My sister is missing.
I am in Atlanta airport, sitting at the bar of a Starbucks in the Food court. I have a lukewarm pint of coffee, and my mother is on the phone. I’m conscious that if she keeps talking, I’m going to have to charge my phone so that it will last me the rest of the journey.
It has always been like this. My sister will slip away, out of my mother’s sight, and Mam will think she’s missing. There will be phone calls. Long phone calls, while my mother goes over her full day’s movements, the times she has last seen my sister.
My sister, Cait, will re-appear a day or two later, hungover, in strange clothes. She never talks about where she goes. She just walks into the kitchen, and makes two cups of tea, Mam will cry and scream, and ask why she does this to her. Cait never says anything. She just puts one of the cups of tea in front of Mam, and drinks her own.
Cait lives at home. She works irregular shifts in a garden centre. She runs in the mornings, buys fruit from the greengrocer near my parents house, then sits online for the day. We don’t look like brother and sister. She is tanned and sinewy, an elaborate tattoo of flowers and birds climbing up one arm. I run to fat, permanently pale, with deep, blue bags under my eyes. She doesn’t smile, except at animals and babies. I’ve been told i giggle like a schoolgirl.
I know she’s ok. In the cold war, the Americans kept one aeroplane permanently in the air, over Thule in Greenland. This plane circled one specific radar station. The Russians couldn’t mount an attack without first destroying this radar station. If it looked like war, the Americans would get on the radio. If the plane was still in the air, and radar station was in its usual spot, then they held off on armageddon. The plane was called the Thule Monitor.
Genevieve is my Thule Monitor. Genevieve is a stuffed cat, a ragged baby toy. There are the traces of scorchmarks on Genevieve’s leg. While Genevieve is still in the house, I’m confident that we’re at most 48 hours away from more tea & hysterics. When Cait leaves for good, and she will, herself and Genevieve will walk out the door together.
Today is not that day - the first thing I asked Mam to do was to check her room, and to describe her desk. Genevieve is in her usual spot. Right now, I’m only worrying about the battery on my phone, and how to while away the next three hours in Atlanta.
* * * * *
Cait came into our lives with a silver twinkle in a pure blue sky. Dad had taken myself and Mam to Ardgillan park for a picnic. I remember this in colours. There was a field, glossy green grass - out to the horizon. Dad, in his grey t-shirt and jeans, was kicking the white ball.
We were on our own, the three of us. Then there was that glint in the sky. Dad was teaching me about airlines. He asked me what it was. I saw the red tail, and the white body - Qantas! He laughed, and rubbed my head - asked me where it was from. I knew Qantas were from Australia.
Dad kept watching the plane. I kicked the ball to him, but he wasn’t looking at it. The plane was getting bigger. There wasn’t any noise, either - there normally is with jets. The plane looked like it was turning. It was very low.
Dad picked me up. He grabbed me underneath my arms, so fast it hurt. Then he started running, and shouting at Mam. He was telling her to run, and he was running. He forgot the ball - I kept trying to tell him, but he kept running. He ran until he found a little stream, in a ditch. He threw me into the ditch, and jumped in with me. He pulled Mam into the ditch as well. I kept trying to look up, but he kept holding me in the ditch.
My feet were wet, and I looked up. The Qantas plane was so close. It flew right over our hiding place. Then it crashed, and there was a huge noise, and it started to get very hot. Dad pushed mam and I down, into the water. He told me to keep my head out of the water, but to keep everything else in the water. He said he was going to see if anyone needed help. Mam tried to stop him, but he told her to mind me.
It got dark, with all the smoke. Dad was gone for a long time. He came back, wild-eyed and covered in black. he jumped in the stream, and splashed water on his face, kissed me on th head, and ran back. When he came back the second time, he had a baby with him, crying and holding onto a raggedy, scorched stuffed cat. He was covered in blood. He handed her to Mam, and ran back over the ditch. He said there were more.
There weren’t. We waited. Hours later, the firemen found the three of us. They pulled us out of the ditch. They gave us blankets, and sat us in an Ambulance. No one asked us our names. We walked past rows of bodies. Mam started shouting about Dad. They found his body. He had managed to get into the cabin. He was killed when one of the fuel tanks exploded. Mam screamed when she heard that.
While we were waiting in the ditch, the baby dropped the raggedy stuffed cat. I held onto it. That night, when Cait was asleep in our house for the first time, I put it on the pillow beside her.
While the plane stays in the air and while Genevieve is still in her usual spot, we can hold off on armageddon.
