“You could’ve eaten. I wouldn’t care.”
“Stevie!” Annie shouted, coming down the stairs. She threw her arms around her brother.
“It’s Stephen,” he said in sullen reply.
Jenny came from the kitchen, where she’d been helping Rose. “Stephen,” she said and hugged him with a purposeful courteousness.
Cork’s son suffered their attentions grudgingly and was clearly relieved when they both stepped back from him. Trixie was much more enthusiastic in her welcome, and she danced around the girls in a joyous frenzy of barking and tail wagging that got her tangled in her leash.
Stephen freed her. “I thought it was time to eat,” he said. He turned away and went to the closet to hang his jacket.
Dinner was an odd affair, surreal. So much family gathered, and still the dining room table felt empty. Cork left the television on in the living room, tuned to CNN in case there were any new developments. They tried to carry on conversation in a normal way. Then Cork made a mistake, though he didn’t think of it that way at the time. He asked Annie a simple question about her faith.
“What I see when I look at the world, Dad, is challenge and opportunity. Everywhere I turn I’m confronted with challenges to my faith. And at those same places I’m given the opportunity to be an instrument of God’s truth.”
Without looking up, Stephen, who sat slumped over his plate, said, “That’s such bullshit.”
“Stephen,” Cork said.
“So what’s the big holy truth in what’s going on with Mom?” he said. “Why did God do this to her?”
“You think God struck her plane out of the air?” Annie asked.
“Well, he sure as hell didn’t keep it from falling.”
“We don’t know what’s happened with her plane,” Cork said.
“I do,” Stephen shot back. “I checked out plane wrecks on the Internet today. I know exactly what happens when a plane slams into a mountain.”
“Why are you so certain that’s what’s happened?” Jenny asked.
Stephen aimed at her the dark fire of his eyes. “Am I the only one who sees things the way they are? If the plane didn’t crash, we’d have heard from Mom by now. If it did crash, it crashed in those big fucking mountains and ended up in little fucking pieces, and if anybody survived they’re fucking Popsicles by now.”
“Watch your language, Stephen,” Cork said.
“My language? Mom’s dead and you’re worried about my language. Jesus Christ.” He yanked his napkin from his lap, threw it on the table, got up, and left. Trixie, who’d been lying nearby, rose as if to follow, then seemed to change her mind. She simply watched him stomp up the stairs toward his room.
“He’s scared,” Annie said.
“And he’s thirteen,” Jenny added.
Cork slid his chair away from the table. “I’m going up to talk to him.”
Upstairs, he knocked on Stephen’s bedroom door.
“What do you want?” his son called from inside.
“To talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“We need to. Open up, Stephen.”
The wait was long and Cork was beginning to think he’d have to assert his parental authority to barge in, but Stephen opened the door at last. He turned away immediately and went back to his desk. The only light in the room came from the computer monitor, which was full of pictures from a website, images of a plane wreck.
Cork sat on Stephen’s unmade bed. “I can’t imagine that’s pleasant,” he said.
“It’s not supposed to be pleasant.” Stephen looked at the monitor. “Did you know that they’ve changed the instructions for crash position? They don’t want you to stick your head between your legs anymore. Know why? It’s not because you have a better chance of surviving but because there’s a better chance of keeping your teeth intact so they can use dental records to identify the remains.”
“You found that on the Internet?”
“Yeah. And worse.”
“And you believe it. And you think there’s no hope.”
Stephen pointed to the monitor. “You think there’s any hope in that?”
“When my father died, I was thirteen,” Cork said. “I was sitting at his bedside. Your grandmother was there, too. We watched him go. The doctors who attended him never gave us any hope. Because they were so sure, I didn’t even pray that he wouldn’t die. I just let him go. And you know what? I’ve always regretted that I didn’t pray my heart out trying to keep him with us. I wonder to this day if it might have made a difference.”
“What? Like a miracle or something?”
“Yeah. A miracle or something. Look, Stephen, nobody really knows what’s happened out there.”
Stephen said quietly, “I do.”
“Oh? How do you know?”
“Because I dreamed it,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
The light from the monitor lit Stephen’s face, giving his skin a harsh, unnatural sheen. For several seconds he didn’t speak, and his lips were pressed into a thin, glowing line. “There was this dream I used to have when I was a kid, I mean really little. I was in a big yellow room and Mom was there but way on the other side. I was scared. I think maybe there was something or somebody else in there with us. I don’t remember that part so well. What I remember is that I tried to run to Mom but she disappeared through a door and the door slammed shut when I tried to follow her. The door was white like ice. I pounded on it but it wouldn’t open. I screamed for her to come back.”
“Did she?”
“I always woke up then. You or Mom heard me crying and came in and the dream was over.”
“You used to have a lot of nightmares,” Cork said.
“I had this one a bunch of times. It stopped and I pretty much forgot about it. Until today. Dad, it had to be about this, right? I mean, it is this. Only why did I have it so long ago when I couldn’t do anything about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was there something I could’ve done to… I don’t know… stop it? Is there something I should do now? I don’t understand.”
Tears gathered along the rims of Stephen’s eyes. Anything still unbroken in Cork’s heart shattered, and he reached out to his son, but Stephen shrank away.
“I want to understand,” he pleaded.
“Why don’t we talk to Henry Meloux?” Cork said. “He’s the only man I know who understands dreams.”
“Henry,” Stephen said, and the dim light of hope came into his eyes.
“Not tonight though. It’s late. First thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Stephen said with a nod.
They sat for a while, silence and the distance of their great fear between them.
“Feel like joining the rest of us?” Cork finally said.
“Yeah, I guess.” Stephen turned off the computer and followed his father out of the room.
Downstairs, the faces of the others were turned to the television screen.
“Dad,” Jenny said, “check this out.”
Cork stood behind the sofa and watched the CNN report. A small, energetic woman with black hair and dark, angry eyes stood talking with another woman, a reporter. She wore a leather vest over a western shirt. When she gestured, which was often, silver bracelets flashed on her wrists. She stood in front of a tan brick building that was bright in the sun and surrounded by an apron of snow. She squinted in the sunlight and spoke into the microphone the reporter held toward her.
“Do you think,” she said, “that if this had been a plane full of white politicians these people would have waited so long to begin searching for them? But it was full of Indians, so who cares?”
“Who is she?” Cork asked.
“The wife of one of the men who was on the plane with Jo,” Rose said.
