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18 – YESENIA
“They told me you weredead,” I whisper.
I’m curled up on a couch with a mug of hot tea in my hands. It’s been almost an hour since Kincaid left, and I’ve barely spoken in all that time.
Nicholas was so excited to see me, and I was stunned at his appearance. I can’t do more than stare at him when he isn’t holding me. He got up from the couch and went into my kitchen, searching the cabinets to make us some tea.
I watched in fascination, knowing that if it hadn’t been for the exchange between Kincaid and him, I would have thought this was all a figment of my imagination.
I haven't imagined him before, but the mind can play tricks on you when dealing with grief.
Nicky disappeared three years ago when his plane crashed in a rainforest in Rio de Janeiro. I’ve mourned and yearned for my husband for three years, only to find out that he walked the face of this earth all that time.
When I finally decide to move on with my life, he shows up out of the blue. Fuck you, too, karma.
“Everyone thought that I was.”
I stare at my husband, still in shock that he has shown up on my doorstep without warning or even crazier that he’s still alive. Nicky caresses my face, and I smile back at him. My husband, the man to whom I pledged my life.
A husband who, three years ago, was declared dead and whom we’d had a funeral service for. There were no remains from the explosion, so we never had a body, only his things to bury in that coffin. No ashes, nothing but memories. A picture of him in his captain’s uniform sat on the casket at his service.
My husband, Nicholas Rainier Tidwell, affectionately known to his family and me as Nicky, was a pilot for a private airline company that serviced the wealthiest patrons in the world. He was the captain of his crew and had eighteen years of service under his belt when his flight went down.
It was hard to believe that his plane had gone down, let alone to find that there’d been an explosion in the rainforest of Rio de Janeiro. We were told that there were no survivors, including my husband.
Seven people were on board, including Macanese diplomat Haakon Lei and his wife, Ai Lei. There were three bodyguards, my husband, and his co-pilot, Rein Jones.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Initially, my survival was hidden from everyone when the government officials discovered who I was. Mr. Lei’s visit to the country was concealed, and only a few knew of his arrival. There’d been a threat on his life just three days prior, one of many, I later learned.
“The officials at the embassy worried that my life, too, might be in danger, so I was kept in confinement at an undisclosed location for a year. I was under close medical supervision during that time, healing from my injuries.”
“How extensive were they?” I ask, still in amazement that he’d survived a plane crash.
“Very extensive. I suffered broken ribs, a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, some internal injuries...” he pauses, and his eyes moisten. “The most damaging injury was that to my brain.”
“What do you mean?”
“I...I suffered from amnesia for a long time. While the medical personnel knew me, they gave me time to see if I could remember who I was.”
“I’m surprised that you survived at all. A plane crash?”
“The plane was already preparing to land, and we weren’t that high in the air then. We’d started having some mechanical issues and had adjusted our altitude greatly. The officials suspected that our plane had been tampered with and that it was one of our mechanics who had something to do with it. They didn’t trust anyone.”
“The others?”
Tears fall from his eyes as he inhales deeply.
“I uh...with the help of one of the bodyguards, was able to pull everyone out of the plane and far enough away before it exploded. Despite my injuries, I pushed myself as hard and far as possible to save others.
