Her first confused thought is that he must have missed the plane in London, even though he called her from Heathrow not long before it took off. Then a clearer idea comes: although both the Times and the TV news say there were no survivors, there was at least one. Her husband crawled from the wreckage of the burning plane (and the burning apartment building the plane hit, don't forget that, twenty-four more dead on the ground and the number apt to rise before the world moved on to the next tragedy) and has been wandering around Brooklyn ever since, in a state of shock.
"Jimmy, are you all right? Are you...are you burned?" The truth of what that would mean occurs after the question, thumping down with the heavy weight of a dropped book on a bare foot, and she begins to cry. "Are you in the hospital?"
"Hush," he says, and at his old kindness-and at that old word, just one small piece of their marriage's furniture-she begins to cry harder. "Honey, hush."
"But I don't understand!"
"I'm all right," he says. "Most of us are."
"Most-? There are others?"
"Not the pilot," he says. "He's not so good. Or maybe it's the co-pilot. He keeps screaming. 'We're going down, there's no power, oh my God.' Also 'This isn't my fault, don't let them blame it on me.' He says that, too."
She's cold all over. "Who is this really? Why are you being so horrible? I just lost my husband, you ass**le!"
"Honey-"
"Don't call me that!" There's a clear strand of mucus hanging from one of her nostrils. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and then flings it into the wherever, a thing she hasn't done since she was a child. "Listen, mister-I'm going to star-sixty-nine this call and the police will come and slam your ass...your ignorant, unfeeling ass..."
But she can go no farther. It's his voice. There's no denying it. The way the call rang right through-no pickup downstairs, no answering machine-suggests this call was just for her. And...honey, hush. Like in the old Carl Perkins song.
He has remained quiet, as if letting her work these things through for herself. But before she can speak again, there's a beep on the line.
"James? Jimmy? Are you still there?"
"Yeah, but I can't talk long. I was trying to call you when we went down, and I guess that's the only reason I was able to get through at all. Lots of others have been trying, we're lousy with cell phones, but no luck." That beep again. "Only now my phone's almost out of juice."
"Jimmy, did you know?" This idea has been the hardest and most terrible part for her-that he might have known, if only for an endless minute or two. Others might picture burned bodies or dismembered heads with grinning teeth; even light-fingered first responders filching wedding rings and diamond ear-clips, but what has robbed Annie Driscoll's sleep is the image of Jimmy looking out his window as the streets and cars and the brown apartment buildings of Brooklyn swell closer. The useless masks flopping down like the corpses of small yellow animals. The overhead bins popping open, carry-ons starting to fly, someone's Norelco razor rolling up the tilted aisle.
"Did you know you were going down?"
"Not really," he says. "Everything seemed all right until the very end-maybe the last thirty seconds. Although it's hard to keep track of time in situations like that, I always think."
Situations like that. And even more telling: I always think. As if he has been aboard half a dozen crashing 767s instead of just the one.
"In any case," he goes on, "I was just calling to say we'd be early, so be sure to get the FedEx man out of bed before I got there."
Her absurd attraction for the FedEx man has been a joke between them for years. She begins to cry again. His cell utters another of those beeps, as if scolding her for it.
"I think I died just a second or two before it rang the first time. I think that's why I was able to get through to you. But this thing's gonna give up the ghost pretty soon."
He chuckles as if this is funny. She supposes that in a way it is. She may see the humor in it herself, eventually. Give me ten years or so, she thinks.
Then, in that just-talking-to-myself voice she knows so well: "Why didn't I put the tiresome motherfucker on charge last night? Just forgot, that's all. Just forgot."
"James...honey...the plane crashed two days ago."
A pause. Mercifully with no beep to fill it. Then: "Really? Mrs. Corey said time was funny here. Some of us agreed, some of us disagreed. I was a disagreer, but looks like she was right."
"Hearts?" Annie asks. She feels now as if she is floating outside and slightly above her plump damp middle-aged body, but she hasn't forgotten Jimmy's old habits. On a long flight he was always looking for a game. Cribbage or canasta would do, but hearts was his true love.
"Hearts," he agrees. The phone beeps again, as if seconding that.
"Jimmy..." She hesitates long enough to ask herself if this is information she really wants, then plunges with that question still unanswered. "Where are you, exactly?"
"Looks like Grand Central Station," he says. "Only bigger. And emptier. As if it wasn't really Grand Central at all but only...mmm...a movie-set of Grand Central. Do you know what I'm trying to say?"