Flight #116 Is Down (15 page)

Heidi even recognized the interviewer. One of her favorite anchors. Not just some old reporter. An anchor. Somebody Heidi would have been thrilled to meet. Thrilled even to see across a room.

In my library! thought Heidi. Interviewing Darienne!

Clemmie wandered innocently by, and Heidi caught the second dog, tucked one under each arm, and headed for the library. She seemed to be holding fringed pillows. The pillows croaked. She really was holding them a bit too tightly.

“Oh, Darienne?” said Heidi.

Saturday: 8:20
P.M.
—

Nearing River, Connecticut

5:20
P.M.
—San Diego, California

Sunday 2:20
A.M.
—Geneva, Switzerland

Alex Landseth struggled to find the ringing telephone in his unfamiliar hotel room. When he finally had it in hand, he could not remember what country he was in, nor what language to respond in. “Hello,” he muttered, blinking, trying to focus on the little glowing digital alarm clock he kept by his bed.

“Alex!” said his wife urgently. Alex tried to remember where Rebecca was right now. Nothing came to mind. But the sound of the phone—that distant, whistling emptiness—told Alex Landseth it was a world away. “Whassa matter?” he said.

“There’s been a plane crash.”

His mind cleared instantly. It wasn’t Rebecca who’d crashed: she was talking. It wasn’t Heidi: Heidi hadn’t been going anywhere. So it was somebody who mattered enough for a middle-of-the-night call, but not the two most important people in Alex’s world. “Who?” he said, sitting up, already afraid, already shivering.

“Not
who. Where.
Our house, Alex! The plane came down in our yard, on top of the rose garden. I just saw a news flash. They’re calling it the Dove House Crash.”

“Oh my god, Becca! Is Heidi all right? Did it hit the house? Is she hurt? Did you call?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t get through. The phone’s busy. I tried the Steins and the Kelleys, and nobody answered.” The Steins and the Kelleys were the only people in Nearing River they really knew.

Alex Landseth tried to quiet his leaping heart. “Mrs. Camp is there,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.”

The unspoken statement between them was that Heidi would not know what to do. Heidi mystified and depressed them. She had not turned out to be the daughter they had expected. She was not outstanding at anything. They kept telling themselves she was a late bloomer; she would find herself in a few years; she would develop enthusiasms and talents as a sophomore … well, then, a junior … a senior … in college, maybe …

“Okay, let’s think,” said Rebecca Landseth. “Who else can I call?”

“The rector at St. Anne’s?” said Alex. The family went to church three times a year: Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday, and Mother’s Day. Plus they contributed the holly to decorate the churches for Advent.

“Good idea. He can find out if Heidi’s all right.”

Alex felt nauseated and ice cold. He huddled under the duvet and wished he were home on their heated waterbed. “They’ll have an information phone line started pretty soon,” said Alex. “They always do for things like this. Keep the TV on, and the minute they put the 800 number up, call. Now, what did the TV show? The house? The plane?”

“The plane’s a 747,” she began.

“Of course,” said Alex Landseth. It couldn’t be some ordinary old plane. It had to be the biggest. And he couldn’t be staying tonight in a Hilton, where he’d have a television and with cable be able to pick up US Army stations; no, he had opted for European ambiance and there was no TV in the entire hotel.

“It’s broken up pretty badly. One wing was separated and caught fire, but it seemed to be downhill from the house, maybe in the pony field. It was hard to tell from the angle of the camera. The camera filmed—conservatively speaking—a thousand trucks in the courtyard, and they were carrying wounded out our front door. So I don’t think there’s too much damage to the house,” said Rebecca.

Alex thought that if one wing had been flung into the pony field, the other could easily have been flung into his study. He loved the house. Only Heidi loved it more. And Burke was not there. He had National Guard this weekend. Alex could not imagine how Heidi and Mrs. Camp would cope with this. They were people who preferred very narrow boundaries: groceries and TV choices were about Mrs. Camp’s limit, while catching the school bus and taking the dogs out seemed to be Heidi’s.

“Maybe Burke’ll bring his unit down,” said Alex, trying to joke, picturing his beloved daughter, who rarely got anything right, who was so easily humiliated and stumped.

Alex and Rebecca Landseth were helpless.

