Prologue
SHE HEARD A KNOCKING, AND THEN A DOG BARKING. Her dream left her,skittering behind a closing door. It had been a good dream, warm andclose, and she minded. She fought the waking. It was dark in thesmall bedroom, with no light yet behind the shades. She reached forthe lamp, fumbled her way up the brass, and she was thinking, What?What?
The lit room alarmed her, the wrongness of it, like an emergencyroom at midnight. She thought, in quick succession: Mattie. Then,Jack. Then, Neighbor. Then, Car accident. But Mattie was in bed,wasn't she? Kathryn had seen her to bed, had watched her walk downthe hall and through a door, the door shutting with a firmness thatwas just short of a slam, enough to make a statement but not provokea reprimand. And Jack-where was Jack? She scratched the sides of herhead, raking out her sleep-flattened hair. Jack was-where? She triedto remember the schedule: London. Due home around lunchtime. She wascertain. Or did she have it wrong and had he forgotten his keysagain?
She sat up and put her feet on the freezing floorboards. She hadnever understood why the wood of an old house lost its warmth socompletely in the winter. Her black leggings had ridden up to themiddle of her calves, and the cuffs of the shirt she had slept in, aworn white shirt of Jack's, had unrolled and were hanging past thetips of her fingers. She couldn't hear the knocking anymore, and shethought for a few seconds that she had imagined it. Had dreamed it,in the way she sometimes had dreams from which she woke into otherdreams. She reached for the small clock on her bedside table andlooked at it: 3:24. She peered more closely at the black face withthe glow-in-the-dark dial and then set the clock down on the marbletop of the table so hard that the case popped open and a batteryrolled under the bed.
But Jack was in London, she told herself again. And Mattie was inbed.
There was another knock then, three sharp raps on glass. A smallstoppage in her chest traveled down into her stomach and lay there.In the distance, the dog started up again with short, brittle yips.
She took careful steps across the floor, as if moving too fast mightset something in motion that hadn't yet begun. She opened the latchof the bedroom door with a soft click and made her way down the backstaircase. She was thinking that her daughter was upstairs and thatshe should be careful.
She walked through the kitchen and tried to see, through the windowover the sink, into the driveway that wound around to the back ofthe house. She could just make out the shape of an ordinary darkcar. She turned the corner into the narrow back hallway, where thetiles were worse than the floorboards, ice on the soles of her feet.She flipped on the back-door light and saw, beyond the small panesset into the top of the door, a man.
He tried not to look surprised by the sudden light. He moved hishead slowly to the side, not staring into the glass, as if it werenot a polite thing to do, as if he had all the time in the world, asif it were not 3:24 in the morning. He looked pale in the glare ofthe light. He had hooded eyelids and a widow's peak, hair the colorof dust that had been cut short and brushed back at the sides. Histopcoat collar was turned up, and his shoulders were hunched. Hemoved once quickly on the doorstep, stamping his feet. She made ajudgment then. The long face, slightly sad; decent clothes; aninteresting mouth, the bottom lip slightly curved and fuller thanthe upper lip: not dangerous. As she reached for the knob, shethought, Not a burglar, not a rapist. Definitely not a rapist. Sheopened the door.
"Mrs. Lyons?" he asked.
And then she knew.
It was in the way he said her name, the fact that he knew her nameat all. It was in his eyes, a wary flicker. The quick breath hetook.
She snapped away from him and bent over at the waist. She put a handto her chest.
He reached his hand through the doorway and touched her at the smallof her back.
The touch made her flinch. She tried to straighten up but couldn't.
"When?" she asked.
He took a step into her house and closed the door.
"Earlier this morning," he said.
"Where?"
"About ten miles off the coast of Ireland."
"In the water?"
"No. In the air."
"Oh...." She brought a hand to her mouth.
"It almost certainly was an explosion," he said quickly.
"You're sure it was Jack?"
He glanced away and then back again.
"Yes."
He caught her elbows as she went down. She was momentarilyembarrassed, but she couldn't help it, her legs were gone. Shehadn't known that her body could abandon her so, could just give outlike that. He held her elbows, but she wanted her arms back. Gently,he lowered her to the floor.
She bent her face to her knees and wrapped her arms over her head.Inside her there was a white noise, and she couldn't hear what hewas saying. Consciously, she tried to breathe, to fill up her lungs.She raised her head up and took in great gulps of air. As if in thedistance, she heard an odd choking sound that wasn't exactly cryingbecause her face was dry. From behind her, the man was trying tolift her up.
