Chapter Sixteen
At breakfast, Brick filled us in on today’s outing— kayaking on a quiet, glass-like glacial lake, paddling among icebergs,
and looking for wildlife on the shoreline. It sounded just my speed—until he said the only way to get there was in a flying
tin can.
We pull into the gravel field that is both the runway and the parking lot of McCarthy Airport—a place I was hoping not to
have to see again so soon—and Xavier points to four small planes lined up at the edge of the airstrip. Each in bright primary
colors with oversize tires and a long flat wing stretched over the cockpit. They remind me more of the models Cameron glued
together when he was twelve than anything capable of holding a human body safely in the air.
“We’re going to fly in one of those?” the teen asks, bright with enthusiasm.
“We’re going to fly in one of those?” I whisper to Luna with a very different intonation.
“To mangle Robert Frost,” says Brick, “ ‘the only way in is over.’ The lake is gorgeous and secluded—no roads to where we’re going.”
“Who’s Robert Frost?” asks Xavier, and half the van groans.
“Don’t make us feel so old.” Luna laughs.
While everyone is giggling over old poets and miniature airplanes, I am tense and anxious.
For starters, when I woke up this morning with my sister wrapped around me, I was torn.
I wanted to be pissed, mad at the things she said, the commotion she’s causing, the punching bag I have become for her.
But with the tears on my collarbone and my sleeve bunched in her hand like a security blanket, my heart broke for her all over again.
Who am I to say how Lily should behave after her husband not only callously cheated on her, but also callously threw a truck-size
monkey wrench into her plans for the future? Plans that she’d been working toward for years. Plans that, despite the show
of joie de vivre, are deeply rooted in a long-held desire. In short, my sister really wants to be a mother. Eric, damn him,
screwed it all up.
What would I do if I were in her shoes?
It’s hard to imagine it happening to me and Tim. Dependable, stalwart, reliable Tim. He was one of the kindest guys in the
construction company where we both worked, me as an inefficient, albeit diligent, office manager, him as an affable carpenter.
He was quick with a nail gun and a hand for anyone who needed it. I loved that Tim seemed so much wiser, calmer, gentler than
the other guys who did their work with precision but put as much effort into goofing around and letting off steam. All work
and no play, and all that. No dull boys in that group. Except Tim. Which was so appealing to me. To me he wasn’t dull at all.
He was mature, reliable, honest. In short, he was all the things my own father wasn’t.
Turns out reliability has its costs. We might not have the flair and excitement that Lily and Eric had, the gregarious couple, always adding to the dynamics of any party, quick-witted, “on” at the right times.
Tim and I, over the years, settled into something more comfortable for both of us.
Boring? Not to my husband and me. We knew what to expect, we appreciated the lack of drama between us, we were a team, on the same side, taking a pragmatic (he more often than I) approach, a united front when the histrionics of others—my mother and Lily always topping that list—swirled around us.
I’m not saying I made a better choice than Lily. Hell, before all this, I liked Eric as much as anyone. He wasn’t my cup of
tea, but he certainly seemed like Lily’s. They were well suited. He could keep up with her, which wasn’t always easy. I don’t
have a clue why he’d risk it all the way he did. And I could just kill him for it.
My sister wasn’t my only roadblock this morning. When Heidi pulled into the camp to set up breakfast, she gave me the bad
news. Carrying a cardboard box holding a toothbrush; a package of brand-new granny-style underpants a friend of hers, who
happened to be flying in from Fairbanks, picked up for me; and a few things from her own closest.
“Your luggage is now in Miami,” she’d said. “But take this. Just hang in there a little longer. The airline promised me it
will be here tomorrow.”
“You are an angel,” I’d said, hugging the box of my new worldly possessions to my belly.
Now here we are, back at McCarthy airport, lined up in front of the planes, waiting to be assigned to one. “We gotta split
you up by weight, so you might not be able to dance with who you came with, which I hope isn’t a problem, because there’s
only one passenger seat. Half of you are going to have to ride on a lap,” Brick says, clasping his hands. “But it’s a short
flight. Jace and I will take two groups. My buddies Loni and Kyle here are top bush pilots. Think of them like Alaskan Uber
drivers. Except faster and safer. And the traffic’s a lot lighter too.”
I’m happy not to have to dance with Lily as long as it doesn’t mean sitting on Dane’s lap.
“Let’s have Ian and Luna, Mimi and Lily. Dane and Bridget. Xavier, you pulled a lucky card, you get your own seat in with
me.”
“Nice!” says Xavier.
“Wait. Are you sure you did the math right?” I ask. “I don’t think the weight is evenly distributed.” The group looks at me
as if they are expecting me to announce I have a PhD in aerodynamics and physics from MIT.
“The math is sound,” he says, as he waves me toward Jace’s bright-red plane.
I’m not going to make a scene. I’m not going to insist on a new dance partner, but I haven’t forgotten that the last thing
I said to the man whose lap I am about to sit on was “fuck off.”
Dane walks past me and hops into the plane.
“Need a leg up then, yeah?” Jace asks me, as he stands in front of the airplane’s tiny door under the wing, cupping his hands
as if he’s going to hoist me onto a horse. “Reach up to this bar, put your foot there.”
“It’s like climbing on a jungle gym,” I grumble. Jungle gyms weren’t my strong suit in school, thanks to the famous Ackerman
lack of upper body strength.
