“That sounds good.” I gathered up my purse, and he escorted me to the door, where I paused for a moment. “I know it’s only our second session, but I feel like it’s helping. I just want you to know that. I feel like there’s hope that I’ll find my way out of this slump and finish my dissertation.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Perhaps future pilots flying out of Bermuda will be grateful for that as well,” he said and sent me on my way.
I descended the stairs to the reception area and retrieved my umbrella from the foyer. As I left the clinic, which was housed in a beautiful brownstone on the Upper West Side, I prepared to raise the umbrella over my head, but the rainstorm had passed, and hazy rays of sunshine were beaming through leaves on the trees, reflecting off puddles in the street.
I began to walk but had to squint at the blinding reflections in the pools of water on the pavement. Then I looked up.
There was something rather incredible about the floating mist that sparkled within those rays of light after the rainstorm. It reminded me of the grayish-white haze that was described in a flight report I had studied a while back. The pilot had mentioned long horizontal lines in an “electronic fog” that formed a vortex out of which he had flown at an impossible speed. He also mentioned a sensation of zero gravity when he emerged from the so-called tunnel.
I stopped on the sidewalk and thought about this. Was it possible that those clouds were composed of charged particles from a geomagnetic storm? Under the right circumstances, could this cause a hyperacceleration and g-forces that might be enough to break an airplane to pieces? Or even propel it through a traversable wormhole? Possibly into another time dimension?
Feeling exhilarated, I quickened my pace and walked briskly to catch the subway back to the lab.
CHAPTER 6
OLIVIA
Miami, 1990
Five days after I received Richard’s middle-of-the-night phone call about Dean’s disappearance, the Coast Guard called off the search. I was devastated because nothing had been found. Not a single trace of debris from the wreckage or a body. They had even expanded their search to cover a broader area, taking into account the currents and an object’s drift in the water, but still, nothing.
I stood at the large window inside our condo and held a cup of tea. A sailboat was making its way from the marina toward open water. The sun was high in the sky and the winds were light, from the west. I envied those passengers—whoever they were—heading out to enjoy the day. Would I ever be able to do that again? Enjoy a day? Feel blessed and grateful for my wonderful, happy life?
My mother had gone home. She had stayed with me these past five days, sleeping in the guest room, leaving only briefly to pick up a few essentials from her beach house or to get snacks for us, though I had little interest in eating. I appreciated her presence and emotional support, but now, after learning about the end of the search, all I wanted was to be alone. I needed silence—raw, absolute silence—to try and accept what everyone was pushing me to accept: that Dean was lost forever.
It wasn’t easy. It didn’t help that the tabloids were printing outrageous stories like GIANT SEA SERPENTS SPOTTED IN THE SEA OF DOOM! FLYING SAUCERS TERRIFY PASSENGERS OF LUXURY CRUISE SHIP! GOVERNMENT COVER-UP!
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about what Mike Mitchell had said on the news—that there was “something going on out there.” What if he was right? What if Dean’s instruments had failed because of some unexplained supernatural force of nature? And what if he was still alive somewhere? It was still possible, wasn’t it? I didn’t believe in sea monsters or UFOs, but there was no wreckage where they had expected it to be. No body. Perhaps Dean had landed the plane safely somewhere, but he was hurt and had to recover before he could find his way home to me.
I couldn’t give up hope. At least not yet. If he was alive, he would need me to keep a light on in the window.
The phone rang. I turned away from the bright sunlight at the glass and answered it. “Hello?”
It was Sarah. “Hey, sis. How are you doing?”
“As well as can be expected.” I moved to the sofa and pictured Dean on the end of it with his feet up on the coffee table, watching a basketball game. Rather than sit down, I turned away and went back to the kitchen. “You heard they called off the search?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” My tea was cold, so I set the cup in the sink. “But I can’t give up hope. Tomorrow I’m going to call the regulatory board that does crash investigations and find out what their conclusion is, and I’m going to stay on top of them, because it all seems so suspicious, don’t you think? It doesn’t make sense that Dean could just vanish into thin air. Something’s not right about this.”
“Oh, Olivia,” she said with a sigh. “I hope you’re not buying into all those crazy stories they’ve been printing.”
I shook my head with frustration. “I don’t know. I mean . . . of course not. But how can an entire plane just disappear? I want to know how they’re going to explain that.”
Sarah spoke gently. “I understand that you need answers. I would need that, too, if it were Leon. I’m so sorry about the fact that you haven’t gotten any closure.”
My pulse quickened. “I hate that word, closure. People keep using it.”
“Yes, well . . .”
“I know what you’re trying to say. You want me to accept the fact that Dean’s not coming back, but I have to be honest. I’m not entirely sure if that’s true. I can still feel him here with me.”
“I get it,” she replied sympathetically, but I knew what she was thinking—that I needed to give it time, and eventually I would come to my senses and realize that Dean couldn’t have survived a plane crash over the water, and the tabloids were just trying to cash in on the story.
“I have to go,” I said, because I didn’t want to think about closure. It was still too soon. I wasn’t ready to move on.
We hung up, and I returned to the window to look out at the water. The sailboat was now a tiny speck on the horizon, barely visible. Soon I wouldn’t be able to see it at all, but that didn’t mean it would cease to exist.
The next morning, when I woke, I forgot, for a brief, fleeting second, that Dean was missing. The world felt normal as my eyes fluttered open, but then I took a breath, and I remembered.
The agony of loss slammed into me all over again, like a hot, heavy wind. It made my chest ache, my lungs constrict. Oh God . . . it was real. Everyone had given up. The search was over. No one was looking for Dean anymore. He was presumed dead.
I rolled to my side and stared at the vacant bed beside me. I laid my hand on the soft surface of Dean’s pillow, then snuggled into it and squeezed it tight to my face, inhaling deeply, wanting desperately and frantically to breathe in the scent of him, to feel him inside my body. But I couldn’t capture it—I couldn’t feel him at all, which came as a shock. I began to panic and weep and scream into the soft feather down until the pillowcase was drenched with my tears.
Where was he? Alone somewhere in the vast, open sea?
Or was he somewhere else, in another dimension of the universe, still flying his airplane, thinking everything was fine?