Where am I?
The answer comes to me in a rush of images and a surge of adrenaline.
The plane.
Crashed.
My camera strap is strangling me. I wrench it free, gasping for breath.
The gray in the sky is smoke from the plane’s explosion. All around me trees are on fire. That’s the orange in the sky: flames. I can hear the crackling now, feel the heat. My cheeks are coated in blood and sweat.
I try to get up but I can’t move.
I’m paralyzed.
I stare at my feet, trying not to panic. One foot is bare. No sock, no shoe; just dark, muddy toes pointed skyward.
“Wiggle,” I manage to whisper.
My right foot does a spastic little dance.
I’m not paralyzed. Thank you, God.
It takes forever, but finally I move my arms, wedge them underneath me and sit up. From my hiding place in the trees, I can see the crash site.
The plane is an oblong bullet of fire, wingless. The grass around it is a lake of mud and ash and debris. Trees lay on their sides like giant, broken toothpicks. For the first time, I understand the concept of devastation. Ruin. This land is broken now, as bleeding as we are.
Far away, through the ashy smoke, I can see ambulances and police cars and fire trucks. The survivors are there, clustered in the bright glow of headlights and temporary lighting. I need to take a picture of this, document it, but my hands are shaking uncontrollably.
“I’m over here,” I cry weakly, trying to raise my hand.
But no one is looking over here. No one is looking for me.
Why? I wonder. Then I remember Riegert calling out for me, reaching out, then covering his face at the blast and falling to the ground.
They think I died in the explosion.
But I’m here.
It is my last conscious thought.
I see her standing in the trees, not far away from me. She looks exactly as I remember: tall and thin, with silvery blond hair and eyes the exact color of a robin’s egg. Her skin is pale and unlined still; she is wearing a pink Rocky Mountain Mama T-shirt and her favorite Max Factor lipstick. Strawberries and cream. I wait for her to smile, but she crosses her arms instead and glances away, as if she has another place to be. She is smoking a long, brown cigarette.
“Mom?” I say quietly, wondering if she can hear me. There is a strange cacophony of noise around us—motors running, high pitched wails that sound like sirens, a crackling that sounds like wax paper being balled up. Most of all I can hear my heart, though. It’s running fast, skipping so many beats I feel light-headed.
She moves toward me, almost gliding. As she gets closer, I see her smile—finally—and it releases something in me.
She kneels beside me. “You’re hurt. ”
I know she is touching my forehead. I can see her movement, but I can’t feel her touch. I stare into the eyes I love so much. Until now, this moment, I had begun to forget how she looked, the gentleness of her touch, the sound of her voice.
Her hands on my face are so cool, so comforting. “Wake up, Joy. It’s not your time. ”
“I’m dead, aren’t I? That’s why you’re here. ”
My mother smiles, and in that one expression is my whole childhood, years and years of feeling safe and loved.
I’m crying. I know it even before she wipes my tears away. “Stacey is marrying my husband . . . ”