A
ddison beat out the last few lines on his laptop. His report finished once and for all, he sat staring at the wall for a moment, trying and failing to conjure up some happiness.
Feeling like a soldier who’d just come in from frontline battle, he turned off the table lamp, casting the apartment into bleak darkness, and went to the couch. He sank down, lying on his back, and stared at the ceiling above him.
What was he going to do about this impossible choice he faced? What was he going to do about his professional life? What was he going to do about Erin?
It was frightening, even contemplating quitting the NTSB, when it had been such an anchor to him since Amanda’s death. It had been his vengeance for his wife’s crash. It had been his purpose for going on.
Now the purpose seemed hollow and futile. The loneliness was still there, as well as his need for human love, in larger doses than three days at a time. He needed Erin, not in fragments or phone conversations. He needed her always.
Summoning all his courage, he considered the possibility that it was time for some other man to fill his shoes, someone else who had a debt to collect, a passion for the illusive lives he may or may not save in his work, a need to feel he was doing something, however naive that feeling may be. Maybe that person could take up the cause and see it through, finish the work Addison had started. Maybe it was time for him to go back to piloting in one form or another. He’d watched Erin get her wings back. Was it time he sought out his own? Was it time to end this dark phase of his life and enter a much brighter one centered on love instead of disaster?
Not certain which way he should turn, he chose to fall on his knees and take the matter to God.
E
rin sat on the couch between Lois and Madeline that night, desperately fighting her urge to go to bed and cry her heart out. But Lois needed her. They watched the news, waiting to see the press’s interpretation of the contract negotiations, but all Erin could see or hear was Addison’s face as he’d told her he needed time to think.
Pain twisted like a knife inside her, carving out a growing hollow that she doubted would heal. She now knew how difficult it had been for Addison to get over his loss of Amanda, for she had lost Addison, not to death, but to circumstance.
“Here it is!” Lois said as the Southeast logo appeared on the screen. She leaned over to turn it up. “Listen.”
“…after the recent takeover by Trans Western. Collin Zarkoff, sometimes dubbed the Lee Iacocca of the airline industry, had this to say about negotiations that took place at the Southeast headquarters tonight.”
The film clip showed Zarkoff standing proudly out in front of a Southeast aircraft, as if it were his own personal creation. He smiled, projecting a different image than his usual grim-faced persona, and he played to the press like a master. “I believe the Southeast pilots and I have come to an understanding tonight,” he assured the reporters. “We had a nice little talk, got some things aired out, and I think they realize that I have nothing but the best in mind for this airline.”
“Will there be a strike?” Carl Logan, a well-known field reporter, asked.
Zarkoff set his massive arm around the interviewer’s shoulders and chuckled as if they’d been lifelong buddies. “Well, you know, I’m not holding my breath, Carl. We both laid our cards out tonight, and I think we each know where the other stands.”
“The man should go into politics,” Lois muttered through her teeth.
“He can’t. He’s making too much money with his airlines.”
“The media people love him,” Lois went on. “‘The Lee Iacocca of the airline industry!’ If they only knew.”
Erin hugged her knees to her chest. “Maybe you should tell them. Might hamper his good-natured image a bit. Give them a view from the other side.”
“Yeah,” Lois sighed, “but how? He’s been playing this game a lot longer than we have.”
The telephone rang, startling them both, and Erin couldn’t help bounding toward it.
“It’s probably one of the union members,” Lois said. “The phone’ll be ringing off the hook tonight!”
Erin ignored the speculation and grabbed the phone, praying it was Addison. “Hello?”
“Erin? It’s Frank,” the caller said, dashing her hopes. She lowered herself to the chair beside the telephone and tried to hide the disappointment in her voice.
“Hi, Frank.”
“Listen,” he said. “I just heard the news and I’m anticipating a strike vote tomorrow. We’ve got to get you up before then so you won’t be counted as inactive when things start happening. So I’m scheduling you for the eleven o’clock flight to Washington, D.C., tomorrow morning.”
Washington? she thought dismally. That was probably the flight Addison was taking. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Erin? You’re not having second thoughts on me, are you? I have enough problems .. .”
“No,” Erin said quickly. “I’ll be there. Count on me.”
“I will,” he said.
