Miracle (16 page)

I look around, but there’s nothing to see but rocks and metal and trees, hovering over everything at the edge of the smoky sky. There’s another scream, louder this time, and I realize some of the rocks are actually part of the plane, that it’s smashed into the ground and is on fire, disappearing.

I run over to it but I can’t reach it. It’s too hot, so hot the bottoms of my feet hurt, and I don’t hear anything now except the rain.

Then I see Sandra.

She is trapped under the burning piece of plane and is trying to crawl out from underneath it. Her mouth is open, but she’s been pushed down into the ground, mud all around her while the plane melts above her. I can see her hair, wet bright yellow, and her hands are clawing at the ground. I can’t move. I want to, but I can’t. All I can do is see her face, mud and fire swallowing her, her terrified eyes.

Her wedding ring shines yellow in the rain too, reflecting fire, and as it crawls up her she screams and screams and her body writhes like a snake, her skin—

“No!” I say, but the fire doesn’t hear me. It keeps burning, and rain blows into my eyes and smoke pours up my nose and into my mouth, metallic and meaty. I gag, falling onto my knees. The ground is wet underneath me, and I stare at it, mud and pine needles oozing around me. All I see are Carl’s eyes, so empty, and Sandra’s eyes, so afraid. I see his stiff empty hand and her desperate clawing ones, and I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to see anything.

I have to find someone who can help. Henry. It’s his plane. He will know what to do. He will be able to make things better. I will find Henry.

I can’t. I can’t find him. I can’t even find the cockpit. I find a piece of it, twisted metal holding broken gauges, but Henry is gone,
and so is the door that he closed before we took off. It’s like he wasn’t even on the plane.

I do not want to find Henry anymore. I don’t want to see what’s left of him.

What do I do now? I don’t want to look around anymore, but I don’t know what else to do. I am wet and the fire is still burning, flames all around me. I don’t know how to get through them. I wish there was someone here. My feet hurt. Why is there a hat on the ground?

Walter. It’s Walter’s hat. Where is he? Why do I see his hat but not him? Maybe he lost it like I lost my pretzels. Maybe he’s wandering around just like me.

“Walter?” I call. The rain washes my voice away.

I say his name again. He doesn’t reply, but there is something closer to the trees, another piece of plane that isn’t burning. It isn’t a big piece, but it’s large enough to cover someone, and it’s just lying there, wet in the rain. I walk toward it calling, “Walter?”

He doesn’t answer, but he’s there. I can see the top of his head. I push at the metal. It doesn’t move. I push harder, and it scrapes slowly across rock, shows a slight dip between two large stones.

Walter is there. He is resting inside the stones. He isn’t wet at all. He looks fine. His eyes are closed, but there is no blood, and I know he just needs to wake up like I did. I touch his shoulder.

Then I see his legs.

They aren’t legs anymore. They are—they are ground up, split open, wedged broken into the rocks, his insides on the outside, and it looks like meat, he looks like meat, but his mouth isn’t open, he isn’t screaming, he just looks like he’s asleep. I just imagined what I saw, I didn’t see it and I will wake him up and everything will be all right.

“Walter, wake up,” I say. He doesn’t open his eyes. The wind blows, catching his hair and pulling it. It pushes rain over us, water washing down, soaking him, running down into his legs only they aren’t legs at all anymore.

I fall down. I am not running but I fall anyway. I hit the ground hard and there is dirt in my mouth. The rain washes it away. I see Walter’s hat. It is still lying on the ground. I should get up and get it but I don’t want to move. I don’t want to see anything else.

It is very warm behind me. I feel heat on my back, my legs, and my feet. The fire is spreading. I hear it too, popping and hissing.

Walter’s hat blows away. The wind takes it up into the air, off into the trees.

I forgot about the trees. I saw them, but I forgot they were there. I look at them. They look angry. They are blowing in the wind, whipping around like they need to grab something, someone. I can’t see Walter’s hat anymore. The trees have eaten it. I shouldn’t have looked at them.

