He looked over Olivia’s head at Lucy, and his wife was just turning away. ‘Lucy?’ She didn’t hear him, and though he took a deep breath he did not speak again. He remembered the end of his dream and what he’d been shouting, and wondered whether he had scared them all with his yelling out of Holly’s name.
Even though the light was weak and the helicopter shook, he could not mistake Lucy’s expression when she’d turned away from him – the heavy eyes, her sadly etched mouth. So Vic hugged his daughter, accepting her innocent, uncomplicated love and wishing his could be like that.
He looked from the window and saw a landscape fired by a red-palette dawn. Red sky in the morning . . . he thought, and Olivia snuggled into his embrace. He remembered Holly, not as she had been in his dream but as he had known her at the height of their affair. Never demanding, never intrusive, their few tentative conversations about being together properly had always been initiated by him, and she had never forced the issue. In her silence he had read the truth – she had wanted it more than anything.
But he’d never truly considered leaving Lucy, and when she had fallen pregnant his and Holly’s relationship had stopped without either of them needing to say anything. He could remember each intimate detail, every sigh and position from the last time they had made love, but he had no idea whether either of them had known it was going to be the last time.
Gary was flying quite low, and as the minutes ticked by it became easier to see the truth of what had happened below them. It also became harder for Vic to reach out to Lucy and try to explain. Her expression as she’d turned away should have prompted him to reassure her, but it had scared him too much. So he looked at the ruin outside and wondered how it could have spread so quickly.
The rolling landscape was speckled with individual homes and groups of buildings, and every few minutes they passed over larger townships. Fires were burning, many small, a few large, probing up at them with smoky fingers – accidents, people protecting their homes, authorities burning bodies on pyres that got out of hand. Some of the smoke was grey and light, some heavy and dark and thick, and he had no desire to understand the difference.
‘Daddy?’ Olivia shouted against the helicopter’s roar. She was fidgeting against him again. Vic gazed down at her. Lucy was looking at him now and something in her expression seemed to have relaxed.
‘I need to pee,’ Olivia said.
Vic nodded, and smiled at Lucy. She didn’t smile back, but the mistrust had gone from her eyes. Perhaps she’d thought it away, or maybe she’d simply discarded it because of everything else that was happening.
Vic slipped on his headset and asked, ‘Gary, where are we?’
‘Baltimore’s close. Airport in about thirty minutes.’
‘Sorry, I slept,’ Vic said.
‘Need the rest,’ Marc said, turning and looking over the facing seats at the family. ‘Don’t worry, honey, you can pee soon.’ He smiled at Olivia and touched his microphone. Lucy got the message and took off Olivia’s headset.
‘What?’ Lucy asked.
‘Everything’s buggered,’ Gary said. ‘Air-traffic control’s working so hard to avoid collisions that, they don’t have time to answer anything incoming. And since we’re approaching a bloody massive airport I’d like to know what’s happening there.’
‘I guess we can just assume it’s batshit,’ Marc said. ‘I don’t think Baltimore airport’s going to be fucking around with passport control right now.’
‘I’m feeding radio just to my headset,' Gary said. ‘I haven’t even told you this . . .’ He reached across and held Marc’s hand, clasping it tightly. ‘Two passenger jets collided above Washington. Three more above Chicago airport, and I’ve heard of at least four others going down. And there are rumours about military jets shooting down anything that ventures out over the Atlantic.’
‘Our air force is shooting down passenger planes?’ Lucy asked, shocked.