When she hung up, she sat staring at the phone for a minute, thinking of the irony—the absurdity—of her piloting Addison’s flight.
She stood up, sighing from her soul, fighting the tears threatening her. “I have to go to bed,” she told her roommates. “I have to fly to Washington tomorrow.”
“Thank goodness,” Lois said. “That’ll get you back on the payroll. Now if we can just keep from snatching you back off it in a strike.”
L
ois watched Erin rush to her room, wishing from the depths of her soul that she could help her in some way. But there was nothing she could do to lift her friend’s spirits. When Madeline had gone to bed, Lois got on her knees and prayed for her friend. Then she prayed for the negotiations she seemed so helpless to influence.
Just before she started to bed, Lois unplugged the telephone. To Lois, the silence was sweet relief from the barrage of questions she faced. To Erin, the silence was reinforced certainty that she and Addison were finished.
T
o Addison, Lois’s act resulted in an unanswered ring sounding uselessly against his ear, making him sure that his hesitation, his confusion, had driven Erin away, and that she wouldn’t answer his call if he were the last man on earth. Still, he kept trying to get through well into the night, until he drifted into a restless sleep.
I
t felt good to be back in uniform, but the relief seemed secondary to the heavyheartedness Erin felt the next morning. Addison hadn’t called. He’d had all night to think, to reevaluate, and whatever he’d come up with, it hadn’t warranted a phone call.
Lois followed behind her at the airport, quietly absorbed in her own thoughts about the union meeting and strike vote that were slated to take place that morning. Erin had the deep need to tell her friend what had happened with Addison, that the relationship was over and that she couldn’t remember what life had been like before he’d entered her life. What would it be like without him now?
That was the worst thing about going on with life when others made their exits. No longer would Mick be there on the long trips, to banter and joke with, to confide in, to turn to. No longer would Addison be there to fill the yawning void in her heart.
But she couldn’t tell Lois that, not when both their careers hung in the balance. Lois was carrying union responsibilities on her shoulders like a delicate time bomb. In just a few hours they might not even have their jobs left. But that was secondary to her losing Addison.
Take the job, Lord. Just give me another chance with him.
Lois got her an absentee ballot, since she’d be on her flight by the time the meeting began. She waited, preoccupied, while Erin voted against the strike. Erin dropped the vote through the slit in the locked box and studied her friend. Lois was staring at the stack of ballots as if they would come alive and riot against her. “You okay, Lo?”
“Yeah,” Lois whispered. “Just a little nervous. I’m just praying all the pilots who won’t be here will have sense enough to use these absentee ballots or the computer votes they can make through other hubs. And I’m praying they’ll cast the right vote.” Her eyes lost their glaze, and she glanced at Erin.
“What about you? How are you holding up? First flight and all…”
“I’m fine,” Erin assured her. “Just fine.”
Lois took a heavy breath. Her haggardness testified to her lack of sleep the night before. “Look, don’t let any of this distract you today. There’s nothing more you can do, now that you’ve voted. Just pretend nothing unusual is happening and concentrate on that flight, okay?”
Erin smiled at her friend’s concern. “I will. Don’t worry.”
Lois glanced up the corridor. “Well, I guess I’d better go start lobbying. Maybe I can change a few minds in the time I have before the meeting.”
Erin watched Lois head toward a cluster of pilots in the coffee shop. She couldn’t help being grateful for a moment alone with her thoughts.
Erin checked her watch, saw that she still had plenty of time before she had to be at her gate, and she made her way upstairs to the pilot’s lounge. It was still empty because of the early hour, so she went in and closed the door behind her. She crossed her arms and ambled over to the windowsill. Through the glass she could see the maze of runways lined with planes waiting for clearance to take off.
Again, the irony of her situation struck her. Addison would be on her plane this morning. She’d be overcoming one complication in her life while another one became more deeply rooted.
Erin closed her eyes and fought the tears.
No crying today,
she thought. She was done with tears, at least in the light of day, when such evidence of upset could be interpreted as fear and paranoia. She would only cry when she was alone, at night…there would be plenty of time and solitude for tears then.
