Page 58 of Dearly Departed

“Nope. Terrible tragedy. Plane crash, did the best we could do, no next of kin, et cetera.” He starts walking again.

“Wait! We need a phone. We have to tell our families we’re alive.”

He pauses at the end of the hall. “No phones. No calls to family. Not from here. As soon as your husband’s good to travel, they’ll send the two of you straight home.”

“Who’s they?”

Cancer winks at me, then disappears around the corner.

It takes several days for Jacob to be well enough to fly. In that time, I discover that the base has a salon, where I have my hair cut and my nails done and a massage. I discover that Jacob’s hospital room has a connecting bedroom where I can sleep whenever he does, which is a lot. I discover that there are no hints anywhere about who owns this place or who Cancer’s boss—or anyone else’s boss—might be.

Everyone is so wonderful that I spend an hour or two wondering if I’ve made it all up in my head.

If it’s all, like, a hallucination, then Cancer is probably made up, too, but he still seems like the best person to ask.

When I do, he puts a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “This is real. But you’re going to forget about it.”

“From amnesia?”

He winks theatrically.

“Oh, right. Well, obviously. I just had to make sure.”

Cancer accompanies us on the trip to New York along with two nurses and two backup nurses. We don’t travel on a private plane this time. We travel on a commercial jet that’s empty except for us, Cancer, the nurses, and one flight attendant who has the poise and bearing of a butler.

Jacob has a minor breakdown about the environmental cost of using a commercial jet and can’t let it go until Cancer agrees to arrange offsets and donations for Jacob’s company. Other than that, he sleeps most of the trip, then descends into another panic when we’re an hour out from New York.

“They’re going to think we were dead,” he says, tears in his eyes. “The transmitter got blown up, so even if Gabriel got my letter⁠—”

“What letter?”

“I had a letter sent to him. But you were supposed to be here, where he could—where your family—but you weren’t here, because⁠—”

“Jacob, it’s okay.”

“And my phone—I don’t know where that is. And your phone⁠—”

“Don’t worry about it. I love you. And everybody’s going to know we’re alive really soon.”

“I’m sorry, kitten.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s all okay.”

We go from the plane to a line of SUVs waiting on the tarmac. Jacob gets in first. As I’m waiting by the door, Cancer jogs past, heading for the trunk.

“We never met!” he calls as he goes.

“Okay, but, like, we did!” I go around to the trunk. “So⁠—”

He’s not there.

“Cancer?”

He’s not on the other side of the SUV, either.

I return to the open trunk.

Inside, on the brand-new smelling carpet, are our bags.