CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
SOPHIA
“Milford Sound,” Emma announces at breakfast, sliding a brochure across the table toward Madison. “One of the most spectacular fjords in the world. Jack’s arranged a scenic flight and cruise for today.”
My head snaps up. Jack hadn’t mentioned this to me. He hadn’t been at breakfast, his absence a heavy presence in itself.
Madison grabs the brochure eagerly. “Oh my God, Mom, look at these waterfalls! Can we go? Please?”
Emma glances my way, her expression carefully casual but her eyes watchful. “Jack thought you might appreciate seeing it before you leave. It’s about a five-hour drive each way, but the flight’s only forty-five minutes. Much less…confined.”
I understand the subtext. Jack is adapting the original plan to respect my need for space. A short flight rather than ten hours in a car together.
“I’m going,” Madison declares before I can respond. “Emma’s coming too.” She looks at me hopefully. “You’ll come, right, Mom? It’s supposed to be, like, the most beautiful place in New Zealand.”
Part of me wants to refuse, to maintain the distance I’d established. But I’d come all this way. Missing Milford Sound because of personal turmoil seems foolish, especially when Jack is clearly making an effort to be considerate.
“Of course I’ll come,” I say, forcing a smile. “When do we leave?”
“The flight’s at ten,” Emma replies. “Jack will meet us at the airstrip in Queenstown.”
As promised, Jack is waiting beside the small aircraft when we arrive at the Queenstown Airport. He looks tired, shadows under his eyes suggesting he’d slept as poorly as I had. He greets Madison warmly but maintains a respectful distance from me.
“It’s an eight-passenger plane,” he explains, gesturing to the sleek white aircraft. “But there are only six of us today, including the pilot.”
Madison bounces excitedly. “I call window seat!”
“All the seats are window seats,” Jack says with a ghost of his usual smile. “It’s that kind of plane.”
As we board, I notice how compact the cabin was—barely enough room to crouch, with seats arranged in pairs. I slide into one beside Madison, while Jack and Emma take seats further back.
The pilot, a weathered man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a thick Australian accent, turns to address us.
“G’day, folks. Flight time to Milford is about forty-five minutes.
It’s a beautiful day for flying, but we’ll have some turbulence over the mountains, and the approach into Milford is… well, let’s call it ‘sporty.’”
“Sporty?” Madison asks.
“It’s one of the most challenging landings in commercial aviation,” Jack explains from behind us. “The airstrip is surrounded by mountains on all sides. We essentially have to drop in.”
My stomach tightens at the thought.
“Don’t worry,” Emma says, noticing my expression. “Harry here has done this run thousands of times. Isn’t that right, Harry?”
“That’s right! Three thousand, four hundred and sixteen,” the pilot confirms cheerfully. “Haven’t crashed one yet.”
Madison giggles nervously. I grip the armrests as the engines roar to life, the small plane vibrating around us.
We climb steeply after takeoff, the earth falling away beneath us. Queenstown’s layout becomes clear—the town nestled between lake and mountains, roads winding like ribbons through valleys. Despite my anxiety, I have to admit the view was spectacular.
As we approach the mountain range, the plane begins to buck and dip in air currents. Madison grabs my hand, her earlier excitement tempered by nervousness.
“It’s okay,” I assure her, though my own knuckles are white on the armrest. “This is normal.”
The mountains rise to meet us, jagged peaks seeming impossibly close to the wingtips. The pilot banks sharply left, following a narrow valley between towering walls of rock. My stomach drops with each air pocket and turn.
“Our father, who art in heaven…” I mutter under my breath as the plane dips particularly violently.
I hear a quiet chuckle from behind me—Jack, recognizing my prayer. Our eyes meet briefly before I turn back to the window, unsettled by how easily we slip into old patterns of shared humor despite everything.
The mountains give way to even more mountains, peak after peak of snow-capped majesty stretching to the horizon. Madison had recovered her excitement, taking photos with her phone and exclaiming at each new vista.
“Look, Mom! Waterfalls!”
Indeed, thin ribbons of white cascade down sheer cliffs, some seeming to fall directly from the clouds.
“That’s just the beginning,” Jack says. “Wait until you see them up close on the cruise.”
The approach to Milford is every bit as “sporty” as promised.
The plane descends rapidly between mountain walls that seem impossibly close, the runway appearing at the last possible moment.
