CHAPTER 30

He stared at my closet door of research.

All the little bullet points of facts and data. Missing things and found things and miracles and randomness.

My maps of East Texas.

The dots I’d placed at the NTSB search areas. The debris fields. The definitions of wind speed. Pictures of American burial flags and photos of our downed plane. My dry-erase board with my still-unsolved science project hypothesis. All my notes in a neat pile on my desk. I tried to look at the door the way a stranger might look at it.

Viewed from that perspective, it only looked like a mess of papers and tape.

So any words to describe my project had to be carefully selected.

“Hi, Grandpa” was my carefully selected response. Not the best selection of words, mind you, but the only ones I could get out.

“Wayne.”

A long, awkward silence. The kind I wanted to fill with a fact or even a statement about the weather.

“So, what are you doing in here?”

“Well, I found this on the computer printer and thought I’d bring it to you,” Grandpa said.

He handed me a single sheet of paper. It was a list of medical miracles.

DATA

List of Medical Miracles

Two-year-old boy with cancerous tumor near spine. Day before his surgery, doctors find the tumor has vanished.

Man injured in car accident wakes up from coma ten minutes before life support was to be turned off. One week later, says his first words to parents: “I love you.”

An Irish woman with terminal cancer in her kidneys baffles doctors after her scans and X-rays show the tumors have disappeared, possibly attributed to her own immune system and fervent prayers.

My throat cracked.

“Tell me what we’re looking at here,” he said, gesturing to the closet door.

I took a deep breath. “These are maps of East Texas. The red dots show where the NTSB has searched, and the yellow pins show where someone found a piece of the wreckage.”

“And the area circled in pencil?”

“Caddo Lake State Park. The area no one has searched because it’s too far east and out of the estimated debris field. But look at this.”

I showed him the video about Nelda White’s found tree skirt.

“Heavier objects were thrown from the plane, and the pull of gravity allowed them to land at a distance of about 17 miles from the crash site. My theory is that, with winds reported at fifty-plus miles per hour on the crash date, a four-pound, five-by-nine-and-a-half-feet cotton US burial flag might have taken on kite-like qualities and gone aloft farther east. Nelda White, the woman in 14A who sat next to us? The tree skirt and the flag went out of the plane simultaneously. They must have landed near each other.”

“Quite a theory.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s just stand here and have a good, long look.”

I didn’t so much study the data as wait him out. He might compliment me or he might make fun of me. It could go either way.

“The weather forecast for this week is clear. Good driving weather, in fact. Good week for a road trip.”

Grandpa’s voice was as clear and confident as ever. His don’t argue with me voice. His healthy, precancer voice. Still, I didn’t know if he was serious. One thing I learned from having lost my voice was this: I’d made my voice say and do things that didn’t match my mind. A lot. Lots of times when I’d uttered facts, my voice sounded more confident. Like the voice of another person.

“Your face is a question mark, son,” Grandpa said.

“But… the liver?”

“Remember how I told you about Henry Dalton, who fought in the Revolutionary War? He died on the steps of his home. Got all the way home on foot after a long fight on the battlefield.”

Mom walked in. “What’s going on?”

“Planning a road trip,” Grandpa said.

“What? A road trip?” she said.

Okay, I admit I was giddy. Happy. I’d been hoping for a chance to go east and explore areas even the NTSB and Liz Delaney hadn’t considered.

So I said to her, “Mom! We’re going to go and get Uncle Reed’s flag! Even though, you know, it’s sort of impossible.”

True story.

“Isn’t that like looking for a needle in a haystack?” Mom asked.

“Denny says it’s the ultimate needle-in-a-haystack search.”

“Well, my grandson has a theory,” Grandpa said. “And so we’re going to search or die trying.”

“Dad!” Mom had her hands on her hips now.

“What? Oh, well…”

“Don’t say stuff like that.” Her voice sounded hurt.

“The person in the room with cancer can say whatever the Sam Hill he likes. It’s a law!” His voice had laughter in it. In fact, he slapped his knee and laughed out loud. And it made me laugh. A little.

“It’s not funny,” Mom said, but she laughed a little, too. Then she got teary-eyed. “You can’t. You can’t go.”

“Jennifer, we’re going,” Grandpa said. “Three days maximum, and then you can worry over me as much as you wish. Give me your silver bell and wait on me hand and foot. How about that?”

“I just don’t know,” Mom said. “Wayne?”

She said my name like a question. I looked at her straight on.

“Mom, do you trust me?”

“Wayne, honey, I trust you like I trust the sun will rise tomorrow.”

“I’ll take care of him. I will. Let me do this for you, okay?”

Then Grandpa took Mom by the shoulders and he hugged her tight. Sergeant Grandpa, the hugger.

“Hey, you raised him,” he said. “He didn’t get that stubborn streak from me.”

Yes.

Mom swallowed hard. Her fear was trying to stomp out our plan. Her mind was racing, I could tell.

What if he gets sick?

What if they need a doctor?

What if? What if? What if?

Do you know what? What if is also a plaguing question.

DATA

Caddo Lake borders Texas and Louisiana.

It is the largest natural lake in the South.

Home to the world’s largest cypress forest

Total of 26,810 acres of swamp

Items found from Flight 56 in the park = zero

Conclusion: Odds of finding the lost item are likely to match odds of being in a plane crash = 1 in 1.2 million.