It was not a situation in which they had ever found themselves. More than anything they were angry; angry that they could not phone home, take charge, be sure, check, or know.

Alex sat through the night, watching the little red numbers on his clock slowly changing, waiting for his wife to ring again.

Rebecca sat stabbing the buttons on her phone, telephoning everybody she could think of, and finally calling the Connecticut State Police, who said they had plenty of people on the scene, and as far as they knew, nobody from the house was hurt.

“But you don’t know for sure,” said Rebecca Landseth.

“No, ma’am. We’ll check. Stay by your phone. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

Rebecca knew by the tone of voice that it wouldn’t be any time soon; it was not their top priority. She told herself that this was reasonable; top priorities had to be saving the injured and preventing the spread of fire; but she was a parent, and a scared parent cannot be reasonable. She screamed at the state policeman until she was hoarse, and the state policeman said implacably, “Yes, ma’am. We’re going to check, ma’am. Stay by your phone. We’ll get back as soon as we can.”

Saturday: 8:31
P.M.

Heidi was almost inside the door of the library when Darienne pirouetted, her mouth making a little smile of sophistication and pride. Ugh, thought Heidi. Darienne’s complexion, in the firelight and the spotlight, was incredibly lovely. She had been designed for things like this.

Complexion.
thought Heidi.

Skin color.

Carly!
I left her alone. I was holding her hand, and I got up to do something—do what?—it couldn’t have been important—but whatever it was, I left her there. Alone.

Heidi forgot Darienne. Darienne was nothing, had been proving that all night. Heidi rushed down the Gallery, checking patients. Looking for Carly. The dogs yipped on. This was a breed with an incredible capacity for making noise. She didn’t see Carly, could not believe she still had the dogs to deal with, raced upstairs, put the ankle biters in Mrs. Camp’s room for the last time, and rushed back down.

A more careful check this time. Still no Carly. What a relief. They had finally put Carly in an ambulance.

She sighed. She did not need to worry about Carly now. Other people had worried for her.

The entire evening was so amazing. The kindness of strangers was such an incredibly beautiful thing. Yet another Christmas analogy came to her: some irritated innkeeper having to deal with some woman dumb enough to give birth on the road. But he was kind to strangers. All these people: they were all strangers: to the passengers, to each other, to Heidi, to Dove House, some of them even strangers to Connecticut. Two New York State ambulances had arrived, and helicopters out of Springfield, Massachusetts.

And all these strangers, with all their kindness and skill, were not getting on TV.

Darienne was getting on TV.

It was enough to make you want to strap the girl to a stretcher of nails and tape her mouth to her hair.

Heidi was headed back to the library to stop Darienne when she saw an old afghan on a couch in the Hall, twitching. How could Clemmie or Winnie possibly have gotten down there? Heidi was furious. She strode into the Hall. Mrs. Camp was capable of making truly ugly crochet: her favorite colors were mud brown, avocado green, and turquoise blue. Maybe it’s Tally, thought Heidi hopefully, although he was too big to hide under the afghan. She tweaked it aside, and there, beneath, lay the very first passenger Heidi had failed to rescue.

Teddie.

It seemed years ago. How could this child still be in the house? Heidi knelt down beside the little girl. “Hey, Teddie,” she said.

Teddie’s face seemed greasy. She had a sickly glint to her skin. How long has she been lying here? thought Heidi, horrified.

“The man said he would call,” said Teddie. Her voice quavered. “But he didn’t.”

Had Teddie fallen asleep—or lost consciousness—and been forgotten in the confusion? Was she so small that they had not remembered her? Mrs. Camp had set Teddie on the couch—but all the other wounded had been laid carefully on the floor, as flat as possible, and tagged. Teddie was not tagged.

“I started with a quarter,” said Teddie, holding up a palm with dangling Mickey Mouse Band-Aids. “I lost my quarter when we crashed. The tapes came off. And the man didn’t phone Mommy and Daddy. They don’t know I’m here. They won’t be able to find me. And now I can’t call.”

“That’s okay. We’ll find them. They’ll come.”

Teddie shook her head. She had heard this line before.

