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“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just your expression when I said that. You looked a little bit sad, that’s all.”
“I’m not sad. Not really. It just gets hard sometimes, you know?”
“Which part?” I asked.
“The traveling,” Jess said. “So, I guess all of it, really. I love this job. Don’t get me wrong, but I won’t lie and tell you it isn’t a strain sometimes. Every night like this one is a night when I’m not at home with my daughter.”
“Who is she with?” I asked.
"My sister, Sophie. It's always Sophie, which is awesome. The two of them have a fantastic relationship, and I'm grateful for it, but I feel like I miss so much."
“I can only imagine how hard that must be,” I said.
"Honestly? It sucks. It sucks enough that I think about just throwing in the towel with the whole flying thing and getting a no
rmal job. Except I know that if I did that, a huge part of me would regret it. There's no job like being in the air all of the time. I would miss it. I know I would."
“I would, too,” I agreed, sipping my wine and watching her face closely as she spoke. “Not a doubt in my mind.”
She laughed softly, blushing prettily as she did so. “God, I don’t know why I got so morose all of a sudden. You’re right, nothing wrong with a night off to do something adult, right? It’s just too bad Stevens had to get sick for us to get the forced night off.”
My face must have looked as hard as it felt when she made that comment, because her brow furrowed in concern. It wasn't like I was trying to make a big deal of it or anything, but even the mention of Fred’s name made me want to put my fist through a wall. Even if I'd wanted to, which I did, that was something I couldn't easily have hidden.
“What is it?” Jess asked. “Did I say something wrong? Is Fred sicker than they told me?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“He’s not sick at all, Jess,” I said. “At least, not the kind of sick you’re thinking about.”
“I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at,” she said, frowning.
So, I told her. Even talking about it made me sick to my stomach, but I told her about it anyway. Call me a vindictive son of a bitch, but I couldn’t let the lie of him just being under the weather stand. I told Jess about the drinking, which didn’t appear to surprise her much. I told her about him refusing to turn himself in after I confronted him, and that was when the surprise began to register.
“Good Lord,” she breathed. “So even after you said something to him? Nothing?”
“He tried to lie to me about it, but come on. I know what it smells like.”
"I smelled it, too, if that helps any."
He nodded. "I thought you probably had,” he said. “I mentioned the possibility to Fred, and he blew that off the way he blew everything else off. So I turned him in. That's the kind of thing I can't tolerate, you know? I can't sit back and pretend it's okay for a man to do something like that. I want to kill him for taking those kinds of liberties with other people's lives."
“You kind of hate him, don’t you?” she asked.
“I want to say no, but I do. I despise him. I despise all people who think it’s okay to operate machines that can kill while under the influence. The negligence with another person’s life is sickening.”
“You’re right, it is.”
“Because it doesn’t just hurt the other person involved, does it?” I asked. “There’s the person they hurt, maybe even kill, but then there’s also the people who get left behind.”
“Drew, I don’t want to pry, but—”
"Yes. The answer is yes. You were going to ask me if I had personal experience with this, right? I do. I wasn't the one driving drunk, but that doesn't matter in the end, does it? No, because it's not only the one who did the bad thing that gets punished. I was stone cold sober and so was the girl I loved. Alice. Her name was Alice. Neither one of us had had a drop to drink, and that didn't mean a fucking thing. The guy who swerved across three lanes of traffic had had enough to drink for all three of us."
“Jesus.”
"No,” I said bitterly. “I'm pretty sure he wasn't there that night. If he had been, it would have been me that went instead of her. You want to know the weirdest part? I don't even know what happened to him. Her body is buried six feet under ground, but I don't have a fucking clue what happened to him. I don't even know if I would recognize him if I saw him on the street. For all I know, he's been a passenger on one of my flights. Pretty fucking funny, right? Pretty fucking hilarious."
