Her eyes are swollen. Puffy even. Olivia opens her eyes and cringes at the light that's shining through. She looks at the clock and see's that it's six thirty am. She'd been asleep for three hours. James had been dead for four. The realization makes her heart sink. Within the same day, it's as if she's reliving the moment where she felt the coldness of the room, the emptiness of it. The room that held together a husband and wife.
She makes her way downstairs, the stairs creaking, Julia still asleep and her door closed, shutting out the reality that would face her soon. There she saw Robert Shriver, at the edge of the sofa, staring into the television, where an older woman was being interview on tv. The headline: Plane goes down on West Coast of Ireland; 345 dead, including pilots.
Olivia had missed the beginning of the report, from what she could hear she thought it was ABC or maybe even CNN. Robert looked from behind his shoulder and saw the widow staring at the tv.
"Are you sure you want to see this?"
"Please, I'd rather see." Olivia says, wrapping her arms around herself and leaning against the back of the couch
On the lit up screen she could see there was rain blowing down onto the older woman and the reporter. On the bottom part of the screen, the location. The location where James went down, where his final moments were. Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland. Olivia couldn't picture on a map. In fact, she didn't know if it was in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. The rain came down the sunken in cheekbones of the old woman, her puffy eyes noticeable. The camera moved away and showed the background of a village, many with small bnbs, cottages, and a landscape of endless green stretching. In the back there was a sad looking hotel, the Clare hotel. In the background, six or seven men, drinking coffee, cigarettes in their hand, looking over at the news crew, wondering what could of happened that would drag a news crew to such a remote place.
The camera panned back to the old woman, her blue eyes now grey, matching the rest of her face. She looked as if it was hard for her to breathe. Olivia thought, she probably looked gray in the face now. Her eyes, staring out at something as if nothing was there. The mouth loose, like a hooked fish trying to escape but slowly dying. The interviewer was a young woman, maybe twenty-eight or so, dark brown hair, eyes green, her accent thick. She had asked the old woman to describe what she'd seen.
"There were bits falling from the sky, as if it part of the rain."
"The pieces, they fluttered...like birds"
"Falling downwards, into the sea, hitting the ocean with a splash"
Olivia walked up to the tv, kneeling on the carpet, her face even with the old woman's. A reflection perhaps of what she was. The woman made gestures with her hands, her hands mimicking the downward falling of a blown up plane. She'd seen fisherman hustling their boats to the sight, but it was too late to catch the bits, even with their fisherman nets. The reporter faced the camera, having said the old woman's name, Laura McSweeney, age 82, had said she had apparently been the first eye witness to come forward. Nothing had been confirmed yet as to what the woman had seen. Olivia wanted so much to tell the woman that it couldn't be true, that it wasn't her James that had been killed.
But Olivia knew it was true, that James was dead. She could imagine the fisherman out on the sea, trying to catch the fluttering bits, as if a child grabbing for fireflies on a hot summer's night. Olivia thought then how strange it was for such a disaster to drain the body entirely of blood, to take the air out of your lungs, and to hit you again in the face, could be at such times, a beauty.
Robert turned off the television.
"Are you alright?"
"When did you say it happened?"
"Seven am, their time. Two am ours."
She looked at him and noticed his fair skin, his eyes filled green, with specks of yellow. James' eyes had been green. Two different shades of green, one a light yellowish green, the other, a sharper green. Other's had been drawn to his eyes, the unusual coloring attracting others.
"That was the time of the last transmission." The man said, barely loud enough to be audible
Olivia looked back up at the man, clearly he hadn't slept for a day, his under eyes dark, almost a blueish color, as if bruised.
"What was the last transmission?"
"It was routine."
The short answer that had avoided her question irritated her, she didn't believe him. What was routine about a last transmission?
"Do you know" she asked, "what the most common words are for a pilot before he goes down?", "well of course you know."
"Mrs. O'Connell"
"Olivia" she snapped
"You're still in shock, you should have some sugar, is there any juice?"
"In the fridge, it was a bomb wasn't it?"
"I wish I had more to tell you."
Robert stood up and walked towards the kitchen. Olivia, realizing she didn't want to be left alone, followed him. He reached inside the fridge and took out orange juice. Olivia glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. Had it only been nearly four hours ago that she'd been told the worst news of her life? Robert handed her the orange juice.
"You got here fast"
"How did you do it?" she asked
"We have a plane" he murmured, leaning against the kitchen counter
He lit a cigarette and inhaled, blowing out the smoke, leaving it to float in the room. The sunlight hitting it in such a way, that it reminded Olivia of the smoke from James' plane blowing up.
"No, I mean, tell me, you have a plane that goes down, are you just sitting around waiting for a crash?"