Heidi thought, What’s the matter with me? “Be right back, Teddie.” Heidi ran into the kitchen, where she and Burke and Mrs. Camp dumped their change into an immense restaurant-sized jar that had once held about a million portions of peanut butter. They played a lot of card games for small change and were always betting on televised sports. The pot got all. Someday they were going to take a fabulous vacation on the money, but they hadn’t gotten around to planning the details yet. Shoveling down among the pennies, Heidi rooted around until she came up with a quarter. Then she got some adhesive tape from Robyn and went back to Teddie. “Here,” she said. “One phone-call quarter.”

Teddie smiled up at her. What an adorable smile!

Heidi carefully taped the quarter down, winding the tape between Teddie’s small fingers to be sure that this time, it stuck.

How awful to be little, thought Heidi, and not understand. Not know that if she couldn’t find Mommy, Mommy would find her; not know that all these strangers would take care of her.

Teddie’s body seemed slack. Her tears seemed to dry up, as if nothing existed anymore to provide them. Her eyes stayed open. They did not blink. “Teddie?” whispered Heidi. She pulled back from the little body. She found her own lungs impossible to fill; her breathing had become a hundred tiny spasms. She ran to find a doctor.

But with all the people filling her house, her yard and field and barn, she seemed to be alone. For one horrifying twilight-zoned minute, she and Teddie were the only people on earth, the only people in Dove House.

The others were moving patients to Life Star or to ambulances. They were going out the back and front, loaded down. She would make them take Teddie next; they had to take Teddie next; she would insist on it. It was her house, wasn’t it? The helicopter was landing on her grass, right?

Heidi grabbed the shoulder of the only person she recognized, the man Gorp. “There’s a little girl inside, I don’t like how she looks, nobody has checked her at all, she looks as if—”

“In a minute,” said Gorp. “You stay with her until I get there.”

I left Teddie alone a second time, thought Heidi. Just like Carly. Am I afraid of being next to them in case they die? Do I run away and pretend to be getting help, when really I’m just a coward? How am I going to telephone Teddie’s mother and father? Do I say, Well, I was busy, and I had other things to do, so Teddie died alone.

She saw Patrick.

“Patrick,” she said, grabbing him, hauling him with her.

“What?”

“The little girl, the first one, Teddie, I think she’s dying.”

He went with her.

“In shock,” said Patrick briefly. He and Heidi slid a backboard under Teddie, and Patrick elevated the entire board with books off a shelf in the Hall, getting Teddie’s feet above her head. By now Heidi knew the shock trousers, which were pumped up to keep the blood in the head and heart, couldn’t be pulled over the broken bone. “Robyn!” he called. “Oxygen here.”

Robyn was with him in a moment, little muscles around her jaw clenching and unclenching. “Children do this,” she said.

Heidi raised her eyebrows to ask what children did.

“Mask shock very well,” said Robyn. She lubricated and slid in an airway, which would have made Heidi scream and gag, but Teddie put up no resistance. Robyn said comfortingly, “Now, it’ll be easier to breathe, sweetie pie, much much easier. You just hold old Patrick’s hand here, and you know what? We’re going to take you for a helicopter ride!” She attached oxygen. “Won’t that be neat? Boy, will you have stories to tell Mommy and Daddy now!”

She said aside to Heidi, “And then they crash, just like that.”

The word
crash
hit Heidi like a slap. Was Robyn saying the helicopter was going to crash?

“She means going into shock,” whispered Patrick quickly. “Crash. Like sleeping a long time after you stay up studying? Crash?”

Don’t crash, Teddie, she prayed.

She felt a queer buzzing in her own head; the same airless rata-tat-tat that had drilled her thoughts when this whole nightmare began; one that somehow removed Heidi from what was really happening.

“Patrick?” she said dimly.

“Yeah?” He was taking Teddie’s vital signs again, writing them down on a card, tying it to Teddie’s jacket.

“I’m losing it,” Heidi said.

He smiled at her. It was a tired, gentle smile. An old man’s smile. She was so touched, she wanted to stroke his face and coax the lips to turn up more. He took Heidi’s hand in his and transferred Teddie’s little hand into Heidi’s. “You’ll be fine,” he said to them both.

Robyn said, “Okay, guys, let’s get another blanket over Teddie and get her on down the hill to Life Star.” She said, “Teddie, honeybunch, you’ll be able to breathe just fine, and Heidi here is going to hang onto your hand. Why, before you know it, you’re going to be all warm and cozy in a nice hospital bed! You be my good girl now, okay?”