Page 17 of The Last Flight

The timer rang, jolting Eva from her reverie. She looked at the clock on the stove, then glanced one more time through the window at the backyard, empty except for a scattering of feathers on the brick walkway.

She pushed herself off the counter, past the rolling shelving unit filled with things she never used, a prop to obscure the door hidden behind it, and slipped down to the basement to finish up.

Claire

Tuesday, February 22

Eva’s house is so still, I feel as if it’s watching me, waiting to see if I’ll reveal who I am and why I’m here. When I open the fridge, the top shelf is crowded with cans of Diet Coke and not much else, just a misshapen take-out container shoved to the back. “Diet Coke anyone?” I mutter before closing it again, my gaze sliding over the shelves that line one wall, filled with cookbooks and mixing bowls, to the cupboards on the left of the sink. I begin opening them, revealing glasses, plates, and bowls, finally finding where Eva kept her dry goods. Ritz Crackers and a Diet Coke will have to be good enough for tonight.

When I’ve eaten enough to quiet my growling stomach, I move back to the living room. The clock on the wall reads six. I pick up the remote, trying not to think about Eva and her husband, snuggled under a blanket watching a movie or sitting in companionable silence scrolling through their phones, and I scan the room, looking for the evidence of a happy marriage. Photographs. Mementos from vacations. But none of it is visible.

I find the Power button and flip past the networks, finally landing on CNN.

The screen shows a close-up of the airport in New York, with an inset of the search and recovery team, a bobbing Coast Guard boat surrounded by dark water illuminated with floodlights. I turn up the volume. Kate Lane, political commentator, host of the showPolitics Today, is speaking, her voice low and somber as the screen fills with an image of me and Rory at a gala function last year. My hair is swept up in an elaborate french twist, and I’m laughing into the camera, my face heavy with makeup. Kate Lane’s voice says, “Authorities have confirmed the wife of philanthropist Rory Cook, son of Senator Marjorie Cook and the executive director of the Cook Family Foundation, was traveling to Puerto Rico on a humanitarian trip and was a confirmed passenger on Flight 477.”

And then my picture is replaced with a live shot of the exterior of the airport, the camera panning in on what looks like a restricted area behind large, plate glass windows. “Representatives from Vista Airlines are meeting with family members this evening, while off the coast of Florida, search and recovery teams work late into the night. NTSB officials have been quick to dismiss terrorism as a cause of the crash, citing unstable weather and the fact that this particular plane had been grounded just four months ago.”

The camera zooms in to show people hugging and crying, consoling each other. I move closer to the television, straining my eyes to see if Rory’s there. But I needn’t have bothered. As if on cue, the scene cuts to a bank of microphones, and Rory emerges from the room, stepping behind them. “I’ve been told we’ll be getting a brief statement from Mr. Cook on behalf of the families.”

I pause the TV and study him. He’s wearing an expensive pair of jeans and one of his button-down shirts in a shade of blue that looks good on camera. But his face is etched with grief, his eyes hollow and red. I sit back on my heels, wondering if he’s truly devastated or if this is all an elaborate act, that far beneath the surface he’s livid, having surely discovered the truth by now.

Leaving the TV paused, I grab my computer from my bag and take the stairs two at a time up to Eva’s office. The internet router blinks its green lights from a corner of the desk, and I turn it over, finding the password on the back, praying she never bothered to change it. It takes me three tries to match the password with a network name, but I’m in.

I click on the window I opened last night and take a quick look through Rory’s inbox while he’s on live TV. There are several messages from Danielle, cc’d copies of emails she sent this morning, letting the Detroit hotel know Rory will be using my reservation, informing the school that Rory would be the one doing the event.

And one message exchange between Bruce and Rory, shortly after the news of the crash broke.

I think we need to delay the announcement.

Rory’s reply was brief.

Absolutely not.

But Bruce would not be deterred.

Think about the optics. Your wife just died. There’s no way you can announce next week. It’s insane. Let the NTSB recover the body. Have a funeral. Then announce after that. Tell them it’s what Claire would have wanted.

