CHAPTER 1

He cannot sleep. All night, even with his eyes closed, Patrick Gamble can seethe red numbers of the clock as they click forward: 2:00, 3:30, 4:10, now 4:30,but he is up before the alarm can blare. He snaps on the light and pulls on theblue jeans and black T-shirt folded in a pile, ready for him, ready for thismoment, the one he has been dreading for the past two months. His suitcase yawnsopen on the floor. He tosses his toiletry kit into it after staggering down thehall to the bathroom and rubbing his armpits with a deodorant stick and brushinghis teeth, foaming his mouth full of mint toothpaste.

He stands over the suitcase, waiting, as if hoping hard enough would make hishopes come true, waiting until his raised hopes fall, waiting until he senseshis father in the bedroom doorway, turning to look at him when he says, "It'stime."

He will not cry. His father has taught him that, not to cry, and if he has to,he has to hide it. He zips the suitcase shut and drags it upright and stares athimself in the closet mirror—his jaw stubbled with a few days' worth ofwhiskers, his eyes so purple with sleeplessness they look like flowers that havewilted in on themselves—before heading down the hall to the living room,where his father is waiting for him.

The truck idles in the driveway. The air smells like pine and exhaust. Sunlighthas started to creep into the night sky, but only a faint glow, a false dawn.The suitcase chews its wheels through the gravel and Patrick struggles two-handedwith its weight. When his father tries to help him, Patrick says,"Don't," and heaves it up into the bed of the truck.

"Sorry," his father says, and the word hangs in the air until Patrick slams shutthe tailgate. They climb into the truck and on the bench seat Patrick finds apeanut butter toast sandwich wrapped in a paper towel, but his stomach feelslike a bruised fist and he can't imagine choking down more than a bite.

They follow the long gravel drive with their headlights casting twisting shadowsthrough the tunnel of trees. They are alone on a county road, and thensurrounded by traffic on I-580, heading south, toward San Francisco. Half thesky full of stars, the rest of it blurred by soot-black clouds occasionallypulsing with gold-wire lightning.

His father says he hopes the weather clears, hopes his flight goes off without ahitch, and Patrick says, yes, he hopes so too.

"You've got Neal's number?"

"Yeah."

"In case things get weird with your mother?"

"Yeah."

"Not that I think they will, but in case they do, he's a three-hour drive away."

"I know."

The sky lightens to a plum color—and with the sun and the stars and theclouds at war in the sky, Patrick can't help but think that's how things arearound here, divided, like the landscape, ocean and forest and desert and city,clouds and sun and fog, like so many worlds crushed into one.

It is another half hour before the sun crests the horizon and injures his eyesto look at. His father holds the steering wheel like it isn't going where hewants it to go unless he muscles it hard. The two of them say nothing becausethere is nothing to say. It has all been said. Patrick does not want to go, butthat is irrelevant given the fact that he must. That goes for them both. Theymust.

The sky is clotted with clouds. Rain spits. Seagulls screech. The bay is walledoff by fog. In the near distance the brown hills are only a hazy presence andthe noise of traffic is only a vague growl as cars pour off the freeway andfollow narrower roads that branch into parking ramps, rental lots, terminals.One of them, a black sedan with a silver grille, dips underground to thearrivals area at San Francisco International Airport, but it does not stop wherethe other cars stop, does not pull up to the curb and pop its trunk and click onits hazard lights. Instead it slides past the rest of the traffic, around thecorner, to the bend in the road bordered by concrete walls, where it slowsenough for the door to open and a man with a briefcase to step out and walk awaywithout a parting word or backward glance.

He is smiling slightly when a minute later he walks beneath the sign that readsterminal. He appears to be a businessman on his way to close a deal. He has theblack leather briefcase with the silver snaps. The Nunn Bush wing tips shined toan opal glow. The neatly pressed charcoal suit, starched white shirt, and redtie running down his chest. His hair is severely parted to one side and dustedwith gray, the gel darkening it to the color of coal. He looks like hundreds ofother men in the airport this morning. His face could be anyone's face.

But if you looked closer, you might note his pallid cheeks, his neck rashed andjeweled with scabs—where once there was a beard, razored away the nightbefore. You might spot his white-knuckled grip on the briefcase. The rednessvining the corners of his eyes after a sleepless night. And his clenched jaw,the muscles balled and jumping.

