I helped her out.
The night air moved her hair. The blindfold rode dark across her eyes. The smell of the harbor was right there—salt and creosote and the cold of January over open water. Somewhere off in the dark, I could hear the low rumble of a turbine winding up.
I turned her gently to face the field.
I untied the silk.
I let it slip down into my hand.
She blinked. Her eyes adjusted to the dark.
There was a single helicopter on the grass, lit underneath by its own running lights. Sleek, black, ours. A Bell I recognized from a different life, of a model Dominion Hall apparently kept in the kind of quiet readiness. The pilot was in the left seat with his hand on the cyclic, watching me through the canopy, waiting for the nod.
Rebecca made a small sound.
"Tommy?"
"Yeah."
"Is that?—"
"Yeah."
"For us?"
"For us."
She stood there. Her hand had found mine again somewhere in the last second and squeezed.
"I want to show you something I love," I said. "Something about my life I've never shared with anyone."
She turned and looked at me.
She didn't speak.
I watched her work it out. Watched her run an inventory of her own fears—heights, small spaces, the dark, the unknown—and weigh them against me and against the silk that had been around her eyes a minute ago and theyesshe'd given me, and watched her decide.
She nodded.
She squeezed my hand harder.
"Okay," she said.
I nodded once at the pilot. He flicked something on the panel. The turbine wound up.
I led her across the grass.
We climbed in. She greeted the pilot with a politehello, sir,leaning forward enough to peek at the lit-up controls, the curiosity briefly outpacing the nerves, and I loved her for that,just exactly,in real time, the way she found her interest faster than her fear.
I belted her in. Showed her the headphones. Slid mine on. Tested the channel.
"You hear me?"
"I hear you."
"Good."
I gave the pilot the go.
