Miracle (15 page)

“Hey Mom,” I said, and she looked up and gave me a huge smile.

“Some day off, right?” she said, and patted the space next to her. “Come sit with me.”

I did, and she went back to folding socks. David’s feet were already so big his socks were larger than Dad’s. When the ads stopped she watched a little bit of TV and then stopped it, turning the television off and looking at me. I stared at the socks.

“So, you’re home early.”

From the way she said it, with a weird catch in her voice, I knew she’d already gotten the call Coach had told me about.
I glanced at her, and the look on her face . . . she looked like David used to when he was really little and first started trying to lift his head up. He was so sick that he couldn’t do it. He’d wanted to do it—you could see it—but he couldn’t, and Mom looked like that. Like there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t.

Or wouldn’t.

“Mom,” I said, and when she looked at me my voice dried up. She looked so scared.

It was worse than the smiles, than the too-eager eyes. It was one thing to see my parents pretend. It was another to see that they knew something was wrong and had no idea how to fix it.

That they knew I was broken.

So we pretended, just like we had since I’d opened my eyes in the hospital room. I sat there, scared and lost, and faked a smile while she turned the TV back on and filled me in on what was going on so there was no room for me to say another word.

“Your father’s coming home for lunch,” she said when she got up to put the laundry away. I was digging my nails into my palms, trying to stay calm, to look normal. She was balancing the laundry basket on one hip, grasping it with her right hand while her left fidgeted with the television remote.

“There’s his car now. Hear it?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “He and I have to go out for a little while this afternoon.
How does bologna sound? Or would you rather have grilled cheese?”

“Cheese,” I said. Mom left, and I scrunched my knees up tight into my chest, trying not to hear them talking in the kitchen. I heard the words “school” and “meeting” and my mother sniffed like she was trying not to cry. I had to lie down but it wasn’t like before, wasn’t like when I was being pulled back into memories I now knew I didn’t ever want to have.

I felt sick with anticipation, with something that felt like hope because I knew something was going to happen now. It had to. They couldn’t avoid this—me—now.

But they did.

We ate lunch, or at least they did and I tore my sandwich into smaller and smaller pieces while Dad told us about his morning and then Mom told him about someone at the dealership who needed homeowners insurance. Dad wrote down the info and said he’d give them a call. They were both really happy to get me more soda or another half a sandwich, but were just fine with me not wanting anything too. They didn’t say one thing about school but as they were finishing their food, Mom looked at the clock and said, “Well, George, we’d better get going.”

That was it. That was all they said. They knew I was failing all my classes. They knew I wasn’t working on my independent
study. They knew I had missed a lot of school. They knew I hadn’t gone today.

They knew I wasn’t a miracle. They just didn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it.

I didn’t say it either. I just fiddled with my glass of soda and said, “I guess I’ll do some homework. Maybe get out the soccer ball and practice a little.”

Mom and Dad said that sounded great. I was lying and they knew it. They were lying and I knew it. But no one said that.

No one said anything real.

I stayed in the kitchen after they left. Why bother going up to my room? I would be there soon enough, tonight, lying awake waiting for another day to begin. I’d go to school, if I could, and then come right back home and do it all again and again and again. That was how things were. How they were going to be.

My feet were cold. I could feel the floor, slick linoleum rubbing against my toes. I looked down.

I had socks on. They were thick wool socks, padded along the bottom. I used to save them for end-of-season soccer games, when the ground froze and the cold would soak up through my cleats. They’d always kept my feet nice and warm before. Too warm even, sometimes.

There was a cake on the counter, but I didn’t feel like eating
any of it even though I desperately needed the distraction. Food would do it now, but I wanted something different. I went over to the fridge. Inside was milk, soda, rolls, cheese, apples, and a package of hamburger.

My feet were still cold. I wiggled my toes, felt them press against my socks.

I picked up the meat. I’d make myself a burger. The kitchen would get warm when I cooked it, plus it would give me something to do. Something to think about. I dropped the package on the counter, pulled open the plastic that covered it. I pushed my hands into the meat.

As soon as I did, I was on the plane.

I can’t find anything to eat in my bag. I was sure I had something saved for this part of the trip, but I guess I didn’t. I wish I’d thought to get some actual food while I was stuck waiting in Chicago. Henry says something over the tinny intercom. It’s raining so hard I can’t make out the words. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can already tell we’re starting to descend because the trees are closer, and if he’s telling us there’s turbulence, well, the plane’s been bouncing around ever since we took off.

I glance over at the people across the aisle as I shove my bag back under my seat. The park guy, Walter, has finally stopped fiddling with his hat and actually put it on. The annoying blond lady, Sandra, says she wishes she could call home and check on her
baby. I wish she could too so she’d stop talking about it.

Carl cracks his knuckles for the four millionth time and says, “I sure am hungry.”

I sigh. It was nice of Carl to let me have the window seat, but the knuckle cracking is driving me crazy, and I’m tired of hearing him talk about his family. And his heart attack. And his wife and how she won’t let him eat cake. I reach down and check the pocket on the side of my bag.

Food! Well, what the flight attendant on the way to Chicago handed out after an old lady complained. I knew I had something, but still, finding it there was like a surprise. That flight seemed like forever ago.

I rip open the tiny bag of pretzels with my teeth and stare out the rain-wet window at the clouds, which are gathering thick and dark. I saved the pretzels till now because the last part of the flight is so boring. Once you cross into Clark County it’s all trees. The only reason Reardon even has an airport is because of the Park Service. Stupid forest. I remember how, on the flight out, when we took off the trees seemed so close to the plane, kind of like they are now, so close, so close, too close and—

And everything after is a blur of noise and heat and pain.

When I can think again, I’m hanging upside down, legs dangling up into a smoky wet sky and this is what I think: My head hurts. I had a bag of pretzels. Where are they? I smell smoke.

