Free The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve Page B

thought idly.
    A coffee cup was on the counter. He had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and he was pacing.
    She looked up at the clock: 6:40. Why was he there so early? she wondered.
    When he saw her at the bottom of the stairs, he took his hands out of his pockets and walked toward her.
    He put his hands on her shoulders.
    “What?” she asked, alarmed.
    “Do you know what the CVR is?” he asked. “Yes,” she said. “The cockpit voice recorder.” “Well, they’ve found it.”
    “And?”
    He hesitated. Just a beat.
    “They’re saying suicide,” he said.

Chapter VI
    H E WALKS WITH HIS ARM AROUND HER TOWARD
the planes, which seem too small, only toys that children might climb in and over and about. The heat, deep and roasting, radiates from the pavement. This is a masculine world, she thinks, with its odd bits of machinery, its briefing room, its tower. All around her there is metal, brilliant or dull in the sun’s glare.
    He seems solicitous, but he walks briskly. The plane is pretty, with red and white markings. She takes his hand as she steps onto the wing, then crawls through the tiny opening into the cockpit, the size of which is immediately alarming. How could something as monumental as flight take place in such an unpre-possessing space? Flight, which has always seemed to Kathryn to be improbable, now seems clearly impossible, and she tells herself, as she has sometimes done when in a car with a bad driver or on a ride at a carnival, that this will be over soon and all she has to do is survive.
    Jack hoists himself up on his side. He has on sunglasses with iridescent blue lenses. He tells her to buckle up and hands her headphones, which he explains will make it easier for them to talk to each other over the noise of the engine.
    They bump along the pitted tarmac. The plane feels loose and wobbly. She wants to tell him to stop, that she has changed her mind. The plane gathers speed, the bouncing stops, and they are up.
    Her heart fills her chest. Jack turns to her, his smile full of confidence and amusement, a smile that says, This will be fun, so just relax.
    Before her is a vast expanse of blue. What happened to the ground? She has an image of a plane reaching a terrible height, tipping slightly, and then falling, as nature would demand it do. Beside her, Jack gestures toward the window.
    — Take a look, he says.
    They are over the coast, so high up the surf looks stationary. The ocean ripples back to a darker blue. Just inland from the coast, she can see dark fir trees, what seems like an entire country of fir trees. She spots a boat and its wake, a power plant up the coast. The dark stain of Portsmouth. The glistening bits of rock that are the Isles of Shoals. She looks for Ely, thinks she sees it, follows a road from town to Julia’s house.
    He banks for a turn, and her hands jerk out to save herself. She wants to tell him to be careful, which immediately strikes her as inane. Of course he will be careful. Won’t he?
    As if in answer, he angles the plane steeply up, an angle so sharp she thinks he must be testing the very laws of physics. She is certain they will fall from the sky. She calls out his name, but he is intent upon his instruments and doesn’t answer.
    Gravity pins her against the back of her seat. They climb into a long, high loop, and for a second, at its apex, they are motionless, upside down, a speck suspended over the Atlantic. The plane dives then into a run out the other side of the loop. She screams and grabs for whatever she can reach. Jack glances over at her once quickly and puts the plane nearly vertical to the ground. She watches Jack at the controls, his calm movements, the concentration on his face. It amazes her that a man can make a plane do tricks — tricks with gravity, with physics, with fate.
    And then the world is silent. As if surprised itself, the plane begins to fall. Not like a stone, but rather like a leaf, fluttering a bit and then dipping to the