Before the Fall Read online

  “Land.”

  For a moment Scott isn’t sure the boy actually spoke. It must be a dream. But then the boy repeats the word, pointing.

  “Land.”

  It seems like a mistake, like the boy has mixed up the word for survival with the word for something else. Scott lifts his head, half blind with exhaustion. Behind them, the sun is starting to rise, a gentle pinkening to the sky. At first Scott thinks the landmass ahead of them is just some low-hanging clouds on the horizon, but then he realizes that he is the one who’s moving.

  Land. Miles of it. Open beach curving toward a rocky point. Streets and houses. Cities.

  Salvation.

  Scott resists the urge to celebrate. There is still a mile to go at least, a hard mile against riptides and undertow. His legs are quivering, his left arm numb. And yet he can’t help but feel a surge of elation.

  He did it. He saved them.

  How is that possible?

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later a graying man in his underwear stumbles out of the surf, carrying a four-year-old boy. They collapse together onto the sand. The sun is up now, thin white clouds framed against a deep Mediterranean blue. The temperature is somewhere around sixty-eight degrees, gulls hanging weightless in the breeze. The man lies panting, a heaving torso ringed with useless rubber limbs. Now that they’re here he cannot move another inch. He is done.

  Curled up against his chest, the boy is crying softly.

  “It’s okay,” Scott tells him. “We’re safe now. We’re gonna be okay.”

  There is an empty lifeguard station a few feet away. The sign on the back reads MONTAUK STATE BEACH.

  New York. He swam all the way to New York.

  Scott smiles, a smile of pure, joyous fuck you.

  Well, hell, he thinks.

  It’s going to be beautiful day.

  Chapter 4

  A walleyed fisherman drives them to the hospital. The three crowd together on the worn bench seat of his pickup, bouncing on battered shocks. Scott is pantless and shoeless, without money or ID. Both he and the boy are racked with bone-deep chills. They have been in sixty-degree water for almost eight hours. Hypothermia has made them slow-witted and mute.

  The fisherman speaks to them eloquently in Spanish about Jesus Christ. The radio is on, mostly static. Beneath their feet wind whistles into the cabin through a rust hole in the floor. Scott pulls the boy to him and tries to warm him through friction, rubbing the child’s arms and back vigorously with his one good hand. On the beach, Scott told the fisherman in his limited Spanish that the boy was his son. It seemed easier than trying to explain the truth, that they are strangers drawn together by a freak accident.

  Scott’s left arm is completely useless now. Pain knifes through his body with every pothole, leaving him dizzy and nauseous.

  You’re okay, he tells himself, repeating the words over and over. You made it. But deep down he still can’t believe they survived.

  “Gracias,” he stutters as the pickup pulls into the crescent driveway of the Montauk hospital emergency room. Scott bucks the door open with his good shoulder and climbs down, every muscle in his body numb with exhaustion. The morning fog is gone, and the warm sun on his back and legs feels almost religious. Scott helps the boy jump down. Together they limp into the emergency room.

  The waiting area is mostly empty. In the corner, a middle-aged man holds an icepack to his head, water dripping off his wrist onto the linoleum floor. On the other side of the room an elderly couple holds hands, their heads close together. From time to time the woman coughs into a balled-up Kleenex she keeps clutched tightly in her left hand.

  An intake nurse sits behind glass. Scott limps over to her, the boy holding on to his shirttails.

  “Hi,” he says.

  The nurse gives him a quick once-over. Her name tag reads MELANIE. Scott tries to imagine what he must look like. All he can think of is Wile E. Coyote after an ACME rocket has exploded in his face.

  “We were in a plane crash,” he says.

  The words out loud are astonishing. The intake nurse squints at him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “A plane from Martha’s Vineyard. A private plane. We crashed into the sea. I think we’re hypothermic, and my—I can’t move my left arm. The collarbone may be broken.”

  The nurse is still trying to work through it.

  “You crashed in the sea.”

  “We swam—I swam—I think it was ten miles. Maybe fifteen. We just came ashore maybe an hour ago. A fisherman drove us here.”

