And the water’s not exactly bathtub-warm, combined with the wind and rain. Fortunately, it’s not as cold as I first thought it was.
Wind whips around us, rain intermittently pelts us, and I take a moment to reflect.
There should be people streaming out of the exit, and they aren’t. It’s impossible to see through the windows as dark as it is inside the plane.
Carter would, no doubt, be grabbing people and tossing them out the doors and charging back inside the cabin to help even more. I did nothing but make a mad, nearly panicked scramble to get out.
Sure, I dragged Connie with me, but only because I knew if I didn’t she would have sat there and drowned, and I couldn’t have dealt with that guilt.
Mike’s gone. I hate thinking like a cold-hearted bitch, but I know he loved his wife. He wouldn’t want her to lose her life over his corpse. They have two married adult sons, grandchildren, a loving extended family.
Losing Mike will be hard enough on them. I can’t imagine looking them in the eyes and not being able to honestly tell them I did everything possible to help save Connie.
If I even make it.
I rummage through the first-aid kit and pull out four of the five silver emergency blankets packed inside. They won’t really keep us warm, but they’ll keep the rain off us and maybe allow us a chance to warm up a little. I hand two over to the other women before I wrap one around Connie. Then I pull my left arm out of the sleeve of my soggy sweater, zip my purse, hang the body strap crossways over me, pull my sweater back on, and wrap my emergency blanket around me with my purse in my lap and covered by the blanket and sweater.
I have my reasons.
Mainly, those reasons being the dozen or so precious small bottles of water securely zipped inside. There’s a small emergency kit attached to the inside of the raft with a couple of bottles of water in it, along with another life vest the guy missing his can wear, but no telling how long this ordeal will last.
I don’t know how many people this raft can hold, but by the time the plane really flounders and it’s obvious it’s going under, there are only nine total in our raft—five women and four men. The line tethering us to the aircraft is about thirty feet long, putting us now well past the end of the inflated slide.
The slide on the starboard side gets cut loose by one of the flight attendants, who jumps on to it.
No one emerges from behind her.
The wind and current quickly push the slide away from the fuselage, and the raft, before we can help the people on it into the raft. Three men and two women, including the flight attendant, are clinging to it, and there’s no way we’ll be able to catch up to it. Two of the men in our raft desperately work to untie us so we can paddle away from the aircraft.
I try to look around, to spot the other rafts, but the one from the front entrance on the starboard side isn’t visible. Either they’ve already cut loose and drifted away from the aircraft in the rough seas, or maybe the rafts didn’t deploy, or were somehow damaged when we ditched. I can’t even see the front slides now.
There are several small oars in the raft. Once we’re clear of the tail section, the men manning them try to paddle us around to the other raft, but it’s no use. Between the wind and the waves, we’ll never be able to make it to them, either. It looks like maybe fourteen or fifteen people on that raft, and only one person, a flight attendant, on the second slide, which is also adrift now.
I wonder how many states will be planning multiple state funerals. Several governors and lieutenant governors just died, along with other state officials.
Spouses.
Hopefully I won’t be adding to that number.
I wonder what Carter would arrange for mine, how Daddy would probably fight him and Owen every step of the way.
I wonder if the tragedy of losing his best friend’s wife like this will help sweep Owen into a landslide re-election.
I can’t help the grim smile at that thought. If nothing else, maybe my death can ensure our legacy lives another four years.
I can only hope.
When one’s adrift in rough, open seas in a goddamned life raft, one is allowed to reflect like that without feeling guilty about it.
* * * *
It’s been maybe ten minutes since we cut loose from the plane, even though it feels like ten hours already.
But, for now, we’re alive.
The men manning the paddles have given up trying to catch up with the people on either aft slide, or the aft life raft. We have some flares and other emergency supplies that I didn’t spot earlier, and five other rescue packs, in addition to what Connie and I grabbed and brought with us.
No one’s talking, although two of the women and two of the men are sobbing as we watch the fuselage take on water and begin its final descent. Connie’s back is to it. That’s probably for the best, because I watch through the wound in the starboard side of the plane as Mike’s body sinks with the aircraft.