My breath catches as we drop the final few hundred feet, touching down with a bump that had several passengers—myself included—uttering involuntary gasps.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Milford Sound,” the pilot announces cheerfully. “Local time is 10:47 AM, and the weather is, well, perfect.”
Madison is out of her seat the moment we stop, pressing against the window. “Mom, look! The mountains go straight into the water!”
As we disembark onto the small airstrip, I am struck by the scale of the landscape.
Towering peaks rise directly from the dark water, their reflections making perfect mirrors.
Waterfalls thunder from cliffs thousands of feet high.
The air is cool and impossibly clear, carrying the scent of rain and vegetation.
A small bus transfers us from the airstrip to the harbor, where a sleek tour boat awaits. As we board, I notice Jack hanging back, letting Madison and Emma go ahead.
“Thank you,” I say quietly as we wait our turn. “For arranging this. It was thoughtful to choose the flight instead of driving.”
He looks surprised by the acknowledgment. “I thought it would be…easier. For everyone.”
The unspoken truth hangs between us—that hours trapped in a car together would have been unbearable in our current state.
“It was the right call,” I say simply.
We find seats on the upper deck, Madison and Emma at the rail for the best view, Jack and I in chairs behind them. A buffer of strangers separates us, which feels both a relief and oddly disappointing.
As the boat pulls away from the dock, the true scale of Milford Sound becomes apparent.
Towering peaks rise directly from the dark water, their summits disappearing into wisps of cloud.
Waterfalls thunder from cliffs thousands of feet high, creating rainbows in the mist where sunlight breaks through.
Unlike the fjords of Norway or Alaska, Milford’s walls are carpeted with lush rainforest that clings impossibly to near-vertical rock faces. The water is so still it creates perfect mirror images of the mountains, making it difficult to tell where reality ends and reflection begins.
A tour guide begins pointing out features through a microphone. “Milford Sound is actually a fjord, carved by glaciers during the ice age. It’s nearly 15 kilometers long and surrounded by peaks rising over 1,200 meters from the water…”
I try to focus on his words, on the spectacular scenery unfolding around us, but my awareness of Jack just meters away keeps intruding.
The familiarity of him—the way he leans forward when something interests him, the slight tilt of his head as he listens—makes my chest ache with a confusion of feelings I wasn’t ready to examine.
“Look, Mom!” Madison calls, pointing to a rocky outcrop where fur seals lounge. “They’re so cute!” I join her at the rail, grateful for the distraction. The boat glides deeper into the fjord, dwarfed by the sheer rock walls rising on either side.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the tour guide announces, “we’ll be serving complimentary tea and coffee in the main cabin. I must apologize to our international visitors—it’s American-style coffee, I’m afraid.”
A collective “awwww” of disappointment rises from the predominantly Kiwi and Australian passengers.
I can’t help it—I laugh. After everything I’d experienced in New Zealand, this cultural quirk finally makes perfect sense. Jack’s eyes meet mine across the deck, a tentative smile pulling at his lips. I look away quickly, unsettled by how easily he could still reach me.
As Madison and Emma go below to get drinks, I notice a heavily pregnant woman sitting alone near the bow.
She shifts uncomfortably, one hand pressed to her lower back, the other resting on her prominent belly.
Something about her posture, the tension in her shoulders, the way she keeps checking her watch… triggers my ER nurse instincts.
I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. Jack had also spotted her, his eyes narrowing in professional assessment. Our gazes meet briefly, a moment of shared concern that transcends our personal situation.
“Third trimester,” I murmur as he approaches. “Looks uncomfortable.”
“Thirty-six, thirty-seven weeks at least,” he agrees quietly. “Pretty remote place to be that far along.”
The moment feels strangely intimate—this shared professional language, the shorthand of two people used to assessing medical situations together. For a fleeting second, we are just Sophia and Jack again, charge nurse and paramedic, partners in the work we both loved.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say, more to break the moment than from conviction. “Probably just backache from the ride here.”
Emma rejoins us, Madison following with a hot chocolate. “What are you two looking so serious about?”
“Nothing important,” I lie, accepting the tea she offered.
The boat continues its journey into the fjord, eventually turning around in the Tasman Sea before making its way back toward the harbor.
As we round a dramatic cliff face, a pod of small dolphins suddenly appears alongside the boat, their distinctive rounded dorsal fins cutting through the dark water.