Chapter 3

Special thanks to Greg for editing, and thus improving my story.

Life went on, but not like before. Linda was in college, and yet there remained some kind of tension at home. Mainly between Mom and Dad. Me — I was still in a sour mood for the way Linda had 'dumped me' for Dad, although I kept reminding myself that no one owed anyone else a thing.

It was a few weeks until the tension between Mom and Dad started ebbing away, and then seemingly disappeared. However Linda's phone conversations with Mom were very short and remained within the 'has to be done' form.

It was 4 months after Linda had left for college when disaster struck us with all its cruel force.

Dad had been on one of his trips to Washington DC and was due come back that evening. Mom and I were in the family room, she reading a book and me with a newspaper, when the phone rang.

Mom lifted the receiver: "Yes, yes it's me." And then she screamed: "Fraaaaank!" And fainted, the receiver falling from her hand.

Supporting her with my thigh so that she wouldn't fall over, I lifted the receiver.

"Hello, who is this?"

"This is Delta Airlines emergency center. Who am I speaking with, please?"

"This is Billy Ferguson speaking."

"Are you Frank Ferguson's son? Has anything happened to Mrs. Ferguson?"

"Mom has fainted. What kind of a message did you give her to cause this?"

"How old are you, Son?"

"17 going on 18. Now will you tell me what happened?" I started raising my voice.

"I hope you are strong enough for it, son. Flight 432 from Washington to our town has crashed an hour ago while landing. Your father's name is on the passenger list. We haven't finished searching yet, but as far as we can see there are no survivors. In about two hours from now we'll send someone to pick you up and bring you to the airport. I'm sorry, but we must have positive identification by family."

I felt the room start swimming around me, and had to hold unto the table so that I won't fall. Tears were running down my cheeks silently. No wonder Mom has fainted. Those people gave the news fast and to the point. Their purpose was to have identifications and move on with the bodies. They hadn't really cared about the people's feelings. Then I heard from the phone:

"Billy... Mr. Ferguson... Billy... are you there?"

"Yes... yes I'm here."

"Can you tell me who will come for the identification, your mother or you?"

"We'll let you know when the pick up arrives. How can I know what Mom will be like in two hours? She is still unconscious." I was getting really irritated with the guy. "I need to have someone be here with Mom before I can leave her here. Just send the pick up and then we'll see."

I called Mom's best friend, Melanie, and with tears that hardly enabled me to speak I asked her to come over.

"God," she said. "Was Frank on that plane? It's all over the news. I'll be right over. How is your mother?"

"She's fainted when the airline called and hasn't moved since."

"OK, hold on Billy. I'm sending an ambulance for your mother and I'm coming over immediately."

Melanie and the ambulance arrived at the same time. Ambulances were still tied up at the airport and that's why it was a good 12 minutes until it arrived. They gave Mom some injection and she woke up. First she blinked at us, not knowing where she was and slowly recognition came to her together with the memory, and she started weeping again. Melanie and I hugged her, all of us with tears on our faces.

The ambulance attendants advised us to have our family doctor over for further treatment. The doctor prescribed some smelling salts in case she fainted again and some tranquilizers in case she got too worked up. The doctor himself, who was with our family for over 15 years and was considered a friend, opened the bar cabinet, made himself a stiff drink and gulped it down. When he offered one to me, I saw tears in the corners of his eyes. I thought doctors were supposed to be immune to the effects of death...

Mom was crying nonstop, and Melanie was just holding and hugging her. There are no words, and couldn't be any words that would have taken her mind off the one thing that mattered — her husband of 20 years was dead.

Melanie called her husband to bring in the prescriptions, and word started going around and slowly the house filled with friends. Then someone from Delta airlines arrived to pick either of us up for the identification. There was a bit of argument with Mom who insisted on going, but after the second step she just folded and fainted again.

Before I went with the man someone had me swallow a tranquilizer pill. "You're going to need it," they said.

We drove straight to a hangar at the airport. A man, probably a doctor, spoke to me before I entered.

"You are going to see some very hard sights, son. Be prepared for this. Nurse Jane here will accompany you in case you need help."

"I've just swallowed one of these," I said, showing him the prescription envelope of the medication I had just taken at home.

"Good thinking, son. You may go in now."

There were four long rows of people lying on the hangar floor. It took a while until I understood that these were all dead people. Corpses. Going closer I saw that some of them were burned. Some were bleeding from wounds, and some looked as if they were sleeping.

For a second I felt a convulsion in my stomach like I needed to vomit, but after that second it passed and I started going through the rows of bodies. Walking slowly and looking at each and every visible face. God, so many widows and orphans will be the result of this.