My head feels strange, hot, and I reach up and touch it. My hair is on fire. The ends of it are burning, sizzling away.

I stare, and then I am running. I don’t know how or where but I am. I am clumsy though, and I fall, landing hard on the ground. Rocks cut into me, rain tasting like dirt and metal on my lips splashing over me, and overhead the sky flares bright red and smoky. I think of Carl, lying on the ground and Sandra, clawing and struggling as her ring shone fire-bright. I think of Walter’s hat and his legs.

Everything starts to dim, going dark, and I am glad. I don’t want to see anymore.

When I woke up the sky was burning.

Twenty-Two

I was still in the kitchen when Mom and Dad came back. I saw them through the window. They were sitting in Dad’s car, and they both looked upset. Dad kissed Mom, and she wiped her eyes. They both looked at the house and saw me. Mom got out of the car. Dad waved at me and then backed down the driveway. I looked down at the counter. At my hands. I went over to the sink and started washing them.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen. What I’d remembered. I was still washing my hands when Mom came into the kitchen.

“Are you cooking something?” she said. “You should wait and wash your hands after you’re done with the hamburger.”

I’d washed all the soap away but I kept rubbing my hands
together under the water. I could still feel meat on them. I could still see it.

“Meggie, you’re going to rub your hands raw. And how long has this hamburger been sitting out? It looks—”

“I remembered the crash.” My voice sounded fine. I was surprised by that. It should have sounded raw, broken. But it didn’t.

“Remembered?” Mom’s voice didn’t sound fine. She leaned over and turned the faucet off. Her mouth was open, trembling. “Of course you remember it.”

“I didn’t. I woke up in the hospital and didn’t know where I was or what had happened. You and Dad had to tell me.”

“But then you remembered.” When I didn’t say anything she rested both hands on the counter, leaning against it. “You might have forgotten a few details but that’s no reason to say—”

“Details?” I said, my voice rising, cracking. “I forgot seeing Carl die after he asked me to help him. I forgot watching Sandra burn to death. I forgot seeing what was left of Walter. Those aren’t details.”

She paled. “Meggie—”

“They aren’t details,” I said, shouting now. “They were people, they died, and I saw all of it and forgot. How could I do that? How could I forget what happened to them?”

“Megan, please don’t—”

“What? Don’t talk? Don’t tell you that I was holding Carl’s
hand when he died? Don’t tell you that Sandra screamed until she couldn’t anymore but kept looking at me, and that her eyes—”

“Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t blame yourself for living, for being a mir—”

“Stop! Stop pretending everything is fine. Stop pretending I’m fine.” I leaned toward her, and she shrank back against the sink. “Tell me why I lived when they died and then tell me why I’m such a fucking miracle.”

She started to cry. “You
are
,” she said, reaching out to take my hands in hers.

“Liar,” I said, and walked out of the room. Out of the house. She came after me, grabbing my arm as I reached the end of the driveway. She was still crying, her face red and wet, and she tried to pull me to her.

I pushed her hands away and her face crumpled, her expression going lost, frightened. “Megan, everything is fine. You’re fine, sweetie, you really are. Just listen to me—”

“No,” I said. And then I walked away.

The thing was, there was nowhere for me to go. All I had was town, bounded by the trees and hills, a border I didn’t want to see, much less cross. I walked to the end of the road anyway and then started running, hoping my long strides would take me away from myself.

It didn’t work. My mind stayed full of what I’d remembered
in the kitchen, everything I’d forgotten so
there
that now it was all I could see. I ran by Lissa’s house, and then I ran by Jess’s. They were both home but I knew I couldn’t go and talk to them. I wouldn’t know what to say. I headed toward the church instead.

Margaret was inside practicing on the organ. She took one look at me and stopped playing.

“You told them.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

“You need water,” she said, and pulled a bottle of it out of her enormous purse. “It’s warm, but it’ll do and besides, your face is as red as a tomato, so come on, sit down and drink a little water, okay?”

I did.

