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Thanksgiving Day, twenty-four hours after I watched my mother say a tearful goodbye to her son, my father, a foreign service specialist for the State Department, received a call, informing him that the plane Knox, Tackle, and two other private intelligence agents were traveling on had disappeared from the radar.
A few hours later, he received word that the plane’s wreckage was believed to have been located in Columbia’s Macuira National Park, and the DEA agents who found it, reported there were survivors.
An agonizing twelve hours after that, we were told that my brother had been airlifted to a university hospital in Magdalena. His injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
“What about Tackle?” I asked when my father’s call ended. He shook his head and walked over to where Nils and Alice—Tackle’s parents—sat with my mother. I held my breath, waiting for him to speak.
“They’re reporting two survivors other than Knox.”
“Meaning one fatality,” said Nils.
Alice gasped and covered her mouth to stifle her keening sobs. My eyes met my mother’s; both of us were in tears.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and rushed out the back door of our house, not knowing where I was going, only that I had to get far enough away that no one would bear witness to my reaction to the news that Tackle—my beloved Tackle—may or may not be alive.
By the time I returned to the house, my father had received an update that, like Knox’s, Tackle’s injuries were not believed to be life-threatening. Also like Knox, he’d been airlifted to the hospital.
I could no more show my relief than I’d been able to reveal my devastation. No one—not a single living soul—knew my true feelings for my older brother’s best friend. Not even the man himself—even though I’d secretly loved him for years.
I was eleven and he was fourteen the day his parents dragged him over to our house a few days after we’d moved in.
Mrs. Sorenson was the head of the neighborhood welcoming committee, and given my brother and her son were the same age, Tackle had been recruited to “show my brother around.”
“It’s too bad they don’t have a daughter your age,” my mother had said that day. I was glad they didn’t. Given I couldn’t take my eyes off Landry, I likely would’ve ignored her and been scolded for it.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of the room that had been mine for most of my life. It hadn’t changed much in the last fifteen years, other than the size of the bed. Four years ago, the twin had been upgraded to a queen when my mother announced she wanted to turn it into a guest room once I moved out. Since I still lived at home and commuted to my job in Boston, my room had remained mine.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t get a place of my own; I could afford to, even with the sky-high prices of rentals in Boston. But if I did, the few times I had the opportunity to see Tackle would become nonexistent.
I glanced at the clock when the smells of my mother’s traditional Venezuelan breakfast wafted up the stairs and into my room. She didn’t make perico and arepas very often. Usually only for special occasions or when she believed one or all of us needed comfort food.
Today I welcomed the eggs scrambled with onions, tomatoes, and butter that she’d season with coriander and annatto powder. My mother would heap the perico on top of the arepas, which were round cornmeal cakes that looked similar to English muffins but tasted nothing like them.
It was my brother’s fav
orite breakfast. I wondered if she made it in honor of his homecoming, even though he wouldn’t be with us until later tonight to eat it.
“The Sorensons will be flying to Washington with us,” my mother said as I washed the breakfast dishes and she put them away.
“Was there any doubt they would?”
She shrugged. I knew she found the Sorensons cold at times, but then they probably found her over-the-top emotional. Just because they weren’t as effusive as she was didn’t mean they weren’t as excited to see their son as we were to see Knox. Or that I was.
I took my time getting ready, wanting to strike a balance between looking my best and not overdoing it. After settling on a pair of jeans, black sweater, and military-style boots, I braided my long blonde hair and put on a minimal amount of makeup, knowing that the minute I saw my brother and his best friend, I’d dissolve into tears.
“Are you okay?” my mother asked as we got in the car to drive to the airport.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“You seem nervous.”
I shrugged. “I’m anxious.”
By the time we arrived at the terminal in Washington, DC, my anxiety had increased to the point I was literally shaking.
“Mija, I’m worried about you,” my mother said, attempting to hold my hand.
“We all handle stress in our own way. Maybe the reality of almost losing my only brother is just now hitting me.”
