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‘It’ll get better with time’
‘I’ood alone, Beth’
‘Have you thought so back to work, Joe?’ Before the accident, he had been a crieles Post His days as a journalist were over
‘I can’t bear the sight of the bodies, Beth’
He was unable to look upon a victie or sex, without seeing Michelle or Chrissie or Nina lying bloody and battered before him
‘You could do other kinds of reporting You’re a good writer, Joe Write so soain’
Instead of answering her, he said, ‘I don’t function alone I just want to be with Michelle I want to be with Chrissie and Nina’
‘So, she remained a woman of faith
‘I want to be with theether ‘I’uts to move on’
‘Don’t talk like that, Joe’
He didn’t have the courage to end his life, because he had no convictions about what came after this world He did not truly believe that he would find his wife and daughters again in a realht sky, he Saw only distant stuns in a less void, but he couldn’t bear to voice his doubt, because to do so would be to iless as well
Beth said, ‘We’re all here for a purpose’
'They were one’
'then there’s another purpose you’re meant for It’s your job now to find it There’s a reason you’re still here’
‘No reason,’ he disagreed ‘Tell me about the sky, Beth’
After a hesitation, she said, ‘The clouds to the east aren’t gilded any one too They’re white clouds, no rain in theainst the blue’
He listened to her describe theat the other end of the continent Then they talked about fireflies, which she and Henry had enjoyed watching froht Southern California had no fireflies, but Joe remembered them froarden, too, in which strawberries were ripening, and in tirew sleepy
Beth’s last words to hi past us and heading your way, Joey You give it a chance,you the reason you need, so does’
After he hung up, Joe lay on his side, staring at the , froht had faded The ht
When he returned to sleep, he drea purpose but of an unseen, indefinable, looh the sky above him
2
Later Saturdayto Santa Monica, Joe Carpenter suffered an anxiety attack His chest tightened, and he was able to draw breath only with effort When he lifted one hand froers quivered like those of a palsied old man
He was overcoh his Honda had driven off the freeway into an inexplicable and bottomless abyss The paveainst the blacktop, but he could not reason himself back to a perception of stability
Indeed, the plu that he took his foot off the accelerator and tapped the brake pedal
Horns blared and skidding tyres squealed as traffic adjusted to his sudden deceleration As cars and trucks swept past the Honda, the drivers glared murderously at Joe or reater Los Angeles in an age of change, crackling with the energy of dooht or an inadvertent trespass on soht result in a thermonuclear response
His sense of falling did not abate His stoing along a precipitous length of track Although he was alone in the car, he heard the screaood-humoured shrieks of thrill seekers at an auish
As though fro, ‘No, no, no, no,
A brief gap in traffic allowed hile the Honda off the pavement The shoulder of the freeas narrow He stopped as close as possible to the guardrail, over which lush oleander bushes looreen tide
He put the car in park but didn’t switch off the engine Even
though he was sheathed in cold sweat, he needed the chill blasts of air-conditioning to be able to breathe The pressure on his chest increased Each stuttering inhalation was a struggle, and each hot exhalation burst from him with an explosive wheeze
Although the air in the Honda was clear, Joe s oil,vinyl, scorched metal
When he glanced at the dense clusters of leaves and the deep-red flowers of the oleander pressing against the s on the passenger side, his ireasy sular porthole with rounded corners and thick dual-pane glass
Joehisthe past year Although sometimes as much as teeks passed between episodes, he often endured asbetween ten minutes and half an hour
He had seen a therapist The counselling had not helped
His doctor recommended anti-anxiety medication He rejected the prescription He wanted to feel the pain It was all he had
Closing his eyes, covering his face with his icy hands, he strove to regain control of himself, but the catastrophe continued to unfold around hi intensified The srew louder
Everything shook The floor beneath his feet The cabin walls The ceiling Horrendous rattling and twanging and banging and gong-like clanging acco
'Please,’ he pleaded
Without opening his eyes, he lowered his hands from his face They lay fisted at his sides
After a htened children clutched at his hands, and he held thehtly
The children were not in the car, of course, but in their seats in the dooht 353 For the duration of this seizure, he would be in two places at once: in the real world of the Honda and in the Nationwide Air 747 as it found its way down froh
overcast night sky, into aas iron
Michelle had been sitting between the kids Her hands, not Joe’s, were those that Chrissie and Nina gripped in their last long inable dread
As the shaking greorse, the air was filled with projectiles
Paperback books, laptop computers, pocket calculators, flatware and dishes — because a few passengers had not yet finished dinner when disaster struck — plastic drinking glasses, single-serving bottles of liquor, pencils and pens ricocheted through the cabin
Coughing because of the sirls to keep their heads down Heads down Protect your faces