Chapter 9 - The Long Flight Home
The local constable escort arrived ten minutes later to ensure Mark stayed inside the heated airport waiting shed until the twin-engine cargo plane was ready for departure.
I stood by the clinic window, watching the sleet turn into heavy, silent flakes of snow. Caleb came up behind me, placing his hands gently on my shoulders. His touch was warm through the fabric of my scrub top.
""You okay, Miller?"" he asked softly near my ear.
I leaned my head back against his solid chest, taking a deep, clean breath of the Arctic air that smelled of cedar and cold stone. ""Never been better, Vance. For the first time in my life, the past feels like something that happened to someone else.""
Down at the airstrip, Mark sat alone on a cracked vinyl chair next to a roaring diesel heater. His soaking wet wool coat smelled of mold, and his hands were still shaking so badly he couldn't close the clasp on the diamond ring box.
The pilot, a weathered Alaskan bush veteran with a leather flying cap, walked into the shed to pour a cup of black coffee. He glanced down at the shivering city boy.
""Hell of a trip to make in a pair of Italian loafers, son,"" the pilot chuckled dryly. ""Must have been one hell of an important errand.""
Mark looked down at the floor, tears dropping silently onto the cheap linoleum between his soaked dress shoes. ""I came to fetch my wife,"" he whispered in a voice so broken it was barely audible above the wind.
""Yeah?"" the pilot asked, taking a sip. ""Where is she?""
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""She stayed in the north,"" Mark said, his voice cracking into pieces. ""She stayed where someone knew how to keep her warm.""
The pilot didn't say anything else. He just nodded, stepped outside into the snow, and started the engine. Twenty minutes later, Mark was pressed against the small oval window of the shaking aircraft as it lifted off into the darkening Arctic sky. Below him, the tiny cluster of lights that made up Point Hope shrank into a pinprick, then vanished completely into the vast, eternal wilderness. He was flying back to a silent apartment, an empty bed, and a life where he would forever be the architect of his own devastating loneliness.
