Page 36 of The Last Flight

“Nice to meet you, Kelly. And thanks.”

She smiles. “No thanks necessary. You seem like someone who could use a break. I know a little something about that.”

Before I can say anything else, she passes through the swinging doors into the back and I’m left standing there, amazed at my good fortune.

* * *

It’s only seven in the morning, and the idea of going straight back to Eva’s and hiding out for the rest of the day makes me feel twitchy. So instead, I walk across campus and over to Telegraph Avenue. I stand outside the student union, watching people move through the intersection and toward wherever it is they’re going, unaware of how lucky they are to have the privilege of easy conversation with others. To debate, or laugh together at a joke. To share a meal, and maybe later, a pillow. And I feel the tug to be one of them, just for a little while.

I cross the street, keeping my head angled down and my hands shoved deep into Eva’s coat pockets. Around me, panhandlers ask for money, people try to hand me flyers advertising bands, but I shake my head and keep walking.

I catch flashes of my reflection in shop windows as I walk, and I stop in front of a clothing store and stare at myself. With my short blond hair poking out of the bottom of my cap and Eva’s coat, it’s like looking at a ghost. People swirl on the sidewalk behind me—laughing students, homeless people, aging hippies—but all I see are strangers I can never know. I will never have the freedom to sit down and open myself up to someone else, never be able to talk freely about my mother and Violet, about who I am and where I’m from. This is the life I have ahead of me. Always being alert. Aware. Holding the most important parts of myself back.

I wait for a large group of students heading back toward campus and join them, walking close enough to give myself the illusion that I’m a part of them. That I’m not stranded in this new life alone. I follow them across the busy street that borders campus, peeling off as they make their way into the student union. I can walk among them, but I will never be one of them again.

* * *

On my way back to the house, I stop off at a supermarket to pick up a few basics. I grab a hand basket and find the cheap staples my mother used to buy—off-brand bread and peanut butter, a large grape jelly. I skip her other favorites—rice, beans simmered in water with onion and garlic. I don’t want to be here long enough for leftovers.

In the checkout line, my eyes drift toward the magazine rack, and there it is on the cover ofStars Like Usmagazine—a glossy tabloid somewhere betweenPeopleandUs Weekly. “The Crash of Flight 477: Heartbreak as Families Try to Pick Up the Pieces.” And in the upper right corner, surrounded by others who were on the flight, is my picture. The caption readsWife of philanthropist Rory Cook among the victims.

The photo had been taken at a gala at the Met a couple years ago. I was laughing at something someone had said off camera. But even though there’s a smile on my face, my eyes look empty. I understand better than most how secrets can live on your skin and how hard they are to hide, because the truth is always visible somehow.

I lay the magazine facedown on the conveyor belt and read the covers of the more scandalous tabloids. Rory hasn’t been covered like this since Maggie Moretti. “Rory Ravaged by Grief Seeks Solace in Mystery Woman” reads one, with a picture of Rory and a woman I’ve never seen before. With a jolt, I realize that someday, Rory will fall in love again, and a part of me feels guilty for walking away and leaving that trap open for someone else.

“How you doing today?” the checker asks as she begins scanning my groceries.

“Great, thanks,” I say, my voice quiet and strained, hoping to pay quickly before she takes too much notice of me. I hold my breath as she finishes and begins to bag everything, tossing the magazine in without a second glance. I remind myself that I don’t look like that woman anymore. Someone would have to study my features closely, the shape of my eyes, the freckle patterns across my cheeks, in order to see it. I look like Eva. I wear her clothes. Carry her purse. Live in her house. The woman on the cover of that magazine doesn’t exist anymore.

* * *

Back home again, I set the groceries down and dive into the magazine. A rolling unease passes through me as I look at the smiling faces of people who weren’t as lucky as I was. I force myself to imagine a picture of Eva, staring back at me from the page, the way she appears in my memory, frozen in time, determined, hopeful. And duplicitous.

It’s a four-page spread, with full-color photographs of the crash site. The article is almost all human interest, dissecting the victims’ lives, interviewing bereft loved ones. A newlywed couple embarking on their honeymoon. A family of six—the youngest only four years old—taking a long-awaited trip home. Two teachers on their way somewhere warmer for their annual February break. All of them lovely, vibrant souls extinguished in what was probably a long and terrifying descent into the ocean.

I save the feature about me and Rory for last. He’s sent them a picture from our wedding, staring into each other’s eyes, a background of twinkle lights and shadow.Among the victims was the wife of New York philanthropist Rory Cook, son of the late Senator Marjorie Cook. His wife, Claire, was traveling to Puerto Rico to assist with hurricane relief efforts. “Claire was a shining light in my life,” Cook said. “She was generous, funny, and kind. She made me a better man, and I will be forever changed by having loved her.”

I sit, trying to reconcile the words with the man I knew. Identity is a strange thing. Are we who we say we are, or do we become the person others see? Do they define us by what we choose to show them, or what they see despite our best attempts to conceal it? Rory’s words alongside a happy wedding photograph paint one picture, but the people reading this magazine can’t see what he was like before or after it was taken. And there are clues, if you know where to look. They’re there, in the way he grips my elbow, in the angle of his head, the way he leans forward and I lean back.

I remember that moment, not because it was wonderful, but because of what happened shortly beforehand. I’d wandered over to the side of the room to talk to Jim, one of my former colleagues from Christie’s. I’d been laughing, my hand on Jim’s arm, when Rory joined us, interrupting Jim’s story with a hard stare.

“Smile,” I’d chided Rory. “It’s supposed to be a happy day.”

Instead, Rory wrapped his hand around my wrist, squeezing it so hard I nearly cried out. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said to Jim, “we’re needed across the room for some photographs.” His voice was smooth, giving Jim no clue that anything was wrong, but I knew, in the way he gripped my wrist, in the steel set of his mouth, in the narrowing of his eyes, that my flippant comment was something I’d pay for later.

I caught my college roommate watching us from across the room, where she and a few other friends were seated near the DJ’s table, and I gave her a wide smile, hoping to convince her that everything was wonderful. That I hadn’t just married a man who was beginning to terrify me.

Rory demanded I remain by his side for the rest of the reception. He made the rounds of the room, charming guests, cracking jokes, but never speaking a word directly to me. It wasn’t until we were in the elevator, on our way up to our lavish suite, that he turned to me with ice in his eyes and said, “Never humiliate me like that again.”

I stare at the photo of myself, barely recognizing the woman in it, and my finger traces the contours of her face. I wish I could tell her that everything was going to be okay. That she’d get out in the most extraordinary way, and all she needed to do was hang on.

* * *

After a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I settle in front of my computer again, clicking over to check the Doc. It’s blank, but I notice that Rory has been working on my eulogy. I open it and start to read.

My wife, Claire, was an incredible woman who lived an extraordinary life of service and sacrifice.

I cringe. The pull quote from the magazine carried more emotion. This makes me sound like an octogenarian who has died peacefully in her sleep after a long and productive life. Not the vibrant person I was—and still am. And I wonder, what would I like Rory to say instead?

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