Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 1: Irony and Dignity-2

“Nor do I,” said the woman. “Please just take care of yourself.”

My eyes widened. “I don’t…”

“No sonny, you listen. We refuse to get between any of these young people around us and that exit. We wouldn’t last two minutes in the water if that’s where we end up anyway, so it wouldn’t make any sense.” He lifted his hand off my knee and pointed at my face. “Promise me right now that you won’t hold back to help us. I want your word on that.”

I hated the thought of not helping people who might need assistance, but I also understood their argument, which went back to my earlier concern about dying with dignity. The woman dipped her head in agreement with her husband’s words. They had the right to make that choice for themselves. I gulped, then nodded.

“Say it,” he insisted.

I took a deep breath before answering. “Okay. I promise.”

“Good man,” he said, then relaxed into his seat and took his wife’s hand in his. I saw him give her hand a squeeze as they both closed their eyes.

I closed my eyes again, too, and tried to shut out the noise, and regulate my breathing. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. There wasn’t anything I could do to change it, so I went back to thinking of Sam in an attempt to remain composed. I figured my odds of survival were no longer as completely non-existent as they’d been minutes ago, but they were still stacked against me, and dammit, I was going to die with dignity.

I mentally reviewed my life with Sam and renewed my sad attempts at telepathy, sending out apologies for things I regretted and would likely never be able to correct or tell him in person. I sent out more declarations of love, and I thought again about how Sam had been looking over my shoulder when I’d made my seat selection and had pointed out the seat I now found myself sitting in. It occurred to me that it was possible in these unique circumstances that his phobia would actually save my life.

Probably not. Most likely the impact when we ditched would kill us all, but I couldn’t help myself from picturing the possibility.

I wondered what time it was and how near or far we were to land. How long had we been rattling our way across the ocean at this lower elevation? I didn’t wear a watch because I always had my mobile phone with me and could look at it for the time. Except that mobile phone was in my carry-on pack in the overhead, so maybe “always” wasn’t quite the correct word after all.

I opened my eyes and dared to look out the window. It was raining. Lightening flashed and I saw how close we were to the water. “Scary close” was the answer to that question. I still had no idea how near we were to land, but figured the odds of a water landing—or ditch—were much greater. The way the plane rattled and shook, it had to be incredibly crippled.

Were we still on the original flight path? We’d definitely been angling to the right during that steep dive, and I didn’t know if the pilot had been able to adjust his course after pulling out of it.

My sense of time was screwed up so I also had no idea how long we’d been traveling in this new direction. Was the radio working? The overhead speakers weren’t. There’d been bangs from the front as well as the back. I was by no means an expert, but that seemed to me to indicate foul play, and radios might very well have been a target to add mystery to the plane’s demise.

I didn’t get the opportunity to dwell on this because the plane dropped low enough that it began skimming the water. Whatever was going to happen, was happening right now. The flight attendants yelled out for us to brace for impact.

I closed my eyes and put my head down and protected it with my arms. The next moments were incredibly jarring. I bounced around in my seat to the extent that my seatbelt allowed. The screams renewed. My teeth clenched so I wouldn’t contribute. Stuff—luggage from the failing overhead bins and who knew what else—flew around, hitting people. I was hit several times.

The sudden stop was just as jarring as the bouncing landing had been. It was also loud, with a horrible groaning and screeching noise coming from the front of the plane, followed quickly by rising water coming from that same direction.

I didn’t remember removing my seatbelt, but I found myself standing in the aisle surrounded by a crush of bodies pushing toward the exit on the right, because the plane was listing to the left as well as to the front. The man I’d imagined to be a vacationing college student was thankfully quite efficient at opening the emergency door. After stepping out, he reached back over and over to pull people out.

I watched as people tried to make their way up the wing, but slipped and fell off prematurely. Hopefully my no-skid boat shoes would help me make it to the end of the wing if I made it out. No, when I made it out. Despite the quickly rising water, it had become a very real possibility with only three people still ahead of me.

The opinions of the geniuses at MythBusters notwithstanding (considering their experiment was with a fairly small boat), I knew there were a number of forces and influences coming into play when a large object such as a ship or commercial airliner sank, causing a violent turbulent mixing in the water. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that. Not to mention that anything floatable that might come up with force, or parts that might fall off, could cause me serious injury. So I considered making it to the end of the wing before jumping off to be important to my potential survival.