"Let me get you to a chair," he said.
She swung her head from side to side. She wanted him to let her go.She wanted to sink into the tiles, to ooze onto the floor.
Awkwardly, he placed his arms under hers. She let him help her up.
"I'm going to be-," she said.
Quickly, she pushed him away with the palms of her hands and leanedagainst the wall for support. She coughed and gagged, but there wasnothing in her stomach.
When she looked up, she could see that he was apprehensive. He tookher by the arm and made her round the corner into the kitchen.
"Sit here in this chair," he said. "Where's the light?"
"On the wall."
Her voice was raspy and faint. She realized she was shivering.
He swiped for the switch and found it. She put a hand up in front ofher face to ward off the light. Instinctively, she did not want tobe seen.
"Where do you keep the glasses?" he asked.
She pointed to a cabinet. He poured her a glass of water and handedit to her, but she couldn't hold it steady. He braced her fingerswhile she took a sip.
"You're in shock," he said. "Where can I get you a blanket?"
"You're with the airline," she said.
He took off his topcoat and his jacket and put the jacket around hershoulders. He made her slide her arms into the sleeves, which weresurprisingly silky and warm.
"No," he said. "The union."
She nodded slowly, trying to make sense of this.
"Robert Hart," he said, introducing himself.
She nodded again, took another sip of water. Her throat felt dry andsore.
"I'm here to help," he said. "This is going to be difficult to getthrough. Is your daughter here?"
"You know I have a daughter?" she asked quickly.
And then she thought, Of course you do.
"Would you like me to tell her?" he asked.
Kathryn shook her head.
"They always said the union would get here first," she said. "Thewives, I mean. Do I have to wake her now?"
He glanced quickly at his watch, then at Kathryn, as if consideringhow much time was left to them.
"In a few minutes," he said. "When you're ready. Take your time."
The telephone rang, a serrated edge in the silence of the kitchen.Robert Hart answered it immediately.
"No comment," he said.
"No comment.
"No comment.
"No comment."
She watched him lay the receiver back on its cradle and massage hisforehead with his fingers. He had thick fingers and large hands,hands that seemed too big for his body.
She looked at the man's shirt, a white oxford with a gray stripe,but all she could see was a fake plane in a fake sky blowing itselfto bits in the distance.
She wanted the man from the union to turn around and tell her thathe had made a mistake: He'd gotten the plane wrong; she was thewrong wife; it hadn't happened the way he said it had. She couldalmost feel the joy of that.
"Is there someone you want me to call?" he asked. "To be with you."
"No," she said. "Yes." She paused. "No."
She shook her head. She wasn't ready yet. She lowered her eyes andfixed them on the cabinet under the sink. What was in it? Cascade.Drano. Pine Sol. Jack's black shoe polish. She bit the inside of hercheek and looked around at the kitchen, at the cracked pine table,the stained hearth behind it, the milk-green Hoosier cabinet. Herhusband had shined his shoes in this room not two days ago, his footbraced on a bread drawer he had pulled out for the task. It wasoften the last thing he did before he left for work. She would sitand watch him from the chair, and lately it had become a kind ofritual, a part of his leaving her.
It had always been hard for her, his leaving the house-no matter howmuch work she had to do, no matter how much she looked forward tohaving time to herself. And it wasn't that she had been afraid. Shehadn't been in the habit of being fearful. Safer than driving a car,he'd always said, and he'd had an offhand confidence, as though hissafety were not even worthy of a conversation. No, it wasn't exactlysafety. It was the act of leaving itself, of Jack's removing himselffrom the house, that had always been difficult. She often felt,watching him walk out of the door with his thick, boxy flight bag inone hand and his overnight bag in the other, his uniform cap tuckedunder his arm, that he was, in some profound way, separating fromher. And, of course, he was. He was leaving her in order to take a170-ton airplane into the air and across the ocean to London or toAmsterdam or to Nairobi. It wasn't a particularly hard feeling tosort out, and within moments it would pass. Sometimes Kathryn wouldbecome so accustomed to his absence that she bristled at the changein her routines when he returned. And then, three or four dayslater, the cycle would begin again.
She didn't think Jack had ever felt the coming and going in quitethe same way she had. To leave, after all, was not the same as beingleft.
