Falling by T.J. Newman

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BILL WAS AS RUSTY ATlistening and transcribing morse as he had been transmitting it earlier in the flight when no one seemed to be listening. His old knowledge was coming back quickly, but he could feel sweat lining his palms in the intense focus. Morse was hard enough to do on its own—never mind having to do it in secret while juggling another conversation.

The average pilot doesn’t know Morse code. Some of the military old-timers might. But for the most part, the language was dead. That was true now, and it was true thirty years ago when Bill had made the same argument to his first flight instructor. But the World War II vet wouldn’t hear it. He didn’t care that Bill found Morse to be difficult, tedious, and a complete waste of time. It was one more tool for the toolbox. He said Bill would learn real quick that things could get real ugly, real fast. And when they did—which they would—Bill would want his toolbox to be as full as it could get.

Bill had never been so glad to be so wrong.

From the other side of the screen, Carrie watched him intently. This deep into their lives, Bill honestly believed she knew him better than he knew himself. By the look on her face, she knew his mind was elsewhere. He wished he could tell her where.

Hold on, baby. I’m going to figure this out.

Sam checked his phone. “We’re getting awfully close to decision time. I’m going to need your choice, Bill.”

Bill’s heart leapt into his throat. He shifted in his seat, stammering in his attempt to stall.

Sam cut him off. “C’mon, Bill. What’ll it be?” His tone was mocking. Out of the corner of his eye, Bill saw the gun extend closer to his head.

“Please,” a voice said. “Take me. Just me.”

The boy’s quiet voice had a purity that shattered Bill’s heart.

Scott’s bottom lip trembled. His plea was not the bargain of a mature man knowingly accepting the burden of his fate. It was the cry of a little boy forced from innocence, but left without the tools for understanding. A child merely mimicking what he saw the hero in the movies do. What he figured his dad would do.

The toy train looped around again, Scott’s eyes widening with delight as its tiny engine, chugging and puffing, passed them. Disappearing into the papier-mâché tunnel, it popped out a few feet away near the area where the plastic horses grazed. The boy’s hands pressed against the barrier, his breath fogging the glass.

Bill looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes and not a word. He turned at the sight of a group of nurses walking by with their paper coffee cups.

The unplanned pregnancy had brought Bill and Carrie a world of shock. Their stunned reaction gave way to excitement—but the medical and statistical realities of a woman pregnant at forty-two years old had hung ominously over the last nine months. Bill checked his phone again for word from the doctor. Still nothing.

“Do you think she’ll like trains?” Scott asked.

Bill smiled. “I bet she will. You can teach her all about them.”

Scott’s eyes never left the circling toy. “Where’s she going to sleep?”

Bill considered. “Well, she’ll sleep in the nursery. That’s her room.” Bill had painted the room light yellow just the weekend before. He had asked Scott if he wanted to help, but Scott declined without much of an explanation. Bill didn’t push it.

“You mean my old play room.”

Bill hesitated. “Yes… your old play room. But now you can play in the living room. And when she’s old enough, you can play together.”

Scott muttered something under his breath. Bill was going to let it slide, but then he noticed the young boy was trying not to cry. He knelt down, eye level.

“Do you think she’ll like baseball?” Scott whispered. A tear slid down his cheek.

“I don’t know, bud,” Bill said. “We’ll have to wait and find out. Do you think she’ll like baseball?”

Scott shook his head.

“Okay,” Bill said. He was barely able to discern Scott’s whisper.

“We like baseball.”

Ah. There it was. Now Bill understood.

A decade ago, Carrie had handed him a positive pregnancy test. In that moment he felt what he knew Scott was now experiencing. Bill wasn’t ready to become a dad. They had only been married a year. They were going to travel, stay up late, sleep in without setting an alarm. Drink wine whenever they wanted. Carrie was finishing grad school. They lived in a crappy one-bedroom in a crappy part of LA. He wasn’t anywhere close to paying off his flight school loans.

But most of all—selfishly—he wasn’t done being the center of Carrie’s world. He had found the love of his life and he wanted her to himself. He wanted to be the only one she loved. He hated himself in that moment as he stared at the pregnancy test because his first thought was one of resentment. And now, all those years later, Bill knew Scott was feeling that resentment. Scott wanted to be the center of his parents’ world, he wanted Mom and Dad all to himself. He wanted to be the only one they loved.

Bill’s phone buzzed with a text.

“C’mon, bud. We gotta go,” Bill said. “She’s here.”

Three floors later, Bill knocked softly on the door, opening it to let Scott walk in first. Carrie lay in the bed cradling a wriggling pink blanket. Her swollen face lit up when they entered, her eyes nearly disappearing in a joyous smile.

“There’s my men,” she said, her voice weak and raw. “Now I’m okay.”

It took everything Bill had to not run to his girl and take her safe in his arms. The labor had been long and hard and when the baby’s blood pressure dropped, Bill was kicked out of the room as they rolled Carrie into surgery. He watched, helpless, open-handed, as the doctors flanked her bed, running along the corridor with her, disappearing down another hallway. Bill was left alone with nothing to do but wait and console Scott.

“You are so incredible,” he whispered to her. “You did this, Carrie. Look.”

Baby Elise, pink-faced and perfect, stretched her arms out. Her mouth opened in a yawn with a tiny noise, almost a kitten’s mew, escaping her puckered lips.

Scott stared at the newborn, wide-eyed, and the stuffed animal he and Bill had bought in the gift shop dropped to the floor. Sticking out one little-boy finger, he touched her cheek.

“She’s so small,” he whispered.

Bill helped him into the bed beside his mom and Carrie gently passed Elise to him; two hands, support her head. Scott stared into his sister’s eyes and she into his, and somehow, an understanding was met between them. Bill didn’t know the message, but he understood the messenger as the same that visited him the first time Scott was placed in his arms.

There was everything before that moment, and then everything after. The paradigm shift was supernatural.

“I’m going to teach you all about trains,” Scott whispered to his baby sister. “And baseball too.”

“Buddy,” said Bill, his cheeks quivering. “That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say in my whole life.” He desperately tried not to cry, to be half as brave as his son was being. “You just stay with Elise, okay? She needs her big brother right now. Just take care of our baby girl, okay?”

Bill watched Carrie lean over and kiss the top of their son’s head, tears falling onto his mop of hair, that cowlick stubborn, even now. Carrie and Scott glanced up in tandem again, watching something out in front of them, just like they had before.

Bill’s jaw dropped. He recovered quickly.

Placing his elbows in front of the computer, Bill buried his head in his hands. He looked like a defeated man in a pose of frustration—but the new position situated his ear closer to the speaker, where, with eyes closed, he homed in on the silence coming from the machine, listening for confirmation of what he suspected.

There! There it was. The background noise changed, ever so slightly, the far-off rumble of a jet engine growing fainter with each moment.

They were watching planes take off. They were near the airport.

Ben tapped the gun impatiently on the dash, the noise making Bill jump. He dropped his hand out of sight and began tapping Morse with the button on his hand mic as fast as he could.

Ben interrupted Bill’s concentration. “It’s just about time to throw the canister,” he said.

“I’m not throwing anyth—”

Sam held up the detonator. “So that’s your choice? The plane lives?”

“No,” Bill said quickly, reaching for his laptop as though he could touch his family. “No. That’s not my choice.”

“If you don’t throw the canister, that is your choice,” Sam said.

Bill’s jaw hung open, trying to find words besides the ones he knew he had to say.

Ben extended the gun. Sam adjusted his grip on the detonator.

“Okay,” Bill said. “I’ll do it.”