Tim Washburn - Powerless

“Better explain to the flight attendants what’s happening,” Cheryl says.

He fingers the button and listens for a moment. “Lisa, come to the cockpit and I’ll explain.”

There’s a single knock at the door a moment later. Cheryl stands to unlock the cockpit door. Lisa Robbins has flown with Steve and Cheryl numerous times. She enters the cockpit as Cheryl retakes her seat.

“What’s the deal, Steve?” she says.

He looks at her briefly. “We have no satellite navigation and no communications. Everything went dead just as we were passing the southern coast of Newfoundland.”

Lisa takes a moment to digest the information. “What can I do to help?”

“Thanks, Lisa. Keep the passengers calm until we can put her on the ground. Tell them Paris is socked in with fog, or whatever else you can come up with.”

“I can do that.” Lisa exits the cockpit.

Cheryl relocks the door and returns to her maps. Making quick calculations on time and distance, she marks the time to the new compass heading. She pulls a binder from another side pocket of her seat and does a quick read of the landing procedures for London Heathrow. “Steve, we need to think about starting our descent.”

Steve winces as he reaches for the throttles. “Where do we need to be?”

Cheryl glances at the altimeter. “Bleed off about six thousand.”

He looks out the window for any glints of metal in the sun before slowly pulling back on the throttles. “Descending to twenty-seven thousand. Is the TCAS system on?”

“Yes, Captain,” Cheryl says while she cranes her neck to survey the brilliant blue sky around them.

Steve eases off the throttles. “Now might be a good time to say a prayer.”

Durant

Zeke wanders into a vacant waiting room and collapses onto a chair.

I took Amelia’s “maybe” response and ran with it. A week later, I gained my release from the hospital and found a run-down one-bedroom apartment near the hospital and signed a six-month lease. I could have cared less that the beige carpeting was stained or that the stove only had one working burner—proximity to Amelia was my only desire. Three days a week, I limped into the rehab office and worked with a therapist to regain my range of motion and had a lunch date with Amelia. Our lunches soon turned to dinners out, and I felt like the luckiest guy in the world when we spent the weekend at her place.

I found a good job, a career starter, and spent every moment of every day thinking about Amelia. Was I infatuated with her? You bet your ass I was. I was head over heels in love with that caring, understanding, brighten-my-world woman. The memories of war faded as our relationship deepened.

At the start of our fourth month of dating, I descended to bended knee. “Amelia, I love you more than life itself. Will you marry me?”

She clapped her hands to her mouth as tears drifted down her cheeks. “Yes, Zeke. Yes.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. We were both crying as she covered my face with kisses.

Amelia had been married once before, to her high school sweetheart, with a big, lavish wedding. The marriage lasted only two years, and another large wedding production wasn’t on her bucket list. We agreed on a small civil ceremony with our very close friends and family members a month later.

After the ceremony we jetted off to the shimmering waters of the Caribbean for a week of sun. Laughter and lovemaking were constant staples of our week in paradise.

Two months later, we purchased our first home—a three-bedroom, single-story rancher in a neighborhood of other young couples. The house was older, built in the ’50s, with brick along the bottom third topped out with siding painted a bright shade of blue we both laughed about. A project house in need of a little TLC.

One day a few months later, Amelia snuggled next to me on the sofa, her legs splayed across my lap, her tanned feet sporting the dark blue nail polish of a recent pedicure. She took my hand. “Zeke, I’m pregnant.”

“You’re what?”

“We’re having a baby.”

We were in the third trimester of Amelia’s pregnancy when complications began to develop.

Claiming exhaustion one night, Amelia went to bed early, leaving me on the sofa, channel surfing on our new television. A horrible scream shattered the quiet. I raced into the bedroom to find my wife convulsing. “Amelia!” I screamed her name, unsure of what to do.

I sat gently on the bed and wrapped one of my arms around her thrashing body while I fumbled for my cell phone. With trembling fingers, I finally got the numbers 911 pressed.

“Hurry, goddammit!” I shouted.

The convulsions subsided after about twenty seconds and she slipped into unconsciousness.

“Amelia… Amelia… Amelia.” I gently shook her but she didn’t respond.

The rest of the evening was a haze of disbelief, pain, and worry as the ambulance arrived and the paramedics struggled to stabilize her. She was whisked out the front door, and I shuffled to the ambulance and climbed through the double doors. The paramedic was a flurry of activity as he started an IV and injected a variety of medicines into her body. I sat in a foggy haze, staring at the face of my unconscious wife.

“Eclampsia” is what the doctors told me. I didn’t know what that meant. Amelia never regained consciousness and drifted off into a coma. One week later, she died, taking our unborn child with her.

Zeke turns away from those passing along the hospital corridor, wiping away the tears. He shuffles along the hall until his heavy breathing subsides and the tears have dried. He wipes his nose and makes his way back toward his father’s room. He pauses before entering to allow the redness on his face to dissipate. When he steps inside, his mother stands up from the chair and wraps her arms around her son.

“It’s really okay, Mom,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “This doesn’t need to be a taboo subject. It’s been three years. It’s time to let all that go.”

His mother’s breath is warm on his chest. “I love you, Zeke. You’ve suffered more heartache than most people could ever endure.” She takes a step back. “They’re on the way to get your father for the heart cath.”

“So soon?”

“They think he’s stabilized enough and want to eliminate the blockage as soon as possible.”

Zeke steps over to his father’s bed and reaches for his hand. “You’ll be fine, Dad. Hell, they do these procedures a dozen times a day.”

“I know, son. I’m not worried.” He pauses. “But… I want to tell you that I love you, son. I don’t know if I’ve actually ever said those words to you, but now I have. I love you and I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

Damn, just when Zeke had the tears stopped. “I love you, too, Dad. You didn’t need to voice the words for me to know that. Now quit being so damn sentimental—”

An unfamiliar nurse breezes into the room. “So, Mr. Marshall, you ready to get that ole ticker fixed?”

“Yeah, I am,” Robert says. “But I wish they could just replace the batteries.”

The nurse laughs as if she hadn’t heard the same thing a dozen times. “This will be better than batteries,” she says, pulling the bed toward the door. “We’ll have that heart of yours pumping as good as the day you were born.”

Before the bed clears the doorframe Zeke reaches out to give his father’s hand one last squeeze.

The nurse glances over her shoulder. “If you two would like to wait in the waiting room, I’ll let you know something as soon as I can.”