'I wish I could, Josh, but I've got plans tonight. Another time?'
He blushed even more deeply, but smiled. It was the non-smile of Joshua's, she saw-mirthless, forced and false.
'Sure,' he said. 'Whatever.'
CHAPTER 17
Early the winter when John was nine, his parents flew their new plane to visit friends in Oregon.
John stood beside the dinner table one evening as his father traced their itinerary on a map-air route in red, ground stops shown by black circles. He listened to them talk about the flight; he helped them pack.
A few weeks before their departure, he made an amulet from a fossilized sea shell, three redtailed hawk feathers, a dried thistle pod and a strip of wild gourd tendril he gathered with some forethought in a local wilderness now called Liberty Ridge. John prayed that God would instill the amulet with protective properties and not come apart.
He and his uncle Stan watched the little Piper lift off from the Martin Aviation strip and groan into the air. John could smell his mother's perfume, still on his cheek from her lengthy parting kisses. She had worn the amulet around her neck, holding it to her breast as she knelt to kiss him to keep it from getting crushed He could still see his father's ramrod straight back as he walked across the tarmac in his silk flight jacket, heading for the plan The weather was cool and clear. They would be gone one week
That night, Stan and his wife, Dorrie, were expansive, gracious, amusing. But Stan took a phone call midway through dinner, and when he came back to the table he was preoccupied and subdued. Later, John watched some television and saw them the kitchen, talking intently. Dorrie's face was resolutely tragic.
Stan seemed to be trying to talk her out of something, imploring her, palms up, head shaking, ending his plea with a thumb hooked out toward John. Then Stan joined him in the den with a massive amber cocktail.
The next day around noon, Stan and Dorrie broke the news: John's parents had lost radio contact late the afternoon before, and had not been seen or heard from since. It could mean a hundred things, Stan told him. Most likely, his impulsive father simply set down early to wait out the storm. Yes, a fairly good sized storm had blown down from Alaska. With all the interference, radio contact is first to go, anyway. Just a matter of sitting tight and waiting to hear. You know how your father can be.
The plane was listed as missing and presumed down. Search and rescue aircraft couldn't penetrate the storm front, which was all the way south to Fresno by then. That evening, as the first gale-driven drops of rain roared against Uncle Stan's roof, John stood at a window and realized-with a huge wave of relief- that no amount of raindrops could foul his father's plans. He hadn't called because the phone lines were down, too. It was reassuring, almost amusing, to watch Stan and Dorrie fret like hens. John had seen the truth already. He could clearly imagine the yellow Piper emerging through a black wall of clouds, guided by the amulet.
For the next eight weeks, through the heart of winter, storms pounded the state. Even the local mountains were buried in snow. John was treated with all the privilege and dignity of the bereaved. He met with relatives he'd hardly known. He was asked about plans. Everything fine with Stan and Dorrie? You are courageous and we're proud of you.
His schoolmates, as if all coached by the same powerful figure, offered a sort of quiet respect to John. They kept away from him. One day on the playground when a little plane flew over, John stopped to watch it and the noon-duty supervisor, unbidden, wrapped a huge perfumed arm around his shoulders and started to weep. He told the woman 'hold your mud'-a favorite expression of his father's-then walked off to the far corner of the school yard to get away from all these lugubrious, presuming fools.
By late June the snowpack had melted back enough to reveal the yellow Piper.
Stan and Dorrie drove him up to the Siskiyou County morgue, to identify and claim the bodies. It was a long ride from Orange County, punctuated by Dorrie's breakdowns. John bought a pair of 'Jackelope' postcards from a diner up on 395 addressing one each to his mother and father and writing out a brief message: 'Be home soon.'
There was some unutterable problem at the morgue. Stan and Dorrie consulted with the Sheriff-Coroner's deputy until Dorrie retreated to the lobby sofa, blubbering incoherently. Stan disappeared with another deputy, then returned to the lobby sheet-white.
'I just can't say, for sure,' Stan confessed.
'I can,' said John. 'They're my parents.'
The deputy would have none of it. John was too young- both legally and emotionally-to make a valid identification. The Sheriff himself stepped in and called the party of three back to his office. His deputy explained the circumstance. The Sheriff was a big man with a bored but honest face, and John appreciate! that the Sheriff did not look at him like a dying patient.
'You're willing to do this, young man?'
'I've said so several times, sir.'
The identification room was small and official. It had four chairs along one wall, a sink and a faucet. Two large boxes of tissue sat on a counter, beside an arrangement of plastic flower in a gray vase.
A morgue tech entered through a large sliding door on the opposite side of the chairs, pulling a wheeled gurney behind him He looked at John and the Sheriff, then excused himself and returned shortly with another.
'They were exposed to fire, then the elements for sometime,' he said.
'He knows,' said the Sheriff.
The first body was unquestionably not that of his father John knew it less by what was left than by what was gone. It was easy to extrapolate. Add some flesh here. Muscle there. The flight jacket. Eyes. Hair. No-it wouldn't add up to Dad.
He nodded but said nothing.
Likewise for the body they thought was his mother's. Definitely not her, John thought. Everything is just wrong. He looked at the Sheriff.
'These are not my parents.'
The big bored face was plainly startled. It blushed. For a moment the Sheriff's ice-blue eyes held John's, then the Sheriff waved away the tech. The tech pulled both gurneys from the room and the sliding doors met silently.
'You sure, young man?'
'I'm sure, Sheriff.'
'Well, then there we have it.'
He shook John's hand and they went back to his office. Stan and Dorrie were there, prim and ghastly. The Sheriff explained that the bodies did not belong to John's parents, and John just had to sign the papers to make it official. John signed in six places. The Sheriff leafed through the little stack, then placed it on the table in front of him. From his desk drawer he removed a small plastic bag and handed it to John.
'You may as well keep these.'
John pressed the plastic tight and looked at the two wedding bands inside. Even through the plastic he recognized the engraving and the inscription inside each-'Love, Cherish and Honor.' A fossilized sea shell rested in one corner of the bag.
'I understand,' John said.
'Good man,' said the Sheriff.
A moment of pregnant silence passed, then all three adults as if on cue skidded back their chairs.
On the long drive back home, John stared out the window and wondered where, exactly, his parents had gone.
The earth is a small place, but there is sky everywhere, and it never ends. All you need is a little piece of earth to stand on. From there, you can look up and wonder, and find the things out there that are yours.