This is the busiest time of day, when the security guards, the flightattendants, his fellow travelers, notice the least, the airport a flurry ofbodies, a carnival of noise. The motion detector above the entrance winks andthe electronic double doors open and he enters baggage claim. Here is a gaggleof Japanese tourists wearing neon-green tracksuits. An obese man spilling out ofhis wheelchair. An exhausted-looking couple dragging behind them red-facedchildren and overstuffed backpacks. An old man in a gray Windbreaker and Velcroshoes, saying, "How did that get in here?" leaning his head back and squintingup at the metal rafters, where a crow roosts.

He cuts through them all, walking up an escalator, moving past the ticketcounters to security. His eyes dart wildly about him even as his body remainstense and arrows forward. He brings his hand to his breast pocket, where hisboarding pass, printed up the night before, peeks out like a neatly foldedhandkerchief; he fingers it, as if to reassure himself that it's actually there.

The security guard has a buzz cut and fleshy body and he barely glances up whenhe spotlights the man's license with a blue halogen flashlight and then initialsthe boarding pass before handing them back. "Okay," he says, and the man says,"Thank you."

The line is long but moves fast through the maze of black ropes. When he passesthrough the metal detector, he closes his eyes and holds his breath. Then theguard is waving him forward, telling him, "You're good." A moment later the X-raymachine shoots out his tray and from it he collects his shoes and briefcaseand wallet and silver watch, whose face he glances at when buckling it to hiswrist—his flight does not board for another forty minutes.

He has not eaten this morning, his stomach an acidic twist. But the smell offast food, of sausage and eggs, is too much for him. His hunger rolls overinside him. He orders a breakfast sandwich and paces while he waits for it. Whenhis number is called, when he collects the bag, he rips it open and can barelyfind his breath as he shoves the sandwich in his mouth and gnaws it down. Thenhe licks the grease off the wrapper before crumpling it up to toss in thegarbage. He suckles his fingertips. He wipes his hand along his thigh,unconcerned as he smears his pants with grease, and then glances around,wondering if he has caught anyone's attention. And he has. An oldwoman—with a dried-apple face and dandelion-fluff hair—sits in anearby wheelchair, watching him, her mouth open and revealing a yellowedridgeline of teeth. "You're pretty hungry," she finally says.

He finds his gate and stands by the rain-freckled window. His reflection hangsthere like a ghost, and through it he observes the plane parked at the gate.Beyond it, fuel trucks and luggage carts zoom through black puddles that splashand ripple their reflection of the world. Men wearing fluorescent orange-and-greenvests over their raincoats throw luggage onto a conveyer that rises intothe belly of a plane. Off in the distance, a Boeing 747 blasts down the runwaylike a giant bullet, steadily gaining speed, its nose lifting, the planefollowing, angling upward and abandoning the tarmac. And then it is gone, lostto the clouds.

He glances at his watch often. His tie is too tight. His suit is too hot. Hewants to peel off his jacket but can feel his shirt sticking to his skin andknows the fabric will be spotted in places, nearly translucent along his lowerback, where the sweat seems to pool. He uses his boarding pass to dab at hisforehead. The ink bleeds.

The desk agent gets on the PA and lists off their flight number and destination,373 to Portland, Oregon. Her voice is tinny and rehearsed. At this time, shesays, first class is welcome to board along with premier and executive elitecard carriers. He glances at his watch and checks his boarding pass for whatmust be the hundredth time that morning. They will depart in twenty minutes andhe will board with Group 2. He wants to pace. He has to concentrate to stayfooted in his place.

A few more minutes pass. He considers joining the mob of people standing next tothe counter, waiting to board, but the thought of all those bodies, their heatand smell, keeps him alone by the window.

Passengers with young children and in need of extra assistance are now welcometo board. And then Group 1. And then, at last, Group 2. He hurries toward thegate but isn't sure at first where to go, who is boarding and who is waiting toboard, among the confused mass of bodies and rolling suitcases. They aren'tmoving—they are a wall of meat—and he wants to shove them, throwsomething, but manages to contain himself, to steady his breathing and circlearound the crowd and find the actual line of passengers shuffling toward theagent, who scans their tickets with an empty smile and a thank you, thank you,thank you.

He has not noticed up to this point the extra security detail that stands nextto the jet bridge. A man and a woman, both of them big shouldered and bigbellied, bulging out of their uniforms. They are studying the line. They arewaiting for him, he feels certain. And soon, any second now, they will rushforward and throw him to the floor and cuff his wrists. He is only a few feetaway when they pull out of line a woman in a floppy hat and floral-patternedmuumuu, apologizing to her, saying they're randomly screening passengers. "Foryour safety," they say.

