“We were only eighteen...We’d been inseparable our whole lives...Everywhere I went, she went. No questions asked, and we liked it that way...We were even going to the same college. I was going to pursue acting and she was going to pursue art. She was naturally good at drawing and designing things...”
“We were supposed to be on the same flight. Pittsburgh to North Carolina...We were going to do an early summer scope out of the school so we could check out the dorms before we sent in our living requests...”
Her face flashed before my eyes and I didn’t try to wipe my tears away. I kept telling the story, remembering every second like it was yesterday: “We were both sitting at the gate and the agent came over the intercom and said, ‘We need a few people to give up their seats and catch the later flight.’ Neither of us moved because we thought that people in coach didn’t have a choice. But the agent kept saying over and over, ‘We need a few more willing passengers. We’ll give you a free flight. We’ll give you a first class upgrade.’ So, I turned to her and I said, ‘Let’s ask if we can switch flights. We can even get them to let us use their phone and call mom to tell her we’re going to be arriving later.’ She said, ‘No. You’re always telling me what to do, Claire. I’m staying on this flight. Deal with it.’ We’d been...” I paused.
“We’d been arguing all day. I swore she’d stolen my favorite purple purse, she swore that she hadn’t. I was frustrated and annoyed, so I told her I didn’t want to sit with her, that I hoped she got lost whenever her plane landed. I got up and changed my ticket, the gate agent thanked me, and that was that... She and I shared a bag of popcorn before it was time for her to go...And then I told her goodbye...”
I cleared my throat and sniffled. “It was like an hour later when I was on my plane that they were ordering us all to get off...No one had cell phones back then, so I didn’t know what was going on. I just thought we were switching planes or that our flight had been delayed...”
“When I finally got a chance to use the payphone, I called my mom and she was screaming. She was saying ‘Thank god you’re alive! Thank god you weren’t on that plane!’ I asked her what she was talking about and she said that the plane we were scheduled to be on crashed into a small town thirty minutes into the flight...And that the emergency responders were already reporting that there were....” My voice cracked. “That there were no survivors...”
“She said, ‘I’m so happy! I thought I’d lost the two of you! Let me speak to your sister...” Heavier tears fell down my face and my throat became dry. “I had to tell her that we didn’t stick together like she’d told us too...That I didn’t make her change her flight like I should have and...”
He pulled me close and wiped my tears away with his shirt. “I’m so sorry...”
“It was six months before I could walk into our bedroom...” I tugged at my necklace again. “I went through all of her stuff, hugging everything she owned...And then I found this pretty white box under her bed with my name and the words ‘You pick first’ on it. Inside were two charm bracelets she’d made with one flag charm each. One was red and one was white...And they um...When you put them together they read ‘Always Together, Sisters Forever’ on the back...I thought ten or twenty years would be enough time but there are still triggers here or there and...I’ll never get over it...”
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. He held me until I stopped trembling, until I was able to say sentences without sobs breaking them up.
“Do you know what the airline gives you when your family member dies in a plane crash?” I felt him wiping more of my tears away.
He shook his head.
“Nothing...”
“There wasn’t a lawsuit?”
“There was...” I sighed. “But it didn’t bring her back so it doesn’t matter...Does it make me a bad mother when I say I hate that my daughters want to be pilots? I absolutely hate it.”
“No...” He smoothed my hair. “Do they know about your sister?”
“They know she died in a plane crash...They don’t know it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know it was going to crash.”
“Says the man who saved his sister from a burning trailer...It was definitely my fault and I—”
“It wasn’t your fault, Claire.” He pulled me close to his chest. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong in life...What was your sister’s name?”
“Caroline...Caroline Ashley Gracen.”
“That’s a really pretty name...” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and kissed my cheek.
I wanted to say more, to tell him how Caroline actually hated her name, but I shut my eyes and gave in to the much needed sleep.
Chapter 23
Claire
“Your dancing is getting better.” Jonathan smiled as he twirled me around the yacht’s dance floor.
“Yours is still questionable.”