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him.”
    â€œHow did he seem to you? I know you’re a nurse—did you notice anything about his color or his behavior that would indicate an illness?”
    â€œI barely looked at him,” I said.
    And if I’d seen anything amiss, didn’t she think I would have said something? He was about to take my sister to 15,000 feet.
    â€œSo he seemed fine to you.”
    â€œYes.” I was dying to say, Why are you asking me that? But it would only have prolonged what was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I had already rubbed the skin raw in the palm of my hand.
    â€œWhat did he say exactly? From what you can remember.”
    â€œI didn’t hear him say anything. He must have given my sister a signal, because she said something like, ‘Okay, Otto, I know we have to go,’ and then my husband and I got off the plane.”
    â€œHe didn’t say anything to anyone else.”
    â€œNot that I heard.”
    â€œDid anyone react to him in any way?”
    For Pete’s sake, no. “My husband shook hands with him before we deplaned,” I said. Maybe that would get her off this.
    â€œYou’re doing great,” she said. “I just have a few more questions.” She consulted her pad, which gave me a chance to lick my lips. “How did your husband seem when you first saw him?”
    â€œFine.”
    Her brows pulled in. “You hadn’t seen each other in three months, and he just seemed ‘fine’?”
    â€œI guess he might have been nervous,” I said. I bit back the testiness in my voice. “Three months is a long time.”
    â€œWhat is his relationship with your sister like?”
    My lips were so dry, they stuck together momentarily when I tried to open them.
    â€œWould you like some water, Lucia?” she said.
    â€œI’m okay. My sister was good enough to give Chip a job when he needed one. He was grateful for that. Like I said, we didn’t discuss it much.”
    â€œSo you didn’t sense any animosity between them.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “Everything seemed fine to me.” Could I use the word fine about twenty more times?
    â€œSince the crash, has he said anything to you about their relationship or his relationship with anyone else on the plane?”
    Had he said anything to me? No. Had he shown me exactly what one of those relationships was? In spades.
    â€œDid you think of something?”
    â€œWe haven’t talked about anything since the crash except my sister’s injuries,” I said.
    â€œI can completely understand that. This must be difficult for you.”
    I wasn’t sure whether she meant Sonia’s condition or this interview. A yes to either one would have been an understatement.
    â€œI just have one more question.” She nodded at me, all concern. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to talk about, but I need for you to tell me exactly what you saw from where you were standing, from the time the plane’s engines started up until the crash. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”
    I wanted nothing more. I closed my eyes, saw and heard it all again, and described it to her. Terror tried to lick at me, but I talked it down with the best words I could choose to reproduce the experience, down to the heat that singed my eyebrows when I ran from the terminal. Then I prayed that when I opened my eyes at the end, she would be gone. Of course she wasn’t.
    In her grandmother voice she asked a few more questions, to clarify the color of the smoke and how long I estimated the time between the plane hitting the ground and bursting into flame.
    I snapped my fingers.
    â€œSo you’re saying instantly.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m saying.”
    She made a note on the pad. I saw that she hadn’t added anything since the last time I looked. Nothing I’d said in my long harangue had been written down. Evidently she didn’t need