“The Piper Cub is a bit like a climbing frame, as we called it in the Old Blighty, yeah. That’s it, hang on and heave yourself
in.” He grabs my foot. “On my count.” I am waiting for one, two, three, GO, but he goes on THREE, so our timing was off, and
I stumble into the plane and land in Dane’s lap. He lets out a groan and an “oomph,” which turns me a fiery red thinking about
what I’ve landed on.
“Sorry, sorry,” I mumble. I straighten my back and slide as far forward as I can as the actor and I do our best to share a
seat and keep a demilitarized zone between us.
“There’s only one set of headphones, yeah.” Jace tucks our backpacks and the bag of kayaking gear under my feet. “And one
seat belt. Sorry ’bout that.”
This is like whatever the opposite of a rom-com meet-cute is. “No parachutes?” I ask. I may need one.
“I haven’t lost a passenger yet,” he promises. “But there is a sick bag in the back of my seat, just in case.”
“My reputation precedes me.”
Their cargo (us) loaded, our pilots stand on the airfield. Loni crosses his arms and leans against our plane. Jace points
to the sky. Brick laughs. I’m glad they are enjoying themselves while my stomach clenches.
“Dane,” I say, turning toward him, the proximity of our bodies making what I’m about to say even more awkward. “You and I
might have gotten off on the wrong foot. With the thing outside the bar last night and all. But I need to tell you something
about Lily.”
It would be so much easier to tell this guy, and everyone else, why we are really here, instead of watching my sister play
out this weird alter ego thing. I can keep this charade up for a few more days, as long as she doesn’t do anything she’s going
to regret. I take a sharp breath. I’m not sure what I want from him except to slow his roll. Friendly, fine. Flirty, okay.
Getting physical—no way.
“Here’s the deal. Lily’s got a lot on her plate at home. She’s, um, got employee issues that are affecting her business—”
“The sleep store. Brilliant concept.” Dane’s tone makes me think he’s moved on from the f-off comment. Or maybe he didn’t
care in the first place.
“Yes, the sleep store . . . and, well, running a small business is super stressful, and a lot right now for my sister . . .
so we came out here to . . . well, so she could clear her head before she has to handle things at home . . . you know, with
the employee problem.”
“Say no more. I played an office manager in a sitcom about a paper supply company—”
“What? No you didn’t.”
“Not that paper supply company. I was in The Workplace. It came out the same season as that other show, so we got canceled after the pilot. My point is, I get what being management is like. I can relate.”
“Um, okay. Sure. So, you understand, right? About Lily having so much on her mind? She’s here just to enjoy nature and clear
her mind.”
“Got it, Big.”
“Bridget.”
“Um, yes. Bridget.”
“Right, so we’re on the same page.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Sure,” he says.
That was easy. I let my back muscles relax a little. Until I realize I’m leaning into Dane’s warm chest and bolt upright again.
Finally, the pilots’ convention breaks up, and Jace steps in front of the plane and gives the propeller a spin like a real
Wright brother. I brace myself on the side walls, both of which are practically touching my shoulders. The headphones, which
Dane offers to me, filter out the roar of the engine, as our pilot jumps back into the tiny cockpit, pumps some pedals, and
flicks some levers. Jace speaks into his mic, a series of numbers and words and the term “roger,” but it all translates in
my mind to “it was nice knowing you, suckers.”
I swallow hard as the yellow plane in front of us, the one carrying Ian and Luna, rolls down the airstrip and lifts into the
air. It seems impossible that these things can fly. Yet somehow, it does. The aircraft lifts like a kite on the wind, tilts
its wing, and flies off toward the mountains. It all happens like a silent movie thanks to my headphones and the rumbling
of our own engine.
We are next in line. Jace taxis, picking up some speed, but certainly not enough to raise us off the ground.
I clench my butt cheeks and hold my breath while the ground drops away from us.
My stomach lurches, but I pick a spot on the horizon, as Brick suggested before we left this morning, and stare it down for dear life.
Soon Jace says we’re at altitude, and I sneak a peek around.
We are on a high wire with no net. Thousands of feet in the air, nothing between us and an endless drop but a thin metal floor.
Below us there are no roads, no buildings, no cars. It’s all twisting streams and pools of water and thick stands of evergreens
and rocky outcroppings. Every shade of green and blue and yellow where the bright sun is hitting the grasses. Around us are
mountains and cliffs of jagged stone and so many trees they carpet the earth. In the distance I see the yellow plane suspended
above it all. Overhead, the sky is cloudless and robin’s egg blue. The sun bounces off the highest snowcapped peaks and casts
others in ominous shadows. And it is spectacular. All of it.
“Look down on your right, guys,” Jace says through the headphones. “There’s a real treat.” Below us a brown bear is foraging
in a stand of bushes on a hillside. Two cubs are wrestling and tumbling near her in tall grass. After all the talk about bear
sightings, and the pistol packing, and the frying pan clanging, it’s clear these animals are where they belong and that we
are the intruders. I tap Dane and point downward, since he can’t hear Jace’s commentary on the wildlife.
“They’re like teddy bears,” I say. “So sweet.”
“From up here, yeah,” says Jace. “You wouldn’t want to be any closer.”
I press my nose to the window and scan for wildlife. It’s not like the safari ride at Animal Kingdom where you are guaranteed
a sighting around every corner, but I do spot a small flock of Dahl sheep clinging to a cliffside and see a hawk floating
on the wind below us. It isn’t until Jace makes a quick landing on a silvery and icy glacier that I realize I haven’t been
airsick, worried about sitting on a stranger’s lap, or thought about Lily’s problems at all.