Flight by GINGER STRAND Read Free Book Online Page A

been a pilot. It could have been me. Disgusted, Will puts the book back on the shelf and turns away.
    Carol is glad Will wandered off. She can get everything done faster without him. She guides the massive cart expertly down the wide aisles, aiming for produce.
    She finds cherry tomatoes quickly, good ones. Pleased, she piles three pints into the cart. She looks around for sun-dried tomatoes but doesn’t see any. She goes over to the cheese section and locates a nice big log of goat cheese. Boxes of fancy crackers are stacked beneath the cheese display, and she spends some time deciding which ones to get. In the end, she decides on stoned-wheat crackers in a large box that prominently displays the British flag, and fancy biscuits that come in assorted shapes. She gets four boxes of each.
    On her way back toward the fish counter, she sees a clerk and asks about sun-dried tomatoes. He directs her to the condiments aisle, where she finds them nestled among the pickles, relishes, and ketchups. She sees olives and almost grabs a couple of cans before remembering her intention to get them from the deli counter.
    Margaret involved Carol very little in the plans for her wedding. She was married at the University Club in Chicago, and she and David began the festivities with a cocktail reception at the Drake Hotel. There was a rehearsal dinner at some sort of ethnic restaurant north of the city center: the food was lentil-based and veryspicy. The wedding dinner was catered by the University Club, and Margaret made all the choices without even consulting Carol. The only thing she asked for help with was shopping for her dress, and even that required little input, since Margaret had already found a dress in a magazine and simply had to try it on at the bridal salon. She tried on a few others, but Carol got the impression she did so only out of a diplomatic urge to make her mother feel involved. In the end, Margaret bought the dress she had pre-chosen, and the two of them had a nice lunch at Water Tower Place.
    Carol was happy for Margaret. Everything was exactly as she would have wanted it to be. Still, at the wedding she had almost wished for some last-minute disaster, some unforeseen event that would require her intervention and offer her an opportunity to prove how useful she was, remind her daughter that she was the woman who, for years, had solved all of her problems—sickness, sadness, confrontations at school. Carol could remember being all-powerful. Why was she now treated like the child? She could look at her daughter, so capable, so determinedly in control, and remember the day—not so long ago!—when she found the four-year-old Margaret sitting rigid on the floor of her bedroom, her mouth a perfect O of horror, tears sliding lasciviously from the corners of her wide eyes. Her favorite doll’s head had come off. Carol fixed it and rocked Margaret—clingy for once—on her lap, her heart aching to see how gingerly her chubby hands held the doll, unwilling to be subjected again to the appalling sight of the mute, decapitated body.
    But Margaret’s wedding went off like clockwork. Guests arrived to find their hotel rooms stocked with a welcome basket put together by Margaret. Each wedding event unfolded exactly as planned: the waitstaff and caterers were as accommodating and gracious as one could wish, and the music for the ceremony—Margaret refused the traditional wedding march—was played beautifully by a string quartet from the University of Chicago. Even the weather was perfect, which was a waste, because the wedding wasn’t outside.
    The only disaster at Margaret’s wedding, as far as Carol couldsee, was Leanne. She arrived looking dragged out and sullen, she wore awful thrift-store getups, and she was drunk from the get-go every night. The worst night was the rehearsal dinner. That was when Carol knew something had to be done.
    They were in a dimly lit banquet room somewhere on Chicago’s north side, and Carol