Blurry images of Addison in the short time she’d known him came to mind. Addison that first day on the lake, talking about the loss he’d known and the understanding he had of her feelings. Addison slamming the racquetball for her, helping her to vent her pain constructively. Addison with paint smeared on his face. Addison eating a Sonic burger. Addison pulling her out of the plane and holding her. Addison kissing her with elegant, eloquent longing…
Somehow, in the sequence of those images, she couldn’t imagine him saying good-bye. The image just wouldn’t come.
She opened her eyes and stared at the sky, at the wispy clouds in the distance. She was finished with fear today, she thought, and somehow, she would manage a dignified good-bye if that was, indeed, God’s will.
A
ddison stacked the pages of his long report in his briefcase, closed and locked it, then turned back to the bed to finish packing his suitcase. He should have gotten pictures of Erin, he thought. Something to take with him, to remind him that she was real when he woke up late in the night and missed her so badly that he wanted to die.
Erin, why did you unplug the phone?
The misery in his heart forced him to manufacture conclusions. She had washed her hands of him. She wasn’t home. She had decided it was over.
They
were over.
He loaded his bags and briefcase into his rental car, locked the rented condominium for the last time, and sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead without starting the engine. But it
wasn’t
over, he told himself. Not while he still had breath…not while he still loved her.
He turned on the ignition with new purpose and drove to Erin’s house, determined to make her understand what he really wanted. Hope quickened his step as he trotted to her door. He knocked hard and waited.
When there was no answer, he realized that her car was gone. Had it been gone all night?
Defeated, he went back to his car and stared down at the airline ticket lying on the seat next to him.
Father,
he prayed with a sick feeling in his heart.
If I could only have one more day. See her one more time.
He’d come back after he’d filed the report, tied up all his loose ends, confronted Sid once and for all. Maybe he’d convince her then how much he loved her. All he had to cling to now was the prayer that by then, it wouldn’t be too late.
A
ddison made it to the gate just as the passengers were boarding and got in line to offer the flight attendant his boarding pass. Idly, his gaze drifted out the airport window to the plane that would take him to Washington…but not home. Nowhere felt like home anymore.
He handed the flight attendant his pass and started up the long ramp to the 727. With each step, he felt a little more disconnected from his heart.
He reached the door of the plane and glanced, unseeing, at the uniformed pilots standing at the door of the cockpit. He noticed the flight attendant smiling greetings as passengers boarded. He stepped inside and brushed past them. Suddenly something…her violet scent, her very presence?…snagged his attention. He turned around and saw Erin, her eyes wide, as she watched him walk toward his seat.
He stopped cold.
“Erin?” he asked, jamming the aisles as passengers tried to get by. “Are you flying to Washington?”
She nodded, but someone pushed him further down the aisle. He slipped into his row in first class, dropped his briefcase on the seat, and looked at Erin again.
“I didn’t know…I’m glad…”
He saw her mouth twist into a grim line, and she turned and disappeared inside the cockpit. He’d follow her, he thought, just as soon as the aisles were clear and he could get out. He’d go after her, tell her that he needed one more chance…that he couldn’t live without her.
But there didn’t seem to be a right time. She was distracted, he thought, for this was her first commercial flight since the crash. She didn’t need him disorienting her, possibly upsetting her, when there was no place to run. He settled back into his seat, fastened his seat belt, and leaned his head into the aisle to see into the cockpit. From the back, she appeared to be calm, efficient, ready to do her job.
The aisles cleared when everyone was boarded, but the door had not been sealed yet, and the cockpit was still open. The captain and the flight engineer sipped coffee at the entrance to the plane, talking to the flight attendant, who smiled, oblivious to the fact that Addison’s world was about to end.
Finally, unable to stop himself, Addison yanked off his seat belt, got up, and bolted toward the cockpit, determined to see Erin. Jack, the captain, stopped him at the door.
“Hey, you can’t go in there,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“No,” Addison said.
Hearing his voice, Erin turned around, and their eyes connected with electric force.
“I…I’m Addison Lowe,” he said, tearing his gaze from Erin and extending a hand for Jack to shake. “NTSB. I need to talk to Erin.”
“Yeah, I remember you,” Jack said, not taking his hand. “You’re the one who got her suspended.”
“I need to talk to her,” Addison repeated. “It’s important.”
“Sorry, pal. It’ll have to wait.”