  The words are making him dizzy, his lungs shutting down.

  “Look,” he says, “do you think we could get some help? At least the boy. He’s only four.”

  The nurse looks at the boy, damp, shivering.

  “Is he your son?”

  “If I say yes will you get us a doctor?”

  The nurse sniffles.

  “There’s no need to get surly.”

  Scott feels his jaw clenching.

  “There is actually every need. We were in a fucking plane crash. Get the damn doctor.”

  She stands, uncertain.

  Scott glances over at the ceiling-mounted television. The sound is down, but onscreen are images of search-and-rescue boats on the ocean. A banner headline reads, PRIVATE PLANE FEARED LOST.

  “There,” says Scott, pointing, “that’s us. Will you believe me now?”

  The nurse looks at the TV, images of fractured wreckage bobbing in the sea. Her reaction is instantaneous, as if Scott has produced a passport at the border crossing after pantomiming a frantic search.

  She pushes the intercom button.

  “Code Orange,” she says. “I need all available doctors to intake immediately.”

  The cramping in Scott’s leg is beyond critical. He is dehydrated, potassium-deficient, like a marathoner who has failed to give his body the nutrition it demands.

  “Just,” he says, buckling to the floor, “one would do, probably.”

  He lies on the cool linoleum looking up at the boy. The boy’s face is sober, worried. Scott tries to smile reassuringly, but even his lips are exhausted. In an instant they are surrounded by hospital personnel, voices shouting. Scott feels himself being lifted onto a gurney. The boy’s hand slips away.

  “No!” the boy shouts. He is screaming, thrashing. A doctor is talking to him, trying to make the boy understand that they will take care of him, that nothing bad will happen. It doesn’t matter. Scott struggles to sit up.

  “Kid,” he says, louder and louder until the boy looks at him. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  He climbs down off the gurney, his legs rubbery, barely able to stand.

  “Sir,” a nurse says, “you have to lie down.”

  “I’m fine,” Scott tells the doctors. “Help him.”

  To the boy he says: “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The boy’s eyes, in daylight, are startlingly blue. After a moment he nods. Scott, feeling light-headed, turns to the doctor.

  “We should do this fast,” he says, “if it’s not too much trouble.”

  The doctor nods. He is young and smart. You can see it in his eyes.

  “Fine,” he says, “but I’m getting you a wheelchair.”

  Scott nods. A nurse wheels over the chair and he falls into it.

  “Are you his father?” she asks him as they roll to the exam room.

  “No,” Scott tells her. “We just met.”

  Inside the exam bay, the doctor gives the boy a quick once-over, checking for fractures, light in the eyes, follow my finger.

  “We need to start an IV,” he tells Scott. “He’s severely dehydrated.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Scott tells the boy, “the doctor needs to put a needle in your arm, okay? They need to give you some fluids, and, uh, vitamins.”

  “No needles,” the boy says, fear in his eyes. He is one wrong word away from losing his mind.

  “I don’t like them either,” says Scot
t, “but you know what? I’ll get one too, okay? We’ll do it together. How about that?”

  The boy thinks about this. It seems fair. He nods.

  “Okay, good,” says Scott. “Let’s—hold my hand and we’ll—don’t look, okay?”

  Scott turns to the doctor.

  “Can you do us together?” he asks.

  The doctor nods, issues orders. The nurses ready the needles and hang IV bags on metal arms.

  “Look at me,” Scott tells the boy when the time comes.

  The boy’s eyes are blue saucers. He flinches when the needle goes in. His eyes tear up and his bottom lip quivers, but he doesn’t cry.

  “You’re my hero,” Scott tells him. “My absolute hero.”

  Scott can feel the fluids entering his system. Almost immediately the urge to pass out dissipates.

  “I’m going to give you both a mild sedative,” the doctor says. “Your bodies have been working overtime just to stay warm. You need to downshift.”

  “I’m fine,” Scott says. “Do him first.”

  The doctor sees there’s no point in arguing. A needle is inserted into the boy’s IV line.

