Flight by GINGER STRAND Read Free Book Online

their way between her own.
    “Yowza!” It’s not the same person who screamed before but someone in front of them. The yelp follows a loud thud that sounds like some part of the aircraft being wrenched off. Immediately everything feels different. There’s a noisy drag on the plane, as if the thing hanging off is disrupting its aerodynamics, and at the same time there’s a strong surge coming from the left, like a crosswind. The nose points steeply down, and Leanne concentrates on how the curtain between first class and coach falls forward, marking their angle of descent. It holds steady at about 18 degrees.
    At her side, Kit has gone limp, eyes closed, breath measured. Leanne lets go of his hand to grip her armrests. She’s still staring at the curtain when the impact comes. There’s a smack, a screeching of tires, and a roaring of engines, and everyone in the airplane seems to tense, as if pressing the brakes themselves. Then it’s over. They’re on the runway, slowing down. A single apple rolls down the aisle, and with it the old beliefs, the old certainties and expectations, come crowding back into place.
    The plane slows to normal speed and turns a corner at the end of the runway as if nothing unusual has occurred. The low gray terminal can be seen outside the left windows. A collective sigh of relief breaks the spell. A few people in the rear clap. Outside, a dark curtain of rain drums on the wings.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” comes the captain’s voice. “Welcome to Grand Rapids.”

 

    two
     
    RAIN POUNDS THE CAR ALL THE WAY TO GRAND Rapids. Highway depressions become flat pools. Will feels the tires beginning to skim along the surface of the water a few times, but he responds the way he responds to snow: step on the gas. Get the car to engage with the road. Everything else will sort itself out.
    “This’ll be good for the corn,” he says at one point. “It was looking a little dry.”
    “It’s all coming down now,” Carol responds. “So Saturday can be perfect.” It sounds more like an order than a prognosis.
    At Twenty-eighth Street, Carol reminds him that they’re stopping at Meijer so she can get a few things. Reluctantly, he pulls into the massive parking lot.
    “Twenty minutes,” he says in his businesslike voice. “Or else we’ll be late picking them up.”
    Carol doesn’t answer, just climbs out of the car. He follows behind her, registering his concern for their timing by refusing to walk at her side. When she pulls a cart out of the corral and heads off toward the grocery section, he drops back, thinking he’ll wander over to hardware and meet her at the checkout. There’s a big display of gardening tools, and he looks at that for a minute. Then he starts walking toward the far wall, where he thinks the hardware is. He passes through some racks of clothing, then an aisle lined with books.
    The book section is notoriously bad at Meijer, populated mainly by large Family Circle cookbooks and rows of shiny, thick paperbacks with lurid pictures on the cover. At the end of one aisle is a large display of September 11 books. Will stops, arrested by an image showing the second plane’s impact with the Tower. He’s seen it a million times, and every time it causes the same shortness of breath in him, a combination of anger and impotence. It could easily have been him. He flies for American now. I wouldn’t have let them do it, he can never help but think. He knows that’s absurd.
    He looks over the selection, surprised at how many books there are. Not even a year later, there are commemorative books, books about firefighters, memoirs, books purporting to explain Islam’s problem with the West. He picks up a profile of one of the passengers who died in Pennsylvania, trying to retake the fourth plane. The guy’s picture is on the cover. He looks like Joe Average, smiling, buoyant, in charge of his life. He’s young, too—younger than Will. Young enough to fly for years, if he’d