Julie Clark - The Last Flight

The names of the passengers have not been released yet, but NTSB officials say they will be holding a press conference later this evening.

I realize how vulnerable I’m about to become, how things like this take hold, grabbing the heartstrings of the nation. First, the grisly details, the speculation about what went wrong. Then the human interest. The victims. Their lives, their hopes. Their faces, smiling, laughing, unaware of how it will end. Because of who Rory is, my story will be amplified, my minutes of anonymity slipping away at an alarming rate. My image will soon be splashed across the media, recognizable to anyone looking. I’m about to become as infamous as Maggie Moretti. Yet another tragedy Rory will have to bravely endure. And I’ll be stuck, with very little money, no identification, and nowhere to hide.

My eyes land on Eva’s purse, and I reach into it and pull out a ring of keys and her wallet. I pocket the keys and open the wallet, memorizing the address on her license. 543 Le Roy. I don’t hesitate. I walk out of the airport, into the bright California sun, and hail a cab.

* * *

We speed along a freeway, the San Francisco skyline peeking between industrial buildings on the east side of the bay, but it barely registers. Instead, I’m remembering Eva’s final moments in the bathroom stall with me, determined to carve out a second chance for herself, not imagining that she never would. I rest my head against the window and try to focus on the cold glass pressing against my skin. Just a little bit longer . I can’t let myself fall apart until I’m behind closed doors.

Soon, we’ve exited onto streets crowded with college kids, colorful and upbeat. I try to imagine what Rory might be doing right now. Most likely, he’s on his way back to New York, having canceled the event in Detroit. Quietly depositing the forty thousand dollars back into the bank and hiding everything else in his secret drawer.

I stare out the window as we pass the university, students crossing the street in a haphazard way, oblivious the way only college students can be. We skirt around the eastern edge of campus and into a residential neighborhood on the north side with hills and winding streets. Houses, duplexes, and apartments sit side by side among tall redwood trees, and I think about what I’ll find when I unlock Eva’s front door. An intruder stepping into the home she shared with her husband, forever frozen exactly as she left it. Looking at their photographs. Using their bathroom. Sleeping in their bed. I shudder and try not to think that far ahead.

The driver leaves me in front of a white, two-story duplex with a long front porch and two identical doors anchoring each end. The right side is curtained, closed off from prying eyes. A large pine tree casts part of the porch in shadow, the soil beneath it looking dark and fresh. The left side is vacant, the windows bare, revealing empty rooms with crown molding, a red accent wall, and hardwood floors. I’m relieved I won’t have to answer any questions from a neighbor, asking who I am or where Eva went.

I fumble with the keys, finally finding the right one, and push the door open. Too late, I realize there might be an alarm, and I freeze. But all is silent. The air smells of closed rooms and a faint trace of something hovering between floral and chemical—there and then gone.

I close and lock the door, stepping carefully past a pair of shoes that look as if someone kicked them off a few minutes ago, straining my ears for any kind of noise, any sound of another person. Yet despite the clutter, the house feels utterly still.

I set my bag down by the front door in case I need to leave quickly, and creep over to peek into the kitchen. Empty, though there’s an open can of Diet Coke on the counter and some dishes in the sink. A door leads to the backyard, but it’s locked with a chain across it.

I take the stairs slowly, listening hard. Only three rooms—a bathroom, an office, and a bedroom, clothes dropped on the bed and floor as if someone had left in a hurry. But I’m alone in the house, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.

Back downstairs, I collapse onto the couch and tip my head forward, resting it in my hands, and finally allow the day’s events to catch up to me. The panic I felt, followed by the thrill of having slipped past everyone.

And then I think of Eva somewhere on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Whether it hurt when the plane hit the water, if the moments leading up to impact were long, filled with terror-filled screams and crying, or if they were cut short by lack of oxygen. I take several deep breaths, trying to calm down. I’m safe. I am okay . Outside, a car passes through the silent neighborhood. In the distance, some bells chime.

I lift my head and take in the framed abstract prints on the wall and the soft armchairs flanking the couch. The room is small but cozy, the furniture high quality but not extravagant. Exactly the opposite of the home I just left behind.

There is a well-worn groove in the armchair angled toward the television, but the rest of the furniture looks pristine, as if no one has ever sat there. Something about the room nags at me, and I try to put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the way it was left, as if someone had just stepped away for a few minutes. I scan the space, trying to figure out where her husband’s hospital bed might have been. Where the hospice workers might have counted pills, measured medication, washed their hands. But all evidence is gone. Not even a divot in the carpet.

Against the far wall, a bookshelf is crammed with books, and I wander over and see titles about biology and chemistry, with a few textbooks on the very bottom shelf. I quit my job to take care of him. Perhaps she was a professor at Berkeley. Or maybe he was.

From the kitchen comes a buzzing sound, loud and jarring in the silent house. When I get to the doorway, I notice the black cell phone on the counter, tucked between two canisters. I pick it up, confused, remembering the one Eva used at the airport in New York. The push notification is from one of those text apps that disappear after a set amount of time, from a contact named D.

Why didn’t you show up? Did something happen?

The phone buzzes in my hand with another message, nearly making me jump.

Call me immediately.

I toss it back on the counter and stare at it, waiting for another text, but it remains silent, and I hope whoever D is, they’re done asking questions for the night.

I step toward the sink and look through the small window overlooking a tiny backyard. It’s surrounded by shrubs and bisected by a brick walkway leading to a gate in the back fence. I imagine Eva standing here, watching twilight fall as it is now, coloring the shadows in deep purples and blues as the sky darkens, while her husband lay dying.

The phone buzzes again, the sound reverberating around the empty kitchen, and a sense of foreboding descends. The empty house offers itself up to me, yet reveals nothing.

Eva

Berkeley, California

August

Six Months before the Crash

Eva waited for him outside his dorm. It wasn’t the same one she’d lived in, so many years ago, but a newer one, with softer edges and dark wood trim, as if they wanted students to feel like they were living in an Italian villa instead of student housing. Her gaze traveled upward, over windows that were open to catch the cool morning air, posters of bands she’d never heard of, taped picture-side out. From the center of campus, the Campanile chimed the hour, and students with early-morning classes passed by her as she stood on the sidewalk, leaning against a car that didn’t belong to her. No one looked at Eva. They never did.