He turns his smile on the agent when she takes his ticket. "Thank you," shesays, and he says, "Thank you." He follows the crooked line ofpassengers, all of them shouldering the weight of laptops and leaning to oneside, as they trudge down the throat of the jet bridge. A cold, damp windbreathes through the cracks of it. He is sweat soaked and he shudders from thechill.

"Nervous flier?" A man's voice, behind him. He is short and square, with agoatee and a matching ball cap and Windbreaker bearing the black-and-orange OSUlogo.

"Little bit."

The jet bridge elbows to the left, into the open door of the plane. One of theflight attendants stands in the kitchen carrel beyond the doorway. She smiles athim, her mouth heavily lipsticked. "Welcome aboard," she says, and then he ispast her, into the hush of the first-class cabin,stutter-stepping down the aisle with everyone else. Those already seated turnthe pages of their newspapers in rustling snaps. The storage compartments areall open, like unhinged mouths gaping at them, waiting to swallow the diaperbags and suitcases that people hoist upward before edging into their seats.

He will not need his briefcase. There is nothing in it except some pens and aday-old newspaper. So he stores it and slips into his seat, 13A. He barely hasenough time to raise the window shade and glance outside before the seat next tohim shakes with the weight of the body collapsing into it. "Me again," says theman with the goatee.

He responds by snapping his buckle into place and yanking on the strap totighten it. He looks out the window—at the puddled asphalt, at the menheaving the last of the luggage onto the conveyor—hoping the man with thegoatee won't say anything more.

But he does. "Where you headed?"

"Portland."

"Oh, sure. Same as the rest of us. I just wasn't sure if that's the end of theroad or not."

"The end of the road." It is hard for him to make words, to engage in any sortof conversation, because it feels irrelevant and distracting, yes, but alsobecause his mind feels elsewhere, twenty minutes ahead of the plane, already inthe sky. "Yes."

"The Rose City." He stretches out the word rose. "From there?"

"No."

"Me either. I'm from Salem." He whistles a song that fades a moment later. Hefingers through the airline magazine and SkyMall catalogue in the seat-backpocket. "I'm Troy, by the way."

Passengers continue to wobble down the aisle, while outside jets rise into andfall from the gray ceiling of the sky, vanishing one minute, appearing the next,like seaside birds hunting for food, their tails colored red and purple andblue, their brakes squawking along the runway.

The front door is latched shut. The air pressure tightens. His ears pop. Theattendant gets on the intercom and welcomes them and fires off some informationabout the flight before settling into her singsong speech about seat belts andpassenger safety. The man tunes out the cheery buzz of her voice. The air ventshiss. The engine grumbles. The plane retreats from the gate and then rollsforward, following a network of forty-five-degree turns until they have foundtheir place on the tarmac and the pilot's voice barks from the loudspeakers,"Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff."

The raindrops on the window stream sideways into thin, shivering trails when theplane leaps forward, gaining speed. They roar along and eventually pull awayfrom the ground, and at that first moment of flight, the man, despite theheaviness that presses him into his seat, feels ebullient, weightless. He looksdown at the foggy expanse of the city. Right now, in their cars, alongsidewalks, people are lifting their faces to watch his plane, he thinks.Probably they are wondering where the plane is heading, who is on board, whatadventures lie in store for them—and it makes him feel dizzyingly powerfulto know the answer.

Troy leans toward him until their shoulders touch. "Don't worry so much.Flying's a piece of cake. I do it all the time."

The man realizes that his mouth is open, that he is breathing rapidly. He snapshis teeth together with a clack. He blinks at a shutter speed. "I'm fine."

"Here's the thing," Troy says. "Almost all plane crashes happen—I readthis for a fact ... or maybe I saw it on the TV—but almost all crasheshappen when the plane is taking off and when the plane is landing. Now, we'retaking off, I suppose you could say, until we've reached our cruising altitude.When that happens, the lady stewardess will say so, will say you can use yourcomputer. And there will be a bong." He makes his hand open up like a flowerwhen he says bong. "Then you know you're good. Statistically, I mean."

For the next few minutes the man stares at the clouds curling around the plane.And then a soft-toned bell sounds from above.

"There it is!" Troy says. "We're in the clear."

The flight attendant gets on the intercom again, telling them that it's now safeto use approved portable electronic devices. They will, however, be experiencingturbulence for the next half hour or so and she asks that everyone please keeptheir seat belts fastened and move about the cabin only if they must.

The plane is shaking. Or maybe he is shaking. He feels a lurching sensation, asif he is being thrown out of his body. His heart hammers. His breath comes inand out in quick gasps. Troy is saying something—his mouth ismoving—but the man can't hear him.

His seat belt unclicks with the noise of a switchblade.