Even though it doesn’t surprise me, the fact that they’re worrying about the Senate announcement right now still hurts. Despite our problems, despite his temper, I know Rory loved me, in his own broken way. But underneath is a tiny thread of satisfaction that I’d been right to break away now. That if given the choice, Rory would never pick me over his ambition.

I open a new tab and GooglePetra Federotov. A long list of what appear to be art catalogues pop up, with brightly colored graphics and names I can’t pronounce. Page after page of them. I revise my search toPetra Federotov phone number, and the list grows slightly longer—a pizza parlor in Boston, links to sites offering people-finding software for a thirty-dollar fee. But I’m certain Nico has made sure their information is scrubbed from those databases, and most likely scrubbed from the web as well.

I leave my computer open and go back downstairs, where Rory is still frozen on the screen, his arm about to swipe a chunk of hair that has flopped over his forehead. In another lifetime, I would have reached out to smooth it back, my touch gentle and loving. I stare at his face, remembering what it felt like to love him. The early days, when he’d pick me up from the auction house and surprise me with a dinner at Le Bernardin or a summer picnic in the park. His mischievous smile as he’d sneak us in the back door of a club, the tender way he’d brush the edge of my lip with his thumb, right before he’d kiss me.

Those memories aren’t lost. Just buried. Maybe someday I’ll be able to pick them up again. Hold them in my hand and examine them objectively, keeping the good ones and discarding the rest.

I press Play. Rory clears his throat and says, “This morning, like many of the families behind me, I kissed my wife, Claire, goodbye for the last time.” He pauses, taking a deep, shuddering breath before continuing, his voice cracking and wobbling over the words. “What was supposed to be a humanitarian trip to Puerto Rico has thrust me, and the families of ninety-five other passengers of Flight 477, into a living nightmare. Be assured we will not rest until we get answers, until we fully understand what went wrong.” He swallows hard and clenches his jaw. When he looks into the camera again, his eyes shine brighter, filling with tears that tip over the edges of his eyes and slide down his cheeks. “I don’t know what to say, other than I’m devastated. On behalf of the families, we thank you for your thoughts and prayers.”

Reporters shout questions at Rory, but he turns away from the cameras, ignoring them. I think about how effortlessly he lies. He didn’t kiss me goodbye. He didn’t say goodbye at all. And I realize, now that I’m dead, Rory can tell whatever story he wants about me, about our marriage. There is no one left to refute it.

The scene shrinks to an inset, and we see Kate Lane again, her familiar short gray hair and black-framed glasses filling the screen. I’d met her several years ago when she was interviewing Rory for the segment she was doing on Marjorie Cook’s legacy, and I remember being struck by how cool she’d been toward Rory. She’d smiled and laughed in all the right places, but I sensed a part of her watching him, as if from a distance. Examining all his shiny surfaces and flourishes, and deciding they weren’t real.

Her expression now is both somber and steadying. “Mr. Cook has been a frequent guest on this show, and I, along with everyone else atPolitics Today, extend our deepest sympathies to the Cook family and all of the families affected by today’s tragedy. I’ve had the good fortune of meeting Mrs. Cook on several occasions, and I knew her to be a smart and generous woman, a tireless advocate for the Cook Family Foundation. She will be deeply missed.” In the inset picture over her shoulder, a man appears at the bank of microphones Rory just left and Kate says, “It looks like the director of the NTSB is going to answer some questions. Let’s listen in.”

The crowd of reporters begin shouting questions, but I silence the noise by turning the television off and, staring at the faint outline of my reflection in the dark screen, wonder what happens next.

* * *

I carry my bag back up the stairs and into the master bedroom, pushing aside a discarded pile of clothes on the bed—a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt—and sit. A dark wood dresser, drawers tightly shut, and a closet door that isn’t closed all the way, revealing a jumble of clothes inside. And that’s when it fully hits me: Eva will never laugh, or cry, or be surprised again. She won’t grow old, with sore hips or a back that aches. Never lose her keys or hear the sound of birds in the morning.

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