I wasn't the only one going through the rows. From time to time I heard muffled screams of people crying out. From time to time I had to bypass someone whose head was on a corpse, crying their hearts out.

I found my Dad in the middle of the third row. He looked as if he was sleeping. Laying on his back, calm, serene, no external damage seen. Like I expected him to wake up with a big smile. But I knew this was not going to happen. Slowly I sank down to my knees next to him, buried my face in his chest and let go. I cried on his chest for about an hour, without any disturbance, until I started to calm down.

"Excuse me, son." A voice said. "Can you please tell me the deceased's name and any identifying details? We have the formal ID's from his pocket and his briefcase but we need it from you to close the identification process."

"He is... was... Frank Ferguson." I gave them the address and answered their questions. "Can someone take me home now, please?"

Arriving home it was morning already, and now we had to inform Linda. I was afraid that Linda would react like Mom to the first time she hears the news. We certainly didn't want her to hear on the TV News.

I had some good advice from the gathering friends and called the social services department of her college, and the person there, after hearing the situation, promised to deliver the message in the presence of medical staff, and also to have someone escort Linda on her flight home.

When the time came I went to the airport to bring Linda home. Mom was too broken and could not be relied on to drive. She had uncontrollably burst into tears every now and then, and occasionally fainted.

At the airport, Linda and I fell into each other's arms, both flooded with tears. After a while I noticed a young woman who seemed to remain near us, and I understood that she was Linda's escort. I offered her a ride to wherever she needed or to buy her a meal, but she just thanked me saying that she had a flight back in an hour and that everything had been taken care of. I should mention that Linda and her escort flew with Delta and that it was free.

Arriving home, all hell broke loose again, and every one was crying.

We were not a church going family, so a funeral company was called in and arrangements were made. The city council's social department was in the picture, because there were about 100 funerals to take place on the same day and someone had to make sure they don't all climb over each other.

Well, the funeral was over. I was surprised to see how many friends my parents had had, and how many of mine and Linda's friends came to be with us. For a week, our house was full of friends, and then they began to dwindle until we only had a friend or two per day, mostly Mom's and Dad's friends. At a later time Mom said, surprisingly, that most of the real friends turned out to be not business associates or long term friends, but friends from the swingers groups, the swapping societies etc. Sure, I've noticed that Ron and Marcie were among the guests several times, although they were much younger than Mom and few years older than Linda and me.

It was a week after the crash, and we've all decided that Linda had to go back to school, otherwise she would have lost too much. We were sitting at breakfast and there was this awkwardness between Mom and Linda. Linda hardly dared look at Mom in the face and had her head down most of the time. Suddenly I had enough of this and I exploded:

"For God's sake, will you let the past be gone and look forward to our future as a family? We must be stronger and more loving than before. You just can't let the past be between you two if we want to remain a family! If you want I'll leave you two alone for a while, but please! Enough of this animosity!"

Mom took my hand with her left, and extended her right arm open for Linda. They fell into each other's arms, sobbing aloud.

"Oh, mamma, I'm so sorry for..."

"Enough, child. Billy is right. Let bygones be bygones and let us be the loving family we used to be. I don't blame you for anything so let your conscience be clear. Let's just love one another. This is what we need more than anything."

I cried together with them, but I also felt a wave of relief go over me. I had been afraid that my outburst would create more problems and was relieved to see that it's brought the results that I wanted.

I was just about to leave the kitchen to go to my room when Mom stopped me.

"Now it's time for you two to make up as well. Let's put an end to all the tension here."

Linda rushed into my arms and started apologizing again, until I said:

"Linda, this is all water under the bridge. I love you just as before. The only thing you should concentrate on now is your studies. Let us be all proud of your achievements as we were when you were in high school."

There was more crying for a while until we had to drive Linda to the airport. The next day I returned to school too and was astonished again at the way my friends greeted me. Practically all the students of the school were standing in line offering their condolences, it was very touching, how mature we all became. That's when I noticed two boys, one of the 11th grade and one from the 10th, standing aside. They both had black stripes on their sleeves. This was the first time I heard that they had also lost loved ones in the crash. One lost a brother, and the other had lost his father also. I went over to them and we just hugged all three of us, without a word. No words were needed.

I quickly got back into studying and into my sports activities. It helped a lot pushing our tragedy a little bit aside.

It was now 6 months after the tragedy, and Mom didn't have it easier at all. I would find her time after time crying her heart out. No words helped. She was in a deep rut and I didn't know how to help. She just kept saying how much she missed Dad.