The Variables

Hank had called it. They propelled through the air at breakneck speeds before reaching cruising altitude. The group had scattered around the small plane: Grant and Dean sat in the back, sitting next to each other but not talking. Occasionally, Dean would reach over and mess up Grant’s hair and smile. As a reply, Grant would smooth it back in place and smile back.

Ainsley flipped through a dated inflight magazine with deliberate and apathetic flicks of the wrist before falling asleep stretched along a row of seats.

Darla sat and looked out the window to the world below. Her last plane ride, her wife had been by her side. They had been trying to entertain Teddy, letting him unwrap a new coloring book and crayons as a treat. When they landed in Portland, the world was going crazy and people were dying, she was worried. But she didn’t know that soon the virus would take one of the most important people from her life in an instant. She didn’t worry about falling in love again some day; she had no intention of letting another person slip into her life. She was still married. She was still in love. Her family might be broken, but she wouldn’t let it beat her. Only Teddy mattered now.

If it hadn’t been for Ethan, she and Teddy would be dead, too. That powerful realization was enough to keep her awake at night.

Sometimes she wondered if she made the right decision.

Survival was a powerful instinct and the desire to live and fight took over without much forethought. Ethan offered her life and she took it, not understanding what that life would look like.

From the front of the plane, Blair emerged, and she sca

“May I sit?” Blair asked and pointed to the seat on the aisle.

Darla motioned that it was okay.

Blair sighed and leaned her head back. The plane caught a bit of turbulence and the cabin jerked for a second before settling back into smoothness.

“How is everyone?” Blair asked.

Darla shrugged. “Tired. Good. A bit wary.”

“Wary?”

“They just want to make sure that the plane lands...and that the pilot upholds his end of the bargain. Our lives depend on it.”

“He will,” Blair said with a defensive tic.

“Look, it’s none of my business, but—” Darla said, shifting her body against the window so she could look at Blair without turning.

“Oh, please.” Blair didn’t move. She waved Darla away. “You don’t know me, but I’d prefer if you spent at least an evening in my presence before assuming that the only thing of value I have to offer anyone is my body.”

“Fair enough,” Darla said. And then after a moment, “But you’re confident? That’s he’s trustworthy.”

“Do you think I’m trustworthy?”

“Grant vouched for you. So, I’m trusting you. I didn’t say it was easy.”

Blair didn’t answer right away. And when she did, she changed the subject. “My brother and I never married. Neither of us,” Blair said. It was such a non-sequitur comment, but Darla didn’t push back. She just kept looking at the woman sitting next to her, watching the way she let her long legs drift out into the aisle of the airplane, and the way she kept tucking a wisp of hair back behind her ear. Blair didn’t look right at Darla as she spoke; she let her eyes settle on the seat in front of her, and she picked at a sticker on the upright tray table. “You see...how do you do that? Invite someone into your life and fall in love with them and then say...I have this secret.”

“We all have secrets,” Darla interjected. She knew as she said it out loud that it wasn’t the same.

“Oh, yes. Normal secrets. But my family didn’t have normal secrets...we had secrets that came equipped with clauses. Secrets that could kill you. My father would not have hesitated to dispatch his men if he thought I had compromised any part of his plan. He’s not loyal, my father. That’s the scary part. My brother and I just knew from early on that we wouldn’t get to live out an ordinary life.” Blair unhooked and hooked the tray table. She drummed her fingers on the armrest. When she finally looked at Darla, the dark circles under her eyes were prominent. She let all her sadness seep through. “And now the world is gone...and what hope do I have now? It wasn’t unreasonable to want to be a part of something outside of myself. Everyone else had families. And I was alone. He was alone, too. We were both broken...it wasn’t unreasonable for me to think that we could be good for each other.”

“I’m not following,” Darla said. She tucked her legs up under her.

“Teddy.”

It took Darla a second to respond. “My Teddy.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“My Teddy?”

“I looked at him and saw a boy without a mother.”

Darla was quiet. She looked down at the blue and gray patterned carpet in the middle of the plane.

“We had that in common. It was something I could understand. I’ve spent my entire life trying to understand how a woman can bring you into the world and then forget you existed. You don’t recover from that, you know. I wanted to tell Teddy that his mother didn’t have a choice...that she didn’t leave him. It may sound ridiculous, but I thought that maybe if he knew the truth, then he’d have a chance to be normal.”

“Because your mom left you?” Darla asked.

The question hung in the air and Blair batted it away. “I don’t need to indulge in a therapy session about my childhood.”

“I’m just trying to under—”

Blair sighed and then stood up; Darla wanted to reach out to her, but she restrained herself. “It seems stupid to you. That I attached myself to a kid that’s not mine. I shouldn’t have said anything. Shouldn’t have told you. But I didn’t know you were alive...and it changes everything...don’t you see? And now...”

“Sit back down,” Darla said softly and she pointed to the seat, but Blair ignored her. “I’ll even say please, if you need me to.”

She had started to cry. “What do I do now? It feels like such a loss.” She wiped away her tears and then looked at her wet hands with frustration. “When do I get to keep anyone that matters to me? Why is that too much to ask? So stupid. So stupid.” Her eyes were pleading. “How can I be so angry that you exist and yet so relieved that you are alive at the same time?”

The statement hit Darla like a sucker-punch, and she stared up at the woman whose love for Teddy was laid bare. She had thought of Teddy every waking hour since he had been taken from her; she had imagined his tears, his cries, and his calls out to her. It was the Teddy shaped hole in her own heart that hurt the most, and Darla had not for a second contemplated that anyone else could love him the way she did.

“Saving me cost you more than I realized,” Darla said to her. She rubbed her eyes as the plane bounced. “Blair...thank you. I can’t repay you.”

“No, maybe not.” The plane jolted again and Blair held on to the back of the seat to catch her balance. “But it’s not about me anymore. It’s so much bigger than me. I want to help you because Teddy deserves his mother...not some substitute. I want to keep him, Darla. But I can’t. Now that I know everything you did to get back to him...I can’t.”

A small ding-dong interrupted them.

Hank’s voice came over the speaker, “Alright y’all, we’ll be landing shortly and...as the last plane to arrive my margin for error is small. If I miss it, I’ll take another go. But let’s just buckle ourselves up. Bumpy doesn’t begin to describe what’s coming.”

Hank dropped the plane down on to the Maine coastline and hit the small runway on the first try. From Darla’s vantage point, she could see the lights of a city out at sea as they came in from the south. She couldn’t help but gasp. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. A tower grew upward to the sky and five arms stretched outward to other mini towers. Off of those towers were smaller structures and mounds, and the whole thing seemed to float above the water. It was lit up against the backdrop of the horizon with thousands of tiny white lights. That was what they were up against—a fortified city on the ocean.