“It pays to carry a decent-size purse,” she said and frowned at my empty hands. “That’s advice you should definitely take to heart. Do you even own a wallet?”

She was acting so normal that I was able to open the water and drink it. She went back to the organ and started practicing the song she’d been playing again. She only stopped once, to tell me to finish the water, and when she was done she shuffled her music together and stood up. Her knees made a loud cracking sound.

“Used to jog when I was younger,” she said. “See what you
have to look forward to? Now, come on, get up, and get you something to eat. I have some leftover soup I need to get rid of.”

“I—”

“Fine, I’ll open a new can just for you.” The words sounded like Margaret but her voice was soothing and kind. Understanding.

She called my parents when we got to her house. She didn’t ask if it was okay or anything, just told me she was doing it and said I could talk to them if I wanted.

I didn’t, so I went into her study and sat on the floor looking at Rose’s bears.

“I wanted to let them know where you are,” she said when I came back to the kitchen after she’d called that my soup was ready. “They’d like to come pick you up.”

“No,” I said. It came out louder than I meant it to.

Margaret didn’t look surprised, though, just said, “All right. Go wash your hands.”

When I came back from the bathroom she was on the phone again. I could tell it was with my parents because I heard her say, “Well, George, I appreciate that,” and I went right back into the study and picked up one of the bears. I wondered if Rose’s memories were like mine, if she’d seen something like what I had. If she had, how had she ever been able to make anything like this?

Margaret came back when I was still holding the bear and said, “Your parents and I have agreed that I’ll drive you home in the morning.”

“Oh. Thank—”

Margaret shook her head. “Not necessary.” She smiled at the bear, then motioned for me to hand it to her. “Rose was happiest when she was making them, you know. I think they took her away from everything.”

“What do you do about your memories?”

Margaret sighed and stroked the top of the bear’s head as she put it away. “Think about Rose. Pray. Go talk to Dr. Lincoln, who I’ve mentioned to you and your parents before. He really is a nice man, Meggie. Terrible posture, but you know how tall people slouch. You should go see him.”

“And do what?”

“Talk to him, I would think,” she said, squinting at me. “Now come on, your soup is getting cold.”

So I ate soup with her and then sat on her sofa while she made more phone calls. She knew a lot of people, and they must have all been old like her because she talked a lot about arthritis and the weather. She usually mentioned Vietnam too, and sometimes she’d say, “Yes, Rose would have liked that.”

After every call she’d ask me how I was feeling. I always said I was fine. After her fifth phone call, she sat next to me
on the sofa and started eating a candy bar. When she broke off part and held it out to me, I ate it.

“You know what the worst thing about bad days is?” she said. “People try to cheer you up by saying tomorrow is another day or worse, a fresh start. I suppose everyone wants to think that something better must be coming.”

I nodded. “Or no one wants to say, ‘Sorry, your day sucks but you’ve still got to get through it.’”

She smiled and handed me another piece of candy bar. “You will get through today, Megan.”

“Why? Because I’m a miracle, the girl who survived Flight 619?”

Margaret sighed. “No. I mean you’ll get through it because it’s after eight already and there’s not much of today left. Now, I have to go call my friend Bill and I’ll be a while, especially if he starts talking about his back.”

He did, and when she finally got off the phone she yawned and then got me a blanket and pillows for the sofa. “Your father told me you like to run at night. He doesn’t seem too fond of it. I’m guessing you like it, though?”

I nodded.

She patted the pillows. “It makes you feel better?”

I nodded again.

“You’ll stay in town and won’t go near strange cars?”

When I looked at her she said, “People do pass through here from time to time, you know. And don’t answer me with another nod.”

“I don’t leave town and I won’t talk to strangers. I just—I just like to run.”

“Fair enough, but if you track dirt into the house, you have to clean it.” She handed me a house key. “This was Rose’s. Don’t lose it.”

“Thank you,” I said, and she waved one hand at me and went to bed. I sat on the sofa for a long time and then I got up and went outside. I didn’t run. I just sat on her porch. I was careful not to think about anything. I just stared straight ahead, into the dark.