Excerpt from The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Did they tell you anything about me?"

"Only that you're fifteen years younger than your husband. And that you'd be here with your daughter."

She examined her feet, which were small and white, as if the blood had left them. The soles weren't clean.

"How many were on board?" she asked.

"A hundred and four."

"Not full," she said.

"Not full, no."

"Any survivors?"

"They're searching...."

Other images intruded now. A moment of knowledge---what knowledge?---in the cockpit. Jack's hands at the controls. A body spinning in the air. No. Not even a body. She shook her head roughly.

"I have to tell her alone," she said.

He nodded quickly, as if that were already understood.

"No," she said. "I mean you have to leave the house. I don't want anyone to see this or hear this."

"I'll sit in my car," he said.

She slipped off the jacket he had given her. The telephone rang again, but neither of them moved. In the distance, they could hear the answering machine click on.

She wasn't prepared for Jack's voice, deep and amiable, a hint of Boston in the vowels, with its familiar message. She put her face into her hands and waited for the message to be over.

When she looked up, she saw that Robert had been studying her. He glanced away.

"It's to keep me from talking to the press, isn't it?" she said. "That's why you're here."

A car rolled into the driveway and crunched on the gravel. The man from the union looked out the window, took the jacket from her, and put it on.

"It's so I won't say anything that might make them think pilot error," she said. "You don't want them to think pilot error."

He lifted the telephone receiver off its hook and laid it on the counter.

Lately, Jack and she had hardly ever made love in the kitchen. They had told themselves that Mattie was older now and might come down to the kitchen looking for a snack. Most nights, after Mattie had gone up to her room to listen to her CDs or to talk on the phone, they had just sat at the table reading magazines, too exhausted to put away the dishes or even to talk.

"I'll tell her now," she said.

He hesitated.

"You understand we can't stay out there long," he said.

"They're from the airline, aren't they?" she asked, looking through the kitchen window. In the driveway, she could just make out two shadowy shapes emerging from a car. She walked toward the bottom of the stairs.

She looked up the steep incline. There were five hundred steps, at least five hundred. They stretched on and on. She understood that something had been set in motion and was beginning now. She was not sure she had the stamina to make it to the top.

She looked at the man from the union, who was moving through the kitchen to answer the door.

"Mom," she said, and he turned. "What they usually say is Mom."

© 1999 by Anita Shreve