I smell smoke and dirt and there’s rain on my face, in my eyes. It feels cool on my legs. Lying like this is giving me a headache, but I can’t think of how to fix it. All I can think about are those pretzels. I don’t know what happened to them.

I hear something. The thing is, it’s not a sound. It’s stillness. A strange, too-quiet stillness, like all the air around me has frozen.

Then the world explodes.

There’s a rush of heat, so hot I feel it like a sudden sunburn on my skin, and then I see it, a huge ball of flame shooting up toward the sky and spreading out, dropping all around me. Part of it falls and I feel it land on my feet, see bits of it spark down toward my head. I think I should move, but all I can do is stare at the fire. It’s so strange. Fire isn’t heavy. It’s light.

But this fire is heavy, and it’s caught on my feet, rain pounding on it and making it flicker. It doesn’t vanish, though, just sputters and flares up again. How does it do that? I close my eyes and try to figure it out, but it’s hard because my head still hurts and there’s rain everywhere and my feet are hot. I open my eyes and look at them.

My shoes are on fire, melting.

I can move then. I start shaking my feet, trying to get the flames off but they won’t move and I can’t turn, can’t do anything but kick my feet at the sky.

Then I remember the plane.

I remember being on it. I remember opening my pack of pretzels and looking out the window. I remember seeing trees all around us, so close.

I’m in my seat. Upside down, rain and fire all around me, and I’m still in my seat.

The plane crashed.

The heavy fire on my shoes is a piece of the plane, covered with something, fuel maybe, hot and angry enough to burn even in the rain.

My shoes are still on fire. My feet are starting to hurt.

I jerk my arms down, fumbling for my seat belt. I find it, but it won’t pull free. I yank again, my feet kicking at nothing, and it opens. I fall and hit something solid, slamming into it. It hurts, pushing all the breath out of me, but I am too busy trying to get my shoes off to notice.

I end up shoving my fingers into the back of them and pushing. Hot rubber melts against my fingers, my feet sliding free, and I wave my hands in the air, arms stretched out like I’m flying. The wind blows again, hard, and water pours into my nose and mouth and pushes my soccer cleats—my lucky shoes—off my hands.

I wipe the rain off my face and stare at my pink feet for a moment. They look so strange, so bright and wet and resting on ground that doesn’t look like ground at all.

I touch it. It’s metal. I’m still inside the plane. I look around. Where I am it almost looks like a plane still, except everything up is
down and there’s a hole where the bottom of the plane was, showing a strange dark red-gray sky.

There’s another hole farther up, a long jagged one dotted with broken glass, and I can see where part of the outside of the plane has bent inside. The rest of the plane should be there. It isn’t. Just the outside, more gray-red sky and fire and rain. I see a piece of foil caught on the edge of the hole, curling up into itself in the wind. There is a pretzel hovering above it, spinning in place before it is shoved away by the rain.

That’s where my pretzels are. I was sitting down there. How did I end up here, still strapped in my seat?

I don’t know.

Where’s the seat next to mine? It isn’t here. I wipe rain out of my eyes again and look at the hole where the plane was torn in two. Up by where my pretzels were. The seat is there. I can see it now. There’s a pair of boots near it. They aren’t mine.

That’s all I can think. They aren’t mine. They aren’t mine.

I shake my head. It hurts.

I have to move. To . . . something.

Speak. Okay, yes.

Speak.

“Hello?” I say, creeping forward, my feet tender and slippery. It takes me a while to reach the seat.

“Hello?” I say again and when I do, a hand stretches out blindly,
knuckles raw red even in the rain. I scramble back, terrified, and end up almost falling out of the hole, my shorts catching on the jagged metal, rain smashing into my face as smoke fills my mouth and nose.

The hand is still reaching out.

It’s Carl. Carl, who was sitting next to me. His seat didn’t move. If the plane was turned right side up, if the holes in it could be pretended away, he would be ready to fly.

I move toward him. He is upside down like I was, blood dripping from his mouth. His eyes are open wide and sightless.

“Carl?”

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t seem to see me.

I do not want to touch his hand. I touch his face instead, avoiding his mouth. His skin is warm. There is a pulse beating in his neck. I don’t know if it’s fast or slow. I can’t feel it very well. I press harder, trying to check. He blinks but his eyes stay so empty and when he breathes it’s so loud and so slow.

“Help me,” he says, his voice a faint wheeze, and I grab the dangling end of his seatbelt and follow it up, pulling it open. I’d do anything to stop him sounding like that. To stop him staring with those empty eyes.

He falls hard but I grab him, taking his hand in mine, and start pushing back toward the hole I almost fell out of, pushing toward the rain and the smoky gray sky. He holds on tight and his breathing is louder than the rain, a thick rattling gurgle.

Where our hands join, the rain washes pink rivers over my skin. I try not to look back, to keep moving forward, but there is so much pink and he is moving so slowly, his hand growing heavier and heavier in mine. When I finally pull us free of the hole we fall into mud, rocks scratching my skin, and the rain is everywhere.

His hand falls away from mine and when I look back at him it’s still clamped into the shape it was when it held mine. His eyes are still wide open, and the rain washes into them, over the bright red stain that smears his mouth.

“We made it,” I tell him, “we’re all right,” but he doesn’t blink, doesn’t move and when I go back to him there is nothing to feel in his throat and his skin is wet and cooling. The rain smells like metal, like blood, and keeps pouring into his open eyes, making tears. I lean over his face, covering him from the rain, watching his eyes as I wipe his mouth with my shirt. He doesn’t blink. His chest doesn’t rise and fall. He doesn’t see that we have lived.

“Come on,” I say, pleading, but he doesn’t answer.

Someone else does, though.

Someone else screams.