Chapter 125

Allegra and her brother sit opposite each other across a red laminate table in a noisy shopping center food court, eating “Mighty Mega Burgers with the lot.”

They’ve just successfully purchased gifts for their parents’ birthdays, which fall only three days apart, so are always celebrated together. A bracelet for their mother, a new shirt for their father, possibly identical to the one they bought him last year, but he won’t mind, he loves multiples of his favorite possessions.

Whenever Allegra and Taj are alone together like this, they have a defiant childish ritual where they indulge in the type of greasy junk food their mother consistently denied them as children. Taj has already texted a photo of the burgers to their mother, who has responded: Yes, yes, I know, you had such deprived childhoods.

“Your back still good?” Taj licks grease off his fingers.

“Yes,” says Allegra. “Touch wood.”

Taj cups his hands behind his ears. “ Nazar Na Lage. ” He’s imitating their grandmother’s way of expressing the same sentiment.

It feels like an achievement she could list on her CV: I avoided back surgery.

Her specialist had been prepared to operate but said, “I’m your last resort, Allegra.” He said there were no guarantees. Taj told her unsuccessful back surgery is so common there’s even a name for it, “failed back surgery syndrome.”

So she threw herself into nonsurgical treatments: acupuncture, physical therapy, exercise. By her twenty-ninth birthday she was pain-free and back at work. Jonny and Anders both joined her for dinner at her parents’ place. This time last year that would have seemed impossible: all those worlds colliding, all of Allegra’s different “selves” needing to be simultaneously present, but it was fine, sure, it felt a little weird, but mostly comical to find herself in her parents’ garage with Jonny and Anders while her father pointed out the supposedly unique features of his treadmill. Jonny, genuinely interested, crouched down with her dad to study the fan pulley belt, while Anders pulled elaborate secret faces at Allegra over their bent heads.

Anders has magnanimously forgiven her for dating a pilot, although not for keeping it a secret, and he’s even made some lavish concessions, such as, “Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought.”

Her parents said they stopped worrying about the self-harm prediction when they saw the public statement issued by Cherry Lockwood. They were even more mollified when Allegra received a personal handwritten apology from Cherry, sent via the airline, but Allegra thinks her mother, at least, didn’t truly stop worrying until Allegra had outlived the predicted age of her death. At this point sherewrote history and said at no time was she concerned, not at all, she always knew the lady had no special abilities, in the same way she correctly surmised that she worked in the insurance industry. Then she said, “In fact, if I had to guess which of my children might be susceptible to depression I would have thought it would be your brother, not you.”

“But why?” asked Allegra. “Taj is always happy.”

“That is why,” said her mother. “Your grandmother was the same.”

But then she refused to say anything more. She said she was sick of the subject. Allegra didn’t push, but lately she’s been thinking about something she read when she was researching depression: a phenomenon called “smiling depression.” Apparently some sufferers show none of the typical characteristics of depression. They have an extraordinary ability to conceal and mask their true feelings. Even the people closest to them have no idea. They seem content. They are often very successful people.

Now Allegra studies Taj as he works his way through his burger.

“How are you?” she asks.

“Good,” he says with his mouth full.

“You…happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he says blandly.

He seems fine. He probably is fine. She scans his familiar face. Her annoying, good-looking, cocksure big brother. The confident one. The clever one. When they were growing up, there were times she idolized him and times she truly hated him, but he was always on her side.

“Karma is a bitch,” he’d said when they learned of the sudden unexpected death of the caftan-wearing passenger who had caused Allegra’s back injury. He would have gotten a lecture about the true nature of karma if he’d said that in their mother’s earshot.

“You seeing anyone?”

“Not right now.” Taj looks past her shoulder, as if he’s fascinated by something going on at Sushi Hub.

Both pilots and flight attendants need “situational awareness.” They need to always know what’s happened, what’s happening, what might happen. They need to know when to trust their intuition and when to ignore their natural instincts. She’s a good flight attendant. She might one day be a good pilot. A few weeks ago she applied for a scholarship program offered by the airline to cabin crew. Jonny still talks about the expression on her face the day she did her introductory flight. He says he’ll never forget it. He talks about it as if it was something wonderful that happened to him. She has never been loved by someone who is happy just to see her happy.

Is her brother happy?

“Ready to make a move?” Taj drops his half-eaten burger on his plate. They never finish the bad junk food, and to be honest it always does leave them feeling a little ill, just like their mother promised it would when they were kids. It’s her fault. She’s cruelly spoiled their palates with all her quality food.

Allegra thinks of Cherry Lockwood’s apology card: I’m so sorry our paths crossed in the way they did. There was no reason for what I said to you.

But what if there was a reason their paths had crossed?

Jonny told her one of his earliest flight instructors said that the difference between a pilot and an aviator is lightness of touch. An aviator doesn’t yank or jerk the controls. An aviator doesn’t move the controls. He—or she— applies pressure, and only ever as much pressure as needed.

Allegra crumples her napkin and drops it on her paper plate. She doesn’t lean forward, toward her brother, she leans back. Not too serious, but no jokes.

Her tone is as light as a fingertip.

She says, “Taj.”