  “You’re going to rest a little bit,” Scott tells him. “I’ll be right here. I may go outside for a minute, but I’ll come back. Okay?”

  The boy nods. Scott touches the crown of his head. He remembers when he was nine and he fell out of a tree and broke his leg. How he was brave through the whole thing, but when his dad showed up at the hospital Scott started bawling. And now this boy’s parents are most likely dead. No one is going to walk through the door and give him permission to fall apart.

  “That’s good,” he tells the boy as his little eyes start to flutter shut. “You’re doing so good.”

  After the boy is asleep, Scott is wheeled into a separate exam room. They lay him on a gurney and cut off his shirt. His shoulder feels like an engine that has seized.

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asks him. He is maybe thirty-eight with smile lines around his eyes.

  “You know,” says Scott, “things are starting to turn around.”

  The doctor does a surface exam, checking for obvious cuts or bruises.

  “Did you really swim all that way in the dark?”

  Scott nods.

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “I’m a little fuzzy on details,” Scott tells him.

  The doctor checks his eyes.

  “Hit your head?”

  “I think so. On the plane before we crashed…”

  The penlight blinds him for a moment. The doctor clucks.

  “Eye response looks good. I don’t think you have a concussion.”

  Scott exhales.

  “I don’t think I could have done that—swim all night—with a concussion.”

  The doctor considers this.

  “You’re probably right.”

  As he warms up and his fluids are replaced, things start to come back to Scott, the world at large, the concept of countries and citizens, of daily life, the Internet, television. He thinks of his three-legged dog, staying with a neighbor, how close she came to never eating another under-the-table meatball again. Scott’s eyes fill with tears. He shakes them off.

  “What’s the news saying?” he asks.

  “Not much. They say the plane took off around ten o’clock last night. Air traffic control had it on their radar for maybe fifteen minutes, then it just disappeared. No mayday. Nothing. They were hoping the radio was broken and you made an emergency landing someplace. But then a fishing boat spotted a piece of the wing.”

  For a moment Scott is back in the ocean, treading water in the inky deep, surrounded by orange flames.

  “Any other…survivors?” he asks.

  The doctor shakes his head. He is focused on Scott’s shoulder.

  “Does this hurt,” he says, gently lifting Scott’s arm.

  The pain is instantaneous. Scott yells.

  “Let’s get an X-ray and a CAT scan,” the doctor tells the nurse.

  He turns to Scott.

  “I ordered a CAT scan for the boy too,” he says. “I want to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”

  He lays a hand on Scott’s arm.

  “You saved his life,” he says. “You know that, right?”

  For the second time, Scott fights back tears. He is unable, for a long moment, to say anything.

  “I’m going to call the police,” the doctor tells him. “Let them know you’re here. If you need anything, anything, tell the nurse. I’ll be back to check on you in a few.”

  Scott nods.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  The doctor stares at Scott for a moment longer, then shakes his head.

  “Goddamn,” he says, smiling.

  * * *

  The next hour is filled with tests. Flush with warm fluids, Scott’s body temperature returns to normal. They give him Vicodin for the pain, and he floats for a while in twilight oblivion. It turns out his shoulder is dislocated, not broken. The procedure to pop it back into place is an epic lightning strike of violence followed immediately by a cessation of pain so intense it’s as if the damage has been erased from his body retroactively.

  At Scott’s insistence, they put him in the boy’s room. Normally, children stay in a separate wing, but an exception is made given the circumstances. The boy is awake now, eating Jell-O, when they wheel Scott inside.

  “Any good?” Scott wants to know.

  “Green,” the boy says, frowning.

  Scott’s bed is by the window. He has never felt anything as comfortable as these scratchy hospital sheets. Across the street there are trees and houses. Cars drive past, windshields flashing. In the bike lane, a woman jogs against traffic. In a nearby yard, a man in a blue ball cap push-mows his lawn.

  It seems impossible, but life goes on.

  “You slept, huh?” says Scott.

  The boy shrugs.

