Falling by T.J. Newman

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CARRIE WATCHED A BEAD OFsweat slide down Sam’s cheek. It clung to the bottom of his chin before dropping onto his sleeve, leaving a dark circle on the gray CalCom uniform.

It was hot in the cramped quarters. Carrie’s T-shirt clung to her where Elise pressed against her. Scott’s hair stuck to his forehead with a sheen of moisture.

Sam set the phone down and started to work at the button on his sleeve. Holding the detonator made the simple task awkward and Carrie could feel his frustration rising with the heat as his fingers slipped around the small plastic button without success.

Carrie reached for his hand. He pulled back. The phone camera, angled up at the ceiling, would show the cockpit nothing and for that moment it felt like it was just the two of them. Him: alarmed, defensive. Her: calm, offering. His eyes narrowed in skepticism but she didn’t budge. She didn’t smile or speak; she did nothing to try and prove this wasn’t a trick. She simply laid out her hands.

Slowly, he extended his arm and she took it in her bound hands, working awkwardly herself, but managing better. The button popped free and the cuff loosened in relief.

She rolled the sleeve up his arm, folding the fabric and pulling it taut as she went. It felt as natural and automatic to her as wrapping up a dirty diaper or straightening a tie. The van was dark, but she thought she could make out a thin, vertical scar that ran up the inside of his forearm. He quickly rotated his arm away from her, all but confirming it.

“My father died when I was young too,” she said. “Car crash. Drunk driver. He was the drunk.” Pausing her fingers, she added, “He was always the drunk.”

She returned to working with the fabric as if that was that. Which it was.

Among Carrie’s girlfriends, she was the go-to for advice. Yes, she was perceptive and nurturing—but she also had this innate ability to dig under the surface and pinpoint what the real problem was, not just what they were upset about. They called it her “Spock mode.” Carrie could examine a difficult situation dispassionately, like she had laid it out in front of her on a table under bright lights, surgically cutting away the emotion that clouded logic and reason. She didn’t think much of it. It was just how her brain and heart communicated. But if Carrie had to guess at how she became this way, she’d assume her father’s unreliable and beer-soaked presence in an otherwise safe and happy childhood would be the starting point.

“I thank God he hit a tree,” Carrie said. “He was driving the wrong way. It was a miracle that he didn’t hurt anyone else.”

Sam cocked his head at the word God.

“Was your father religious?” he asked.

“No,” Carrie said. “Our family wasn’t religious at all. Christmas, Easter-type Christians. He stopped going to even those.” She frowned and looked at Sam but her eyes went farther away. “But honestly, we never talked about it. God, I mean. I don’t know what he thought.”

“You should be helping me with this, you know,” Carrie said.

Bill smiled without looking away from the TV as he surfed through channels.

“God’s not my thing,” he said. “Wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“You think I do?” Carrie said, cross-legged on the couch, flipping pages in the Bible that lay in her lap. Their wedding was in a week and the pastor had said they needed to choose at least two passages for the ceremony.

“Don’t they have a standard set of verses they use for weddings?”

“Sure,” Carrie said. “But he wants it to have meaning to us.”

“Two people who never go to church,” Bill said, watching a basketball replay. Indicating the Bible in her lap, he said, “Where’d you even find that?”

Carrie smiled. “In a box at the back of my closet. It’s from when I was a kid. I never got an adult version. I like the dumbed-down language.”

She turned to the index in the back to see if the passages were organized by subject. Finding a long list under the heading “Love,” she chose one and flipped back to the Book of Ecclesiastes, turning the thin pages until a handwritten note stopped her. Her pulse raced as she stared at the deep indentations and block letters of her father’s distinctive scrawl. Bill said something, but she ignored it. He poked her leg with the remote and she looked up. His smile dropped at the sight of her face. She told him what she’d found.

“Your dad?” Bill said, sitting up and muting the TV. “You never told me he was religious.”

“He wasn’t,” Carrie said, staring at the book. “So why did he find my Bible and write in it? And when?”

Bill didn’t have a reply. “How do you know it was him?” he said.

“I’m positive. His handwriting was unmistakable.”

“Well, what did he write?”

Carrie frowned, trying to interpret, not understanding. Her father had circled Ecclesiastes 9:3—“One fate comes to all alike, and this is as wrong as anything that happens in this world”—and beside it, he’d written one word. Underlined. In all capital letters.YES. She turned the Bible so Bill could see.

Taking the book in his hands, Bill stared at the page for a long while before handing it back. He looked as confused as she felt.

“So… everyone dies. And that isn’t fair?”

Carrie looked down at the ghost of her father.

“Yes.”

Carrie unbuttoned Sam’s other sleeve. “I don’t have many regrets when it comes to my father. But I do regret never asking what he thought about God. I always assumed he never talked about it because he didn’t care. But the older I get and the more I look at his life choices—I wonder if he actually didn’t have quite a bit to say about it.”

“How old were you when he died?”

“Nineteen. Freshman year of college. Last time I saw him was in my parents’ kitchen. I’d come over for dinner and was about to leave. I already had my purse in hand and my mom and I were finishing up our conversation when he came into the kitchen to grab another beer and asked what we were talking about. I told him I was trying to pick a major. He shrugged and told me that, whatever I chose, just make sure I chose to live.”

Sam furrowed his brows, confused.

“Exactly,” said Carrie. “He was always giving that kind of fortune cookie nonsense. Drove me nuts. So when he said that, I rolled my eyes like I always did. But I’ll never forget—and I’ll never forget it because it’s the last thing he ever said to me—he looked at me and seemed… offended? No, not offended. Hurt. He seemed hurt and he said, ‘You don’t think everyone actually lives, do you? Most people just exist and roam around. It’s a choice, to actually live.’ ”

Carrie finished with his sleeve, her words falling flat in the silence. Her gaze landed on the detonator and an ancient wave of understanding washed through her body.

Sam picked up the phone, returning the two of them to the situation at hand. “I actually think I understand what your father meant.”

Carrie stared into the dark. She nodded her head.

A noise came from outside.

Sam looked at Carrie, wide-eyed.

He put a finger to his mouth. Silence.

His thumb moved on top of the detonator’s red button. A reminder of what would happen if she didn’t obey.