is a big city but a small town, one where the degrees of separation tend to be short. The chance that someone here is connected in some way to one of the victims isn’t small. I suppose the best thing I can hope for is that it’s not a family member or close friend.
“The students are anxious,” Ted says. “Understandably so, of course, but I don’t think we’ll get any classroom work done today. With your help, though, I’d like to turn this tragedy into a different kind of learning opportunity for everyone. Create a safe place for our students to talk about what happened and to ask questions. And if Miss Campbell here is correct, that someone at Lake Forrest lost a loved one in the crash, we’ll already be in place to provide whatever moral support they need.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“Excellent. I’m glad you’re on board. I’ll call a town hall meeting in the auditorium, and you and I will tag-team the discussion.”
“Of course. Just give me a minute or two to pull myself together, and I’ll be right there.”
Ted raps a knuckle on the door and hustles off. With lit class officially canceled, Ava picks up her backpack, rifling through it for a few seconds while I dig a compact out of my desk drawer.
“Here,” she says, dumping a fistful of designer makeup tubes onto my desk. Chanel, Nars, YSL, Mac. “No offense, but you look like you need them way more than I do.” She softens her words with a blinding smile.
“Thanks, Ava. But I have my own makeup.”
But Ava doesn’t pick up the tubes. She shifts from foot to foot, one hand wringing the strap of her backpack. She bites her lip and glances at her oxford shoes, and I think under all that bluster and bravado, she might actually be shy. “I’m really glad it wasn’t your husband’s plane.”
The relief this time is a slow build, wrapping me in warmth like Will’s sleeping body did just this morning. It settles over me like sunshine on naked skin. “Me, too.”
As soon as she’s gone, I reach for my phone, pulling up the number for Will’s cell. I know he can’t pick up for another hour or so, but I need to hear his voice, even if it’s only a recording. My muscles unwind at the smooth, familiar sound.
This is Will Griffith’s voice mail...
I wait for the beep, sinking back in my chair.
“Hey, babe, it’s me. I know you’re still in the air, but a plane just crashed after taking off from Hartsfield, and for about fifteen terrifying seconds I thought it might have been yours, and I just needed to...I don’t know, hear for myself that you’re okay. I know it’s silly, but call me as soon as you land, okay? The kids are kind of freaked, so I’ll be in a town hall, but I promise I’ll pick up. Okay, gotta run, but talk to you soon. You’re my very favorite person, and I miss you already.”
I drop my phone into my pocket and head for the door, leaving Ava’s makeup where she dumped it, in a pile on my desk.
Seated next to me on the auditorium stage, Ted smooths a hand down his tie and speaks to the room filled with high-schoolers. “As you all know, Liberty Air Flight 23 traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Seattle, Washington, crashed a little over an hour ago. All 179 passengers are presumed dead. Men, women and children, people just like you and me. I’ve called us here so we can talk about it as a group, openly and honestly and without judgment. Tragedies like this one can make us all too aware of the dangers in our world. Of our own vulnerabilities, of just how fragile life can be. This room is a safe space for us to ask questions and cry and whatever else you need to do to process. Let us all agree that what happens in this auditorium stays in this auditorium.”
Any other head of high school would hold a school-wide moment of silence and tell the kids to get back to work. Ted knows that for teenagers, catastrophe takes precedence over calculus any day, and it’s because he sees everything, good or bad, as a learning opportunity that the students follow him without question.
I look out over the three hundred or so kids that make up Lake Forrest’s high-school student body, and as far as I can tell, they’re split pretty solidly down the middle—half the students are freaked by the images of an airplane filled with their maybe-neighbors falling from the sky, the other half giddy at an entire afternoon of canceled classes. Their excited chatter echoes through the cavernous space.
One girl’s voice rises to the top. “So this is kind of like group therapy?”
“Well...” Ted sends me a questioning look, and I dip my head in a nod. If there’s one realm Lake Forrest students feel comfortable navigating, it’s therapy, group or otherwise. Ours are the type of kids who have their therapists’ cells on speed dial. “Yes. Exactly like group therapy.”
Now that they know what’s coming, the students seem to relax, crossing their arms and slumping back into their plush seats.
“I heard it was terrorists,” someone calls out from the back of the auditorium. “That ISIS has already come out and said they did it.”
Jonathan Vanderbeek, a senior about to graduate by the skin of his teeth, twists around in his front-row seat. “Who told you that, Sarah Palin?”
“Kylie Jenner just re-Tweeted it.”
“Brilliant,” Jonathan says, snorting. “Because the Kardashians are experts when it comes to our nation’s security.”
“Okay, okay,” Ted says, calling everyone back to order with a few taps to the microphone. “Let’s not escalate the situation by repeating rumors and conjecture. Now, I’ve been watching the news carefully, and beyond the fact that a plane crashed, there really is no news. Nobody has said why the plane crashed, or who was on it when it did. Not until they’ve contacted the next of kin.” His last three words—next of kin—hit the room like a firebomb. They hang in the air, hot and heavy, for a second or two. “And moving forward, let’s all agree that there are more credible news sources than Twitter, shall we?”
A snicker comes from the front row.
Ted shakes his head in silent reprimand. “Now, Mrs. Griffith has a few things she’d like to say, and then she’ll be leading us in a discussion. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the CNN website on my laptop, and as soon as the airline releases any new information, I’ll pause the conversation and read it aloud so we’ll all have the same up-to-date information. Does that sound like a good plan?”
Nods all around. Ted passes me the mic.
* * *
I wish I could say I spent the next few hours staring at my phone, watching for Will’s call, but at seventy-six minutes postcrash, only ten minutes into our discussion and a good fifteen before the airline was scheduled to make its first official statement, CNN reports that the Wells Academy high-school lacrosse team, all sixteen of them and their coaches, were among the 179 victims. Apparently, they were on their way to a mid-season tournament.
“Omigod. How can that be? We just played them last week.”
“Last week, you idiot. You just said so yourself. Which means they had plenty of time between then and this morning to get on a plane.”
“You’re