I'm just a glorified bus driver, he used to say.
And not all that glorified, he would add.
Used to say. She tried to take it in. She tried to understand thatJack no longer existed. But all she could see were cartoon puffs ofsmoke, lines drawn outward in all directions. She let the image goas quickly as it had come.
"Mrs. Lyons? Is there a television in another room that I could keephalf an eye on?" Robert Hart asked.
"In the front room," she said, pointing.
"I just need to hear what they're reporting now."
"It's fine," she said. "I'm fine."
He nodded, but he seemed reluctant. She watched him leave the room.She shut her eyes and thought: I absolutely cannot tell Mattie.
Already, she could imagine how it would be. She would open the doorto Mattie's room, and on the wall there would be posters of LessThan Jake and extreme skiing in Colorado. On the floor would be twoor three days' worth of inside-out clothes. Mattie's sports equipmentwould be propped up in a corner-her skis and poles, her snowboard,her field hockey and lacrosse sticks. Her bulletin board would becovered with cartoons and pictures of her friends: Taylor, Alyssa,and Kara, fifteen-year-old girls with ponytails and long hair wispsin the front. Mattie would be huddled under her blue-and-whitecomforter and would pretend not to hear her until Kathryn said hername for the third time. Then Mattie would bolt upright, at firstirritated to be woken, thinking it was time for school and wonderingwhy Kathryn had moved into the room. Mattie's hair, a sandy red withmetallic threads, would be spread along the shoulders of a purpleT-shirt that said "Ely Lacrosse" in white letters across her tinybreasts. She would put her hands behind her on the mattress and holdherself up.
"What is it, Mom?" she would say.
Like that.
"What is it, Mom?"
And then again, her voice instantly more high pitched.
"Mom, what is it?"
And Kathryn would have to kneel beside the bed and would have totell her daughter what had happened.
"No, Mom!" Mattie would cry.
"No! Mom!"
When Kathryn opened her eyes, she could hear the low murmur of thetelevision.
She got up from the kitchen chair and walked into the long frontroom with its six pairs of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking thelawn and the water. There was a Christmas tree in the corner thatstopped her at the threshold. Robert Hart was hunched forward on thesofa, and an old man was being interviewed on the TV. She had missedthe beginning of the report. It was CNN or maybe CBS. Robert lookedquickly over at her.
"Are you sure you want to watch this?" he asked.
"Please," she said. "I'd rather see."
She entered the room and moved closer to the television.
It was raining where the old man was, and later they printed thename of the place along the bottom of the screen. Malin Head,Ireland. She couldn't picture where it might be on a map. She didn'teven know which Ireland it was in. Rain dripped from the old man'scheeks, and he had long white pouches under his eyes. The cameramoved away and showed a village green with pristine white facades ofbuildings fronting it. In the center of the row of buildings was asad-looking hotel, and she read the name along a thin marquee: MalinHotel. There were men standing around its doorway with mugs of teaor coffee in their hands, looking over in a shy way at all the newscrews. The camera slid back to the old man and moved in close to hisface. He looked shocky around the eyes, and his mouth was hangingopen, as though it was hard for him to breathe. Kathryn watched himon the television, and she thought: That is what I look like now.Gray in the face. The eyes staring out at something that isn't eventhere. The mouth loose like that of a hooked fish.
The interviewer, a dark-haired woman with a black umbrella, askedthe old man to describe what he had seen.
It were moonlight with dark water, he said haltingly.
His voice was hoarse, his accent so thick they had to print what hewas saying at the bottom of the screen.
There were bits of silver falling from the sky and landing allaround the boat, he said.
The bits fluttered like Birds. Birds that were wounded. Falling downward. Spiraling, like, and spinning.
She walked to the TV and knelt on the carpet so that her face waseven with the old man's on the screen. The fisherman was waving hishands around to show what he meant. He made a cone shape and movedhis fingers up and down and then drew a ragged edge. He told theinterviewer that none of the strange bits had actually landed in hisboat and that by the time he had motored to the places where itseemed the things had fallen, they had disappeared or sunk into thesea and he could not get at them, not even with his nets.
Facing the camera, the reporter said that the man's name was EamonGilley. He was eighty-three, she said, and he was the firsteyewitness to come forward.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Pilot's Wifeby Anita Shreve Copyright © 1998 by Anita Shreve. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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