Turbulence-2-15
2004 Words
A liaison from the airlines knocked and entered their room at three thirty. It was seven at night before all the interviews were done and another airline employee handed Kennedy and Willow a hotel voucher and tickets to continue their trip to Anchorage the following morning.
“I can’t believe we’re stuck in Detroit another night,” Willow complained. “How in the world are we supposed to get to this hotel?”
Kennedy didn’t care how they traveled as long as they arrived without any further run-ins with terrorists.
Willow pulled her pockets inside out. “Seriously, how are we supposed to do anything? I don’t have my wallet, I don’t have my ID. How am I even going to get on the plane tomorrow?”
Kennedy’s head was throbbing. “Let’s just worry about that in the morning. They’ll have records we were on that flight. It’s not like they’re going to keep us in Detroit forever.”
As they walked through the hospital lobby toward the exit, Julie Andrews crooned about bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. If Kennedy had the energy, she might have found the irony humorous.
“I’m dead serious, we need to go back and find that liaison lady. I can’t do anything without my ID.”
The last thing Kennedy wanted to do was backtrack. How could she explain how desperately she needed to get herself out of this hospital? She didn’t care if they had to walk to the hotel as long as there was a bed waiting for her to collapse onto once she arrived. In the past twenty-four hours since she arrived in Detroit, she doubted she’d slept three hours at any given stretch.
“I was wondering if I’d bump into you two again.” The voice was too jocular. Too full of that raindrops-on-roses type of cheer that was so grating on her ears.
Kennedy stumbled ahead even as Willow stopped to give Ray the math teacher a half-convincing smile. “Hey, good to see you. Are you ok?”
He nodded. “Yeah, they discharged me earlier but I’m just now finishing all the interviews. You two? You both all right?”
No, Kennedy wasn’t all right, and she wouldn’t be until she found a bed to sink into. Preferably a bed with fluffed pillows and warm, heavy blankets.
“The airline gave me a hotel voucher.” He checked inside an envelope he was holding. “The Golden Lion. You heard of it?”
“That’s where we’re going, too,” Willow answered, and Kennedy wondered if she was going to give him their room number and a spare key as well.
“I don’t know the bus system in Detroit. I think I’ll just take a cab. You two ladies want to join me and split the fare?”
Willow fingered her glossy hair. “Actually, our wallets are incinerated by now, I’m sure.”
“Well, I’ve got ...” Kennedy began before Willow elbowed her in the ribs.
“Wow, that’s rough. Then let me call a cab for all of us. It’s the least I could do.”
If Kennedy was lucky, it’s all he would do.
Willow gave him a smile and positioned herself between him and Kennedy. “That would be fabulous.” She linked her arm in his, and together they headed out into the freezing Detroit evening. By the time they arrived at the Golden Lion, Ray had invited both Kennedy and Willow to have dinner with him in the restaurant downstairs.
“My treat.” He smiled at Willow, who had all but scrunched herself onto his lap on the cab drive over.
“I really need to get some rest.” As soon as the words left Kennedy’s mouth, she saw the grateful look on her roommate’s face.
“Are you sure?” Ray asked. “You’ll need to eat something eventually.”
“I’m still feeling awful,” she confessed. “I hardly slept at all last night. I just want to get to bed.”
Before Willow followed Ray into the Golden Lion café, she leaned over and whispered in Kennedy’s ear, “Don’t worry about me if I’m late. I’ll see you in the morning.”
By the time her elevator took her to her room, Kennedy was too tired to care what Willow was doing or who she was doing it with. It was no different than life in their dorm room, really.
So much for telling her about the gospel, Kennedy mused as she plopped onto the bed. Her lungs still hurt whenever she tried to draw a deep breath. She thought maybe a hot, steamy shower would help clear out the last of the smoke and guck she’d inhaled, but she didn’t think she had the stamina.
She shut the blinds to block out a dreary Detroit sunset, with more smog and clouds than actual sky. She thought about Alaska, about the northern lights she wouldn’t be seeing. Not today, at least. She still wasn’t even convinced she’d get on that plane and fly to Anchorage with Willow in the morning. Part of her was ready to swear off airplanes for good, take a bus back to Cambridge and spend Christmas with Pastor Carl and Sandy like she had last year.
As excited as she’d been for the big Alaska experience, she’d had enough adventure for one vacation already. She pulled out her phone and started searching Greyhound rates. If she caught a bus first thing in the morning, she could arrive in Boston by dinnertime. The Lindgrens wouldn’t mind, and the Greyhound rates were reasonable. A hundred and five dollars for a one-way ticket. She could put it on her dad’s debit card. Her parents were probably just as ready to have her grounded as she was.
It seemed like the most reasonable plan. Willow would understand.
She was struggling to decide if she’d rather leave at six in the morning or wait for the nine-thirty bus when her cell rang.
Dominic.
Her finger paused above the screen for just a moment before she answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, I’m so glad you picked up. I’ve been really worried.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get hold of you sooner.” Was it better to confess she didn’t have the energy to even think about calling him or cut off the apology there and leave it at that?
“No, don’t feel bad. I’m just glad to hear you’re ok. You’re all right, aren’t you?”