  “Is my mommy here yet?” he says.

  Scott tries to keep his face neutral.

  “No,” Scott tells him. “They’ve called your—I guess you have an aunt and uncle in Westchester. They’re on their way.”

  The boy smiles.

  “Ellie,” he says.

  “You like her?”

  “She’s funny,” the boy says.

  “Funny is good,” says Scott, his eyelids fluttering. Exhausted doesn’t describe the kind of heavy-metal gravity pulling at his bones right now. “I’m going to sleep for a bit, if that’s okay.”

  If the boy thinks otherwise, Scott never hears it. He is asleep before the kid can answer.

  * * *

  He sleeps for a while, a dreamless slumber, like a castle dungeon. When he wakes the boy’s bed is empty. Scott panics. He is half out of bed when the bathroom door opens and the boy comes out wheeling his IV stand.

  “I had to tinkle,” he says.

  A nurse comes in to check Scott’s blood pressure. She’s brought a stuffed animal for the boy, a brown bear with a red heart in its paws. He takes it with a happy sound and immediately starts to play.

  “Kids,” the nurse says, shaking her head.

  Scott nods. Now that he’s slept he is anxious to get more details about the crash. He asks the nurse if he can get out of bed. She nods, but tells him not to go far.

  “I’ll be back, buddy, okay?”

  The boy nods, playing with his bear.

  Scott puts a thin cotton robe over his hospital gown and walks his IV stand down the hall to the empty patient lounge. It’s a narrow interior room with particleboard chairs. Scott finds a news channel on TV, turns up the volume.

  “…the plane was an OSPRY, manufactured in Kansas. On board were David Bateman, president of ALC News, and his family. Also confirmed now as passengers are Ben Kipling and his wife, Sarah. Kipling was a senior partner at Wyatt, Hathoway, the financial giant. Again, the plane is believed to have gone down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York sometime after ten p.m. last night.”


  Scott stares at the footage, helicopter shots of gray ocean swells. Coast Guard boats and rubbernecking weekend sailors. Even though he knows the wreckage would have drifted, maybe even a hundred miles by now, he can’t help but think that he was down there not that long ago, an abandoned buoy bobbing in the dark.

  “Reports are coming in now,” says the anchor, “that Ben Kipling may have been under investigation by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and that charges were forthcoming. The scope and source of the investigation aren’t yet clear. More on this story as it develops.”

  A photo of Ben Kipling appears on the screen, younger and with more hair. Scott remembers the eyebrows. He realizes that everyone else on that plane except he and the boy exist now only in the past tense. The thought makes the hair on his neck flutter and stand, and for a moment he thinks he may pass out. Then there is a knock on the door. Scott looks up. He sees a group of men in suits hovering in the hallway.

  “Mr. Burroughs,” says the knocker. He is in his early fifties, an African American man with graying hair.

  “I’m Gus Franklin with the National Transportation Safety Board.”

  Scott starts to stand. A reflex of social protocol.

  “No, please,” says Gus. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  Scott settles back onto the sofa, pulling the cotton robe closed over his legs.

  “I was just—watching it on TV,” he says. “The rescue. Salvage? I’m not sure what to call it. I think I’m still in shock.”

  “Of course,” says Gus. He looks around the small room.

  “Let’s—I’m gonna say four people max in this room,” he tells his cohorts. “Otherwise, it’s gonna get a little claustrophobic.”

  There is a quick conference. Ultimately, they agree on six, Gus and two others (one man and one woman) in the room; two more in the doorway. Gus sits beside Scott on the sofa. The woman is to the left of the television. A trim, bearded man to her right. They are, for want of a better word, nerds. The woman has a ponytail and glasses. The man sports an eight-dollar haircut and a JCPenney suit. The two men in the doorway are more serious, well dressed, military haircuts.

  “As I said,” says Gus, “I’m with the NTSB. Leslie’s with the FAA and Frank is with OSPRY. And in the doorway is Special Agent O’Brien from the FBI and Barry Hex from the Treasury’s OFAC.”