Water covered my feet and was rising fast. It was almost up to the bottom of the door outside on the wing. Once it breached that door it would be essentially over for anybody still inside the plane except at the tail section exit doors. My entire body vibrated, and my teeth chattered despite the warm night air. Hurry, people, hurry!

A man and a woman were ahead of me, the man was in the process of exiting. To my left, a screaming baby moved toward me from the waterlogged front section, mosh-pit style. As I stepped into place behind the woman currently exiting, the baby was thrust into my arms.

I was the end of the road for the baby. There was no one for me to pass it on to. Ironic, considering that one of the mental apologies I’d just made to Sam was regarding my resistance to his recent hints that he’d like to adopt kids.

I held the baby—I think he qualified as an older baby as opposed to a toddler, but it was probably a close call—against my chest, and he wrapped his arms tightly around my neck while he continued wailing in my ear. As we pushed out the exit door, water started to come over the lower lip. The “college kid” grabbed my arm with a strong grip and hauled us through.

“Hurry!” he yelled.

I did. I cleared out of the doorway as fast as I could because I knew only one, maybe two more would make it through after me. I didn’t want to think about what was going on behind me as I worked my way up the wing. That part was a little slower going since I was holding that baby, which affected my balance. The angle of the wing was also rising, but was still doable. It was going to be almost like leaping off a standard high-dive if I made it to the end.

My slower pace up the wing allowed the “college kid” to catch up to me. Apparently no one else was going to make it out that door, so he was free to abandon his duties as an exit-row passenger. I had to commend him for hanging in there to help haul people out. I’m certain it sped up the process and saved at least a couple lives, maybe my own.

The “lesbians” had stuck around, too, forming a short chain to pull people partway up the wing as they exited, until a man had slipped, and the three of them had fallen together into the water below.

The “college kid” now hauled the “businessman” who’d been sitting across from me—evidently the final passenger out that exit—along by the arm. With those slick-soled business shoes, he’d never have made it up the wing otherwise. He had trouble with his feet sliding even with the younger man’s help. I shifted the baby to my right side and held him tighter with that arm. The kid had a hell of a grip around my neck with his fists tangled in the hair at the back of my head. There was no way he was letting go or falling off me, so I felt like I could spare my left arm to grab the businessman’s other arm. Between the three of us we were pretty stable as we climbed to the end of the wing. A flash of lightening lit the sky as we approached the top, and I spied a small island in the distance at the ten o’clock position when facing straight out from the wing.

“Running leap,” I yelled. “We want to get out and away.”

They apparently agreed since they both sped up. As we leapt off the end of the wing, I retrieved my hand from the businessman’s arm to protect the kid’s head by holding it against me. I also did my best to lean so my body, not the baby’s, would take the force of the landing in the water. I held his face against my neck as we went under and hoped he’d know enough not to breathe.

We came up sputtering, and the baby was finally shocked into silence. He didn’t appear to have actually sucked in any water while we were under, and he took deep gasping breaths.

I continued to hold the kid with both arms, moving him higher up on my body so both our heads would be at the same level out of the water. I kicked backward toward the other two men. They each grabbed one of my arms and continued to hold each other so we formed a little circle. Between the noises of the airplane sinking, the storm, and the waves, communication was difficult.

“Did you see the island?” the “businessman” shouted.

“Yes,” I hollered back, and the “college kid” pointed toward where it had been. I got a sense of which direction the current was flowing and hollered again to explain. “We need to swim that way, across the current.” I c****d my head to the right of where the island was located.

“But it’s that way,” the “college kid” yelled, thrusting his index finger directly toward the island again.

“We have to factor in the current,” I shouted back. “It’ll take us past the island if we don’t. We won’t have enough energy left to make progress against the current once it does.”

“He’s right,” yelled the “businessman.” He turned to me. “Are you sure about the direction of the current?”

“Yes! I spend a lot of time in the ocean with my work.”

He nodded, satisfied with my answer. The “college kid” did, too, although he seemed less convinced.

The “businessman” pulled the cord on his life vest and it inflated with force. The “college kid” did the same. I looked at them and knew I’d never be able to hold onto the baby with any kind of secure grip if I inflated my own. Those things were incredibly bulky, bulging way out in front of them.

