The Broken String by Diane Chamberlain Page B

didn’t want to watch the light show any longer.
    “I’m sitting up there now.” I pointed toward the front of the plane. “But I wanted to let you know that I found out that lightning strikes planes all the time and nothing bad ever happens. It just bounces right off.”
    The boy smiled. “Cool.” He turned to his sister. “I told you it was nothing to worry about.”
    “And our pilot is a woman,” I added.
    “No way!” He looked a little worried about that revelation, but I felt comforted. I thought a woman would be less likely to take risks in a storm. She would get us safely where we needed to go.
    By the time I returned to my new seat, the plane was rocking and rolling worse than ever and I buckled my seat belt tightly across my hips. I wrapped up in the thin blue blanket Julianne had given me, pulled the shade against the storm outside, and shut my eyes. Just as I was beginning to drift off to sleep, the loudspeaker coughed to life.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” a female voice said. I thought it was Julianne, but the sound was scratchy and it was hard to tell. “We have a traveler with us today who could use your best wishes. She’s only seventeen and she’s flying on her own to her brother’s bedside in Germany. He was gravely injured in Iraq. I hope you’ll hold him in your thoughts.”
    Gravely injured
. I heard almost nothing after she said those words.
    A few people came to talk to me. Each of them sat in the seat next to me, and although I’d thought I only wanted to sleep my way through this flight, I was glad for their company. A man who had flown helicopters in Vietnam told me he was praying for Danny. “He’ll make it,” he said, as if he knew this for a fact, “but he’ll be changed. He’ll need your love and acceptance.”
    Changed how? I wanted to ask. I could see darkness in the man’s eyes, and I thought he knew what he was talking about. I was afraid of his answer, though, so I only thanked him for his prayers.
    One woman gave me her rosary. Another, a little Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet. A very old man gave me a small pastry his wife had made. I accepted anything I was given, tucking them all into my purse like good luck charms.
    Then the little boy came to see me. “Are you the lady they talked about?” he asked. “The one with the brother?”
    “Yes.” I motioned toward the empty seat next to me, inviting him to sit down.
    “What does ‘gravely’ mean?” he asked.
    “It means he could die,” I said.
    “I was afraid that’s what it meant.” He looked worried. “I hope he doesn’t,” he added. “You’re really nice. I wish only good things happened to nice people.”
    “I like how you take care of your sister,” I said.
    “She’s really afraid of thunderstorms.”
    “I was, too, when I was her age,” I said. “You should probably go back to her. Thank you for coming up here to see me.”
    I was tired and pretended to sleep to put an end to the visitors, but I knew I would never be able to sleep on this flight now. After a while, I lifted my window shade and saw a flash of lightning that seemed to fill the whole sky with its ragged silver fingers. It was enough to make me gasp out loud. With a shudder, I lowered the shade again, hoping the little girl still had hers closed. With any luck, by now she was sleeping soundly.
    ***
    I was six years old, the age of that little girl, when my parents decided I should no longer fear thunderstorms. Storms were frequent in New Bern, North Carolina, where we lived, and when they came at night, I would leave my bedroom, race down the hall to their room, and crawl into their bed with them. It had become something of a ritual, one that turned a scary night into a rare night of closeness with my parents. The night I turned six, however, that changed. We’d gone out to dinner to celebrate my birthday, and I’d fallen asleep feeling happy, excited by my gifts and an overdose of sugary birthday cake. I woke up with