JUNE 16, 1989
WINDALE, PENNSYLVANIA
THERE’S NO TIME to think before it hits.
When the plane comes rushing out of the storm, trailing streamers of cloud and smoke, in my mind I see it as a bird of prey. A huge, screeching eagle maybe. Sleek and featherless. But then I see the turbine engines. One under each wing. Vicious, spinning fans sucking in stray leaves and bits of debris kicked up by the wind. It’s coming in slightly lower than where the four of us are standing. Our clearing. Our escape through so many summers and weekends.
At the last second, the plane’s nose tips up, angling in our direction. I catch a glimpse of the cockpit window, dark except for the vague shape of somebody in the pilot’s seat. Or maybe I’m just imagining that.
Maybe I want to pretend that someone could have even a tiny bit of control over what’s happening here, that they could pull up with inches to spare and go screaming right over us, the fuselage scraping along the treetops. Like something out of Top Gun.
But Windale isn’t the kind of place where miracles happen.