My jeans weighed me down, and I decided I should take them off to improve my chances of making it to that island. The time spent shedding the weight and drag would be worth it even though the current would pull us while doing so. The other two also saw the wisdom of kicking off shoes and heavy pants without it having to be said. The “businessman” had apparently removed his jacket on the plane since I didn’t see it underneath his life vest. I was only able to lean back and get myself unbuttoned and unzipped one-handed, and needed their help pulling them down my legs.

The sounds behind me changed, and when I dared to turn for another look at the plane, I saw it was almost gone. Anyone who was going to escape was already in the water, and I didn’t see nearly as many as I expected. No one else was close to us and those we saw were now down-current from our location. We would jeopardize our chances if we swam in their direction, so we limited ourselves to shouting.

We all shouted and pointed. “There’s an island! We saw an island over there! You have to swim this way across the current!”

Satisfied that we’d done all we could, and seeing the others start swimming in that direction, we did the same.

“Lean back,” instructed the “college kid.” “Straighten out and kick and we’ll pull you and the kid.”

If we made it to the island, I would owe my life to these two men, because without their help I didn’t think I would make it. I was pretty sure I could have done it solo, but I was holding that baby, and despite my vague aversion to the younger generation, I would never be capable of just letting the kid sink to save myself. Apparently the two men had a similar moral compass.

They each grabbed me under an arm and pulled backward through the water with their remaining arm. We kicked for all we were worth.

I kept the baby’s head out of the water, putting us face to face. His death grip moved to my hair instead of around my neck, and I tried to remain in the most aerodynamic position I could manage.

I have no idea how long we were in the water struggling toward that island. My best guess was forever. It certainly seemed that way, but realistically it was probably between one and two hours, considering the distance.

I held the kid tightly and patted his back as I forced myself to keep kicking. “Hang in there, Buddy,” I murmured. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I didn’t want this poor baby to drown. He hadn’t even had a chance at life yet. We’d been fortunate enough to be four of only a couple dozen people to make it off that plane. I wasn’t going to f**k up our chances by giving up because my legs were spent. I sure as hell didn’t want to die yet, and I didn’t want to put Sam through the pain of losing me so early.

The rain stopped as we got close. We’d managed to get across the current ahead of schedule, barely, and were able to ride it in to the beach. Fate was on our side for our landing because coral was not a problem on the path we rode in to the island. Perhaps the high tide kept us elevated enough above it. Whatever the reason, I was thankful, because otherwise our rough landing would likely have caused injury, and even simple infections in these conditions could ultimately be fatal if we weren’t rescued quickly enough. Landing was difficult enough managing with jelly legs and a baby, without dealing with coral, as well.

My two helpers crawled up the beach, half-dragging me as I propelled myself by pushing off with my legs. We lay there gasping for a minute before our shaking from shock forced us to take action.

One doesn’t typically imagine being cold when thinking of South Pacific islands, and it usually isn’t. But in June, depending on where we were, the ocean temperature could be anywhere from the mid-to-upper-seventies, to the mid-eighties, Fahrenheit. It had felt like the warmer end of that scale when we’d first jumped into the water. The temperature of the night air on the Solomon Islands would typically drop to the low to mid-seventies at night this time of year. On the southern Cook Islands, it would be closer to the upper-sixties on average.

I wasn’t sure where the hell we were; all I knew was my teeth were chattering like we were in the Arctic rather than the tropics. I think it was the shock of our experience rather than the actual temperatures of the water and air causing it, but the result was the same either way.

“C…c…can’t keep these wet c…c…clothes on,” said the “businessman.” “It’ll k…k…kill us.” He sat up and wrestled off the life vest. Then he tried to unbutton his shirt, but eventually gave up and just tore it open and pulled it off.

The “college kid” and I pushed ourselves to do the same. “It’ll kill us” might have been a slight exaggeration, but the poor baby was shivering and whimpering. I peeled off his drenched clothing and sodden diaper, then my own shirt went the way of the “businessman’s.” Buttons were just too difficult to deal with. We took everything off and tossed it into a pile.

I rubbed the poor shivering kid and held him to my chest as we all huddled together. The little guy produced a soft noise that was a cross between a hiccup and a sob, breaking my heart, before finally succumbing. We fell into an exhausted sleep, our bodies in a collective tangle striving for elusive warmth.