Addison’s eyes beseeched Erin again, and finally she stood up. “It’s okay, Jack. I’ll just be a minute.”
Reluctantly, Jack backed out of the doorway, allowing Addison to step inside the cockpit. “Thirty seconds,” he said.
Thirty seconds,
Addison thought frantically, as they stared at each other with pain in their eyes.
Thirty seconds to set things right for the rest of our lives.
“How…how do you feel? Everything okay with flying today?” he asked, wondering why the least significant things to say always came to mind at the worst times.
She nodded and lifted her chin. “I can’t help thinking there’s a certain poetic justice in your helping me get my wings back so that I could fly you out of my life.” She turned back to her controls. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m flying this leg, and it’s time for you to go back to your seat.”
“Erin,” he said. “You don’t understand. We need to talk.”
“Later,” Jack said from behind him. “It’s takeoff time now.”
Miserably defeated, Addison backed out of the small compartment, allowing the captain and second officer to go inside. Slowly, he went back to his seat. The cockpit door closed, cutting off his view of Erin.
Addison closed his eyes and hated himself for letting her get away.
H
e’s had all the chances we’re going to give him,” Ray Carter shouted at the hundreds of Southeast pilots who had turned out for the strike vote.
“But we need our jobs,” Lois pointed out calmly. She and Ray and the rest of the bargaining committee had taken their places at the front of the room. “If we strike—”
“Not if,
when,”
Ray said. “What do you expect us to do? The man won’t even talk. You can’t negotiate with someone who refuses to meet with a professional negotiator and who won’t even discuss the demands of his own employees. This calls for drastic action!”
The pilots came to their feet, shouting agreement that a strike was the only way to resolve things. Lois covered her face with her hands and braced herself for the inevitable.
“I move that we call a strike vote!” someone in the first row shouted.
“Seconded!” several others yelled simultaneously.
“All in favor of our voting whether or not to strike, say aye,” the president demanded.
“Aye!” a chorus of pilots sang out.
“All against.”
A much smaller scattering of ayes sounded across the room. Lois looked longingly at the box of absentee and computer votes, and prayed that they would change things, or that the members in favor of voting didn’t represent those in favor of striking.
“Then we’ll begin the vote now,” the president said, with a strike of his gavel.
As the voting process began, Lois had a sinking feeling that she had lost the battle.
D
espite the turmoil in her heart over Addison, Erin had no trouble flying the plane that morning. Even when they entered a cloudy region and encountered rain, her confidence in her flying never wavered. She found herself settling in comfortably with the easygoing captain at her side and the flight engineer, Scott, behind her.
“Well, we’re almost there,” Jack said cheerfully. “How does it feel to be in control again?”
“Feels great,” Erin said, genuine enthusiasm in her voice. “I just hope it isn’t snatched away as soon as we land. A strike vote could put an end to flying.”
“’Fraid so,” Jack commiserated. “But at least you won’t have to sweat it out without having first proved yourself.”
The approach procedure began, complete with weather reports that were relayed to the passengers. The three pilots busied themselves with the checklists they were required to follow before preparing to land, working as smoothly together as if they had been a team for years.
Erin forbade herself to count down the moments until she would have to say good-bye to Addison. Instead, she counted the miles from the airport, the pounds of fuel, the altitude. She maintained her diligent effort of flying the plane while Scott and Jack followed the necessary approach routine.
All three crew members in the cockpit concentrated on specific duties. Erin flew the plane, feeling calm and confident, but at the same time knowing the little twinge of caution that made her the capable pilot she was. Jack watched the airspeed and the altitude, calling out deviations. Scott managed the aircraft systems and monitored the holding speeds, range of the aircraft, and fuel flow.
“Southeast 81, you’re cleared for approach,” approach control radioed. “Contact the tower at the marker.”
Erin reached the marker, the point a few miles from the end of the runway that emitted a tone over the radio, and she noted the glide slope coming toward the center of its instrument.
This is where it went wrong for you, Mick,
she thought.
This is where the elevator broke.
She pulled the power back and started her descent. Routinely, she called for her landing gear.
The usual reply of “down and check three green” never came. She glanced toward Jack, waiting for his response while he tried to engage the gear. After a moment, he shook his head. “The gear must be jammed. I can’t get it.”
Erin’s heart lurched. “What?”