The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [106]
“Yes. And the water felt lukewarm to me,” you explain, and then you tell her about the pilot light and going downstairs with the knife in your hands, and how you must have fallen down the wooden steps. You add that everything after that is now a bit of a fog. You shrug, hoping the motion does not appear theatrical.
“Did you hear Emily calling for you?”
“Not for a long while. Emily thinks that maybe I knocked my head and was unconscious for a few minutes. Do you think that’s possible?”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, when I did hear her, I started back up the stairs, and the next thing I know, I’m in the kitchen and I’m covered in blood.”
“With the knife inside you.”
“Yes.”
“You never reached the pilot light.”
“I don’t believe so.”
“But you didn’t relight it.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“So it probably wasn’t out,” she says. She seems to be thinking about this, but in reality you understand she is watching you. She is trying to decide if you’re lying. You realize at some point that your shoulders have sagged and you are hunched over with your hands in your lap. Once, a long time ago it seems, you had exceptional posture. You take a breath and sit up straight in your chair, inadvertently pulling at the stitches.
“What shoes were you wearing?” she asks.
“Slippers. Suede moccasins.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am. I always wear those slippers when I’m in for the night in the winter.”
“I like slippers,” she says, writing. You look down at her boots. Leather, small, solid heels. Her skirt is made of denim and falls just about to her knees. Her panty hose—no, these are tights—are black. “I’m just curious, did you ever wear slippers in the cockpit?”
“It’s a flight deck. We call it a flight deck.”
“Not a cockpit?”
“No.”
“Okay. I won’t ask why.”
“You can.”
“No, I’m good.”
“Why would you think we wore slippers while on the flight deck?”
“Well, not when you were actually flying the airplane. But once when I was flying from Philadelphia to Rome, the seat beside me was empty and the captain or the copilot came out and put on a pair of those eyeshades and slippers they give you when you fly and took a nap.”
“You were flying first class.”
“Business. Anyway, I can see you doing that.”
“No, you can’t. I never flew overseas. I flew regional jets.”
“The small ones?”
“Yes. The small ones.” Somehow, even this exchange has left you unsettled. It’s as if you were a failure because you never flew a jet bigger than a CRJ. Did she do this on purpose, too? Again, your mind recalls Reseda and her remark about geese; again, it circles back to the idea that you are being oversensitive.
“Can we talk about 1611?”
“Yes.” And you patiently answer the sorts of questions you have answered for other therapists (in two states), as well as investigators and lawyers and the FAA and the pilots’ union. Finally Valerian asks you if you blame yourself for the deaths of the thirty-nine people on the plane.
“I blame the geese,” you answer simply. “I blame the ferryboat captain who turned his boat too hard too quickly and created that wave. And, yes, I do blame myself.”
“But no one else does …”
“Blames me.”
“Right. The crash wasn’t pilot error. What Sully Sullenberger did was a miracle. You know there isn’t a soul in this world who thinks it’s your fault. You know that, don’t you?”
In this world. You try to decide what that means, because certainly Ethan Stearns views the crash as your fault. So did the families of some of the passengers who died who came to the hearings. You saw it in their faces. Why couldn’t you do what Sully Sullenberger did? they seemed to be asking. And you can feel Ethan’s presence right now, right here in the kitchen, in the way the top of your head is starting to throb. And although you try to restrain yourself, you can’t help but turn around in your seat—and there he is. He is in the doorway to the dining room, framed by those ghoulish sunflowers, and he is glaring at you. Shaking his head in disgust. And this only makes the pain in your skull worsen, and you fear that while this