"No, I don't. But if one does occur, we have a procedure ready, we have a jet ready to go at any time at Washington National. It flies me to nearest major airport, in this case, JFK."
"And then?"
"And then there's a car waiting."
"And you did it in..."
Olivia thought how long it would take for him to travel from Washington DC, where the union headquarters was, all the way to JFK. She was interrupted in her thoughts.
"A little over an hour."
"To get here first" he said. "To inform you. To help you through it."
"That's not why she said quickly."
He thought a minute.
"It's part of it."
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, her head resting in the palm of her hand. The pain seemed to stretch all the way from her throat to her abdomen. She felt panicky, as if she strayed to close to edge of a cliff. She drew in a breath so sharply, Robert looked at her. She moved into another room, the way grief moved through a person.
The images assaulted her. The feeling of James' breath at the top of her spine, as if he were whispering to her bones. The sliding sensation against her mouth when he gave her a quick kiss before going off to work. The drape of his arm around her, watching Julia go off to kindergarten. The odd tenderness of his feet, the way he wouldn't walk on a beach without shoes on. The warmth of him always, even on the coldest of New York winter nights, as though he himself burned as if he were a furnace. The images fought each other for space inside her head, she tried to stop them but she couldn't.
She awoke from her flashbacks and called for Robert, who stood in the hallway, looking at the sad figure that graced the stairwell.
"Did you call Elliot?"
"I didn't know if you wanted me or..."
"Just call him, his number is on the fridge. He should be on his way to work."
It's nearly seven am in the morning and Elliot's already out the door and pulling up in front of the nearest coffee shop he can find. He had texted Olivia if she wanted him to pick her up. She hadn't answered and assumed she would find her way to one by herself and come waltzing into the one six, complaining about how damn hot the weather was in July. He finally gets in line, a solid six people ahead of him, he sighs in frustration.
Elliot shifts his feet and can feel his gun cocking into the side of his hip, enough to bother him that he adjusts footing. There's a tv in the corner of the coffee shop, a early morning new's report about some vaccine. Suddenly, everyone move's their head towards the tv.
"We interrupt this news cast, for the following report."
A reporter from ABC, someone remarkably familiar that Elliot can't name, shows up on the screen. The bottom section of words reading: American plane explodes off coast of Western Ireland
"Around seven am, Ireland time, an American plane was seen exploding off the coast of Western Ireland, in Liscannor, County Clare. An eyewitness has come forward"
The same news report that Olivia had seen earlier shows up.
"There were bits falling from the sky, as if it part of the rain."
"The pieces, they fluttered...like birds"
"Falling downwards, into the sea, hitting the ocean with a splash"
The reporter mentions that all East Coast flight's will be stopping air traffic to Ireland and the surrounding areas, in the case that the even involved terrorism. He's at the front of the line and his cell phone rings.
Unknown.
He answers despite the unknown caller ID.
"Stabler."
"Hello, is this Elliot Stabler?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"I'm Robert Shriver, I'm calling in behalf of Olivia-"
"What? Is she ok?" Elliot says, interrupting the man
"Yes but this is in regards to her request for you... her husband was involved in an accident."
Elliot suddenly realizes. James. A pilot. An American pilot. Olivia had told him he was flying to Ireland the morning after fourth of July.
"Is he alright?" Elliot asks carefully, regretting his question
"All 345 passengers were killed." Robert says, inhaling deeply
"I'm coming over. Be there in ten."
Elliot hangs up and looks at the woman who waits for his order. He leaves the front of the line and the rest of the line looks up at him, the grief for Olivia hitting him hard.
Elliot hangs up the phone, wondering what could of happened in the night that could cause someone to call him about Olivia. Before he knows it, he's already in his car, racing down the backstreets, finding his way towards Olivia's block. He pulls up to her house, where there's a swarm of people fluttering around her door. The press.
He suddenly puts in together, his mind swirling. Airplane. Crash. James. Pilot. Olivia.
Elliot gets out of the car and heads towards the police, his badge flashing at the press.
"Police, move through!"
He rushes through the crowd, some of the press clearly angry that he's going to enter the house.
He rings the bell with the press ready with their cameras. The door opens, a tall man with dark hair answers, the press blind him with the flashes, where Robert grabs Elliot's arm and slams the door behind him.
"What's happened? Who are you?"
"I'm Robert Shriver, I'm with the-"
Suddenly Robert is interrupted, Olivia pears out a hallway door opening, where she finally sees Elliot. Elliot looks at her. He notices her sunken eyes, her face, how gray she is. She's almost hallow. Empty. He rushes towards her and pulls the empty woman to his chest.
Hope you enjoy, leave a review !