for him. As far as I know there is still his step mom, but he was one of us.”
I curled up on the couch and tuned out their conversation.
He was one of us.
He was mine.
He was mine and being with me got him killed. If I hadn’t been keeping things from him he wouldn’t have accepted the longer trips. He was going to ask for a daily route so he didn’t have to be away from me.
It’s my fault he’s dead.
“Moya Malaya,” my dad called me his sweet girl as he walked in the house with Alec. It had been a week and still I couldn’t find a reason to talk. I looked at my dad and wondered if he had anything to do with this since he had threatened to kill Logan, but it wasn’t like him. Dad would have never taken out more than a dozen people just to take out one.
“I brought the reports of the crash from Homeland Security,” he put some papers on my coffee table. “It has the fina
l voice recording,” he continued as he placed a thumb drive on top. I looked at him wishing he could make it better, wishing he could take away this invisible box I felt trapped in, but the more I looked at him the more I realized I didn’t even know him.
“Nikolas,” Sister Katherine called and my dad stood up and walked into the kitchen with his cane tapping on my linoleum.
“London,” Alec whispered as he sat down beside me. “You need to return Avery’s call.”
I turned to look at him. Truth was I didn’t give a damn about Avery. I didn’t even care to shower. No one seemed to understand that my whole world seemed to crumble, but they expected me to get up, dust myself off, and rebuild. They assumed I could function after losing Logan. I gave Alec the smallest shake of my head and curled back up on the couch.
“Lisa and Ada came over earlier,” Sister Katherine sighed. “Not even Ada could get her to talk. She barely blinks, she doesn’t eat.”
“What did the doctor say?” My dad asked Sister Katherine.
“He said she’s in shock. She’s like a zombie until she starts to process her loss. He told me she could be like this for days, or she could be like this for years. Its up to her.”
“London,” Brooklyn talked while she was in my closet. “Do you have anything black?”
I didn’t answer her as she continued to rummage through my closet. The men who would follow my dad to hell and back sent their wives over with Brooklyn, Kate, and Sister Katherine to bathe me and force me to put on something pretty because we were going to a funeral at the airline for bodies they never found.
“Here I have something,” Kate spoke up as she pulled out a black skirt from my box. I was wearing that same skirt the night Logan came to the house and confessed he knew. I was wearing it when he told me he loved me. He had crawled beneath it to taste a part of me. He had snuggled me tightly to him in that skirt to ensure I would still be with him in the morning.
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