Page 123 of Just Come Over
Or landing in the water. They weren’t saying that, but it was obvious. If they went off the runway, surely they’d end up in the water.
She was going to be sick. Shecouldn’tbe sick. She crouched down with the kids, got an arm around each of them, and said, “There’s a problem with the plane. They’re going to land it anyway, but it’ll take a little while to get everybody here. We’re going to have to wait for them.”
Isaiah said, “Somebody said the plane was crashing.” His eyes were too big, searching her face.
“It’s not crashing,” she said, and made it firm. “It’s making a hard landing, and then they’ll get everybody out.”
“Is my dad going to die?”
That was Casey. She was still standing square, but she was shaking.
“No,” Zora said. Nothing else was thinkable. They couldn’t go through everything they had, and have Rhys taken from them. It wasn’t possible.
She knew it was possible. But it still wasn’t thinkable. She told Casey, “You want to know one reason I love your dad?”
“Is he going to die?”
“Stop,” Zora said. “Listen to me. Here, let’s sit down.” She dropped to the floor, ignoring the coldness of the tile under her bare legs. She’d worn a skirt despite the weather, because Rhys liked looking at her legs. Because she’d wanted him to enjoy looking at them.
Oh, God. Please, no.
She pulled Casey into her lap, wrapped her arm around her front to pull her in tight, held Isaiah’s hand on her other side, and said, “I know that if we’re in an emergency, he’ll get us safe. He’ll do that every time, and he’ll get everybody else around him safe, too, no matter how hard it is to do. He’s up there right now, helping to do that.”
Don’t be a hero,she wanted to say. She wanted to text it to him, but she didn’t. He could no more keep from being a hero than he could keep from breathing. You couldn’t love somebody for the man he was and then turn around and tell him not to be that man.
Isaiah had dropped her hand to take Casey’s. He told her, “Uncle Rhys isn’t going to die. He’s not sick, and he’s got Strength Class 100.”
“My mommy died.” Casey was losing the battle not to cry. “She got hit by a car, and she died. She wasn’t sick. I don’t want my dad to die.”
“He’s not going to die,” Isaiah said. “He loves us. He’s going to come back.”
Zora’s phone dinged, and it took her long seconds to get it out of her purse. Her fingers were fumbling and cold, and it was getting hard to see. Hard to focus.
Don’t worry,Rhys had written.I love you and Isaiah and Casey, and I’m coming home. Will you marry me?
“It’s your dad,” she told Casey, and showed her and Isaiah the text, then read it aloud for Casey.
“See?” Isaiah said. “I told you so, Casey. You should say yes, Mum, about getting married. Uncle Rhys is very strong, and he’s nice to Casey and me, and he has lots of money. If you marry him, he’ll be your husband, and husbands are supposed to be strong and nice. So I think you should say yes.”
Zora said, “I already did,” and held up the phone to show them the screen.
I love you,she’d typed.And yes.
The jet was descending again. Finn was at the left exit window, and Rhys was at the right one, the frame outlined in red, the wing outside the only thing visible in the murk. That, and the bulge of the engine.
Hugh sat beside him, their shoulders touching back here in the narrow seats. The skipper had done his own texting five minutes before, and he’d got an answer. He had four kids at home, two of them babies, not walking yet. Across the aisle, Nico sat beside Finn. Two kids and four kids there. Amongst them, the four of them had twelve.
And every possible reason to make it home.
Random thoughts, and not really helpful. Rhys brought his mind back to the landing, and went over the procedure for getting the window out of the plane, sending the message to his hands, his feet, his body, rehearsing the movements, getting the sequence into his muscles.
They were dropping fast. You still couldn’t see anything, but they’d been descending for minutes. Surely, they were almost down.
“Brace brace brace.”The command came over the speaker, surprisingly loud, and hands went out to seat backs, heads bowed over them. Some sobs. Some prayers. A baby crying.
The flight attendants chanting in unison at the front of the cabin.
“Emergency brace. Emergency brace. Emergency brace.”