She didn’t know if he was referring to her physical well-being or not. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Maybe it was the fact that he had so much training in counseling that made it awkward to talk with him. She never wanted him to think that she was using him as a free shrink if she started discussing anything too deep.
“I saw some of the videos from the flight. That must have been really scary.”
“It was.” Could he tell she didn’t want to talk about it?
“How’s your roommate?” he asked. “Is she there with you?”
“No, she’s out having dinner with some new fling.”
“You sound upset.” Why was he always so perceptive?
She plopped her head on the pillow and put him on speaker phone so she didn’t have to hold the cell up to her ear. “I’m just tired.”
“Are you mad that Willow’s out enjoying herself after everything that happened?”
Sometimes she hated the way he could read her thoughts. “I don’t know. It did seem kind of weird, I guess.”
She could almost picture his patient smile on the other end of the line. “People react to stress in different ways.”
“I know that.” She’d taken AP psychology back in high school. She didn’t need the lecture.
“But something else is bothering you.”
She let out a sigh. Maybe by this time tomorrow she could breathe regularly without feeling like every exhale was a stifled cough. “I don’t know. There was a minute ...” No, she wouldn’t talk about the gunman holding Willow. That didn’t matter. “After the fire started. She was stuck. There was a minute on the plane I didn’t think she’d make it.”
He didn’t say anything. She could imagine the way he would study her if they were having this conversation face to face.
“And I felt guilty for not having shared the gospel with her beforehand,” she finally confessed. It sounded so stupid now. As stupid as those people who try to make bargains with God when they’re faced with their own mortality.
“So now you’re upset that she’s out on a date when you think she should be sitting with you asking you to tell her about the God who so miraculously saved her?”
She sighed again, wondering how annoying it would be to live with someone who could sense your emotions like some kind of a sci-fi empath. “I don’t know. Something like that, I guess.”
Another long silence. Something else she might never get used to.
“God works in people in different ways,” he finally reminded her. “Don’t give up on her. This is one night. You’ll have a lot of free time together in Alaska.”
“If I even go.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t want to spell out all her reasons. “I’m thinking of taking the bus home. Spend Christmas with Carl and Sandy.”
“Well, I’m sure they’d love to have you. Just make sure you’re not pulling a Jonah.”
“A what?” Suddenly she wasn’t as exhausted anymore. Maybe she’d find the energy for that steaming shower after all.
“God told Jonah to preach to Nineveh, and he ran away. It took a major crisis to get him back on the right track.”
Dominic didn’t know what he was talking about. The way he prattled on, he made it sound as if God sent the skyjackers to kill those people and set fire to the plane as a way to punish Kennedy for not preaching the gospel to Willow earlier. Kennedy had never been to seminary and certainly didn’t know as much about theology as Dominic did, but she knew God would never act like that.
“Listen, I’ve got to go. My throat’s really sore. It hurts to talk.”
“I’d love to pray for you before you hang up,” he offered.
“That’s ok. I’d probably fall asleep right in the middle.” She forced a laugh although she found the whole situation anything but humorous. She gave Dominic a good night that was slightly more abrupt than he deserved, and after a few minutes of internal debate, she pulled herself out of bed and started the shower running. Usually after a long flight, she couldn’t wait to get out of her travel clothes. Wash off all the germs and grime from the air. Tonight, she couldn’t even bring herself to undress. For one thing, when she got out of the shower she’d have to put on the same dirty clothes she had been wearing for the past two days, but there was something more to it than that. She couldn’t stand the thought of her skin contacting the hot water. Couldn’t stand remembering the way the heat from the flames had come so close to her and Willow before the rescue workers arrived. She sat on the toilet lid while the shower ran, but after a few minutes the heavy vapor reminded her too much of the smoke that had blinded her on the plane, and she shut off the faucet and opened the bathroom door.
She would never tell him to his face, but Dominic was right in just about every way. She was mad at Willow. She’d figured that this brush with death would finally make her receptive to the gospel, finally eager to hear the good news. Not to spend the night drowning her terror in booze, distracting herself and numbing her fears with a one-night stand.
She hated to admit it, but Dominic was probably right about the whole Jonah thing, too. If Kennedy took a bus back to Massachusetts, she wouldn’t have to feel guilty that she wasn’t telling Willow about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. If was five thousand miles and four time zones away from her roommate, nobody would expect Kennedy to share the gospel with her over Christmas break. She thought about Grandma Lucy, about her promise to pray for Willow. Kennedy had never gotten her phone number, had no way to contact her when and if that miracle ever happened. On the one hand, Kennedy was glad that Grandma Lucy had been on that flight to save Willow, but she resented the guilt that had glared down at her accusingly from the moment she met the old woman. Maybe Kennedy wasn’t meant to be that outspoken of a believer. Was there any reason to make her feel so inadequate?
If God wanted Willow to be saved, if God wanted Kennedy to share the gospel with her, he would have to do all the work. He would have to direct the conversation the way it needed to go. He would have to give Kennedy the right words to say and Willow the open ears to hear. That was all there was to it. At first, Kennedy thought Willow’s near-death experience would make her more receptive to spiritual matters, but if her behavior tonight was any indication, Willow planned to go on living her life as if Flight 219 never happened.
Well, God, looks like it’s up to you.
- Writer
