AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"No," I answered quietly, his yelling somehow making me feel calmer. "It's not fine. The answer is pretty simple, too, although I promise you that you aren't going to like it."
“So what, you’re threatening me now?”
“Nope, no threat,” I said. “Just the facts. You’re going to turn yourself in, Stevens. You’re going to fess up to exactly what you’ve done.”
“Bullshit, I am,” he whispered. “There’s no way. Who the hell do you think you are?”
"Okay, then how about this. Either you're going to turn yourself in, or I'm going to report you. And before we go through the part where you make a big scene and say I wouldn't do it, you need to know that I will.
I don't know whether you have a real problem, or if you just don't give a shit, but either way, this can't go on. We can't have drunk pilots in the air. We can't have people like you out there risking people's lives the way you did tonight."
“What makes you think you can ruin people’s lives this way? You know that’s what you’re doing, right? You don’t strike me as an idiot so you must. So what makes you think it’s okay for you to do that to people?”
"What makes you think it's okay?" I asked. “Because you almost ruined the lives of every person on this plane. And not just them, but their families and loved ones.”
Stevens unleashed a long string of curse words before exiting the cockpit with a bang. I could hear him run into several of the stragglers who were still on the plane, then heard those passengers exclaim to each other that they had never encountered such a rude pilot. I shut my eyes, willing it all to go away.
I didn't want to think about what could have happened if I hadn't been the one to navigate us through that storm. I didn't want to think about what would happen if one of those now unhappy passengers smelled the booze on Stevens and decided to tell the wrong people about it. Most of all, I didn't want my mind to go wandering back to the place it always seemed to want to go.
But the past was exactly where my thoughts went. Even after years of trying to do my best, trying to atone for my sins, I could still hear the woman yelling at me on a different plane in a different time. I could still hear myself telling that woman that it was okay. Everything was okay. I had everything under control. Everything was going to be okay.
I heard myself saying that, all of those years ago, and shook my head with disgust. I hadn't had a whole lot of expectations about what this new flight and crew would be, but I sure as shit hadn't expected anything like this.
Chapter 7: Jess
It was a nice room, as far as hotel rooms went. There had been a time when I had been in love with hotels, the same way that I was still in love with planes and flights themselves. I had loved the anonymity of hotels and the fact that they were only stopping off points between the many spots on a person's travels. I had loved the possibilities they had represented and what they might mean for me some day.
A lot of that allure had worn off after a couple of years of working as a flight attendant. The anonymity that I had once loved often frightened me when I woke up in the middle of the night. It always made me long for my own little home back in Seattle. Having a daughter made the hotels harder as well. Every night that I spent in some random hotel room was a night when I wasn't at home with Emma.
It was a necessary evil associated with a job I genuinely loved, but it was still painful. Children grew so quickly, and every time I was gone, I couldn't help but wonder what part of Emma's growing up I might be missing. One of the things I hated the most was having to call her and Sophie and tell them that I wouldn't be coming home when expected. The guilt that shot through me when that happened had made me feel sort of sick to my stomach every single time.
As I flopped down on the stiff bed to make my latest call, it was no different. The phone rang four or five times, and I started to think that maybe there would be no answer, and I would be allowed to leave a voice message instead of talking to a person. It was the easy way out, and I knew it, but I was tired and feeling entirely too jittery from the way this trip had gone.
“Hey, sister, what’s up?”
“What’s up with you?” I asked Sophie, closing my eyes and preparing for the fact that she might not be too pleased with my news. “You sound a little bit breathless.”
“I’m sure I do,” Sophie said. “I’m playing tag with Emma, and she takes it very, very seriously, to say the least. Not only that, but she’s super-fast, too! I like, legitimately have to haul ass to keep her from catching me.”
"Sophie!" I admonished.
“What? What’d I do?”
"Nothing, but did you ever think about just letting her catch you? Do you really have to win against a ten-year-old?"
“Hey, my house, my rules,” Sophie said. I could hear the smile in her voice. “Besides, she won’t get any faster if I let her win all of the time, will she?”
“No, I guess she won’t.”
“Now stop trying to distract me,” she said. “What’s up with you? I can tell there’s something, big sister. I can hear it in your voice.”
“No, it’s nothing, Sophie. Nothing’s really wrong. I just…”
“You aren’t coming home today, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I sighed, feeling sort of sick to my stomach delivering the news. “Something like that. I’m really sorry, Sophie. I would be back tonight if I could. This one is just completely out of my hands.”
“Of course, it is.” Sophie laughed, making it clear that she didn’t mind watching over Emma for another night, at least. “It’s not like you make the flight schedules, right?”
