A black pickup truck raced from behind me to a set of chained-shut gates in the fence separating the base from the road, and a man in jeans and a sweatshirt jumped out and climbed the fence, concertina wire and all, and ran toward the plane. I had a wild hope that he knew about some trigger on the outside of the cockpit that could eject the pilot, but as he got closer it became clear that the fire was too big. He stopped running about fifteen or twenty yards from the plane and paced back and forth, raking his hands through his hair. Other cars stopped along the road with me—a blue and white Jeep, another dark pickup with a maroon electric wheelchair gathering snow on a hitch on the back, and a gray pickup behind me. An old, slim, balding guy in a white shirt and jeans got out of the gray truck and started taking pictures. In the middle of my crying I yelled that he shouldn’t be doing that, but my windows were up so he didn’t hear me. The wind shook the car gently and snow and dirt crackled against the back window. I put my hand against the glass of the driver’s side window and the heat from my fingers left a hand-shaped fog impression. Sam was silent in the backseat.
Between two and five minutes passed, and some of the stopped cars pulled away and started down the road, so I followed. I went to the front entrance gates, and the drivers ahead of me seemed to be moving through them fast without saying anything to the man on duty. I stopped and told the gate guard, who had crooked teeth and braces with little blue bands on them, that a plane had gone down in the field and I didn’t know what I should do. I was crying and he asked me to repeat it; then he said, “Wait one,” and stepped into the gatehouse, and another guard came out with him. I repeated myself, and he grabbed his walkie-talkie and told me to pull aside and wait. Still no sirens. Then he came back and said the right people knew about it and it was being taken care of, so I went on to the clinic for Sam’s doctor’s appointment.
At the clinic, I pulled in and found a parking place and got out into the driving wind and snow. I could smell something, part burning, part plastic, and as I rounded the corner of the car to get Sam, I heard a weird muffled sound, half poof, half pop, and I wondered if it was an explosion, maybe a belated ejection. It sounded like all the air being let out of something. I checked in at the front desk like normal and wondered again if I should say anything. The lady at the desk told me we were neighbors, that she had seen Ross and me out walking on Sunday, and I said, “Hi, neighbor,” and was shocked and a little disgusted at how normal I sounded, though I knew I looked like hell.
Sam and I went to sit in the waiting room. I set him down to play with the puzzles laid out on a small table, but he stood watching me uncertainly. I tried to smile at him. He came back over to me and sat quietly in my lap, alternately leaning his head against my chest and then leaning back to stare up at my face, for the next seven minutes until we were called. It seemed very important to keep track of the time, and I was disturbed by how gummy it seemed—like three minutes would snap by and then the next three would stretch out in a rubbery infinity so improbable that I checked the face of my phone to make sure the wall clock wasn’t broken.
During that time I noticed people starting to cross the lobby and leave their desks, grabbing purses and really colorful lunch coolers that looked weird against their dark blue camo uniforms. Lots of people seemed to have a place to go. I saw a doctor buttoning up his white coat and walking fast from window to window. Two guys on the couch near me seemed to understand what was happening. I looked at the clock and it was 9:25. I felt like I might throw up, and it felt like I was getting period cramps. I worried about the baby and held Sam tight. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead down against his and said a prayer.
My favorite corpsman came and got us, a thoroughly professional guy with glasses who looked very young. He apologized in advance if it seemed like he was rushing us through the intake, but, he said, they wanted to stay on schedule. He was very calm. He measured Sam’s head, left the height the same from the last time we’d visited the doctor, and plunked him fully clothed on the little floor scale. Nineteen-inch head, 31.65 inches tall, 21.02 pounds.