Free All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgans Page B

Mark muttered.
    â€œOh God, oh God help us, please Lord Jesus, save us!” the woman in front of me wailed. The plane bucked again, there was another mass scream. We’re going to die, came the small, quiet thought in the part of my brain that wasn’t roaring in panic. Behind me, someone vomited and my own stomach lurched. We’re crashing, oh, God, this is it. Fear electrified my legs, and my eyes, stretched too wide, saw everything…the man across the aisle hunched over, his hands over the back of his head. “Hail Mary, full of grace…” Trash was everywhere. Who knew there was so much trash? There was a little girl two rows ahead on my right sobbing, “Mommy, make it stop, Mommy!”
    Someone else threw up, people were sobbing into their cell phones—“Baby, it’s bad, I love you, I love you so much”—but Mark and I just held on to each other asthe plane dipped and shivered. Mark pushed my head down—crash position, Jesus God, I was in crash position, who survived a plane crash? I shook violently, my face was wet with tears… Josephine, Bronte, Hester, Freddie, my parents. Who’d take care of Noah? What about Bowie? Would my sweet dog somehow know that I was gone?
    The plane bucked again, tilted, righted. And then, amid the chaos and terror, I saw lights down on land. We were getting lower, descending, even as the plane still shuddered. The wings wobbled, then straightened, the sound of the landing gear locking in place was the most reassuring and beautiful sound that had ever reached my ears.
    â€œWe’re gonna make it,” Mark said, his voice strained. My hand, clenched in his, had gone numb. “We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it.”
    When the screech of rubber against tarmac sounded, the plane burst into cheers and sobbing. “Welcome to New Mexico,” came the captain’s voice, shaking now that we were safe. “Sorry for the rough ride.” The white-faced attendants stood, and people flung off their seat belts despite the rules of waiting, desperate to be off the plane, many still crying, still swearing, and all of us miraculously alive.
    I turned to Mark, and we looked at each other. Then he kissed me, his hands cupping my tear-streaked face. He was drenched in sweat. “We’re fine,” he said hoarsely. I nodded, my throat still too clamped from terror to allow a word to escape. I’d almost died, but I hadn’t. I was alive. It was so strange. We were falling from the sky, and somehow we made it.
    Standing in the aisle, waiting to get out, shaking likea junkie in heroin withdrawal, I found it so bizarre to do those mundane tasks like find my purse and laptop, straighten my shirt. People were already talking on their cell phones, assuring loved ones of their safety, opening the overhead compartments and retrieving their carry-on luggage. I didn’t speak. “Callie, you okay?” Mark asked.
    I nodded. Realized I was crying. When we filed past the captain and crew, I hugged each of them, my God, I loved them so much. When I came to the captain, it was clear he was God’s right hand, not some middle-aged blond man with a mustache. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I wept.
    â€œWell, now, we all made it down safe and sound, no matter what it felt like, right?” He patted my shoulder. “Thanks for flying with us, little lady.”
    So, okay, you don’t almost die in a plane crash every day, do you? It’s life-affirming to walk off a plane that had been shuddering and dropping through the sky, to breathe fresh air and feel the ground under your feet again. And you know what else is life-affirming?
    Sex.
    Mark took my hand once we were off the airplane, and he didn’t let go of it. We didn’t speak, just got into a cab. Held hands. Got to the hotel. Held hands in the lobby as we checked in. Held hands in the elevator. Our rooms were on different