Chapter 72

“Is your friend all right?” he thought he heard another flight attendant say to Tam as sleep fought to claim him.

“Oh, yeah, he’s just a nervous flyer,” Tam said.

What was left unsaid was what the flight attendant might’ve known and Tam surely did: Quinn’s fears were not irrational, particularly to those in the press who liked to psychoanalyze their subjects under the guise of faux sympathy. He had been Icarus, the boy who fell out of the sky. It was a tempting narrative that played out before, during, and after Super Bowl Week. Not only was he interviewed about it then but also on every significant anniversary of the event and every time a plane crashed, as if having been a victim made him an expert.

One thing he was an expert on was his own experience. Few had survived the crash, particularly as time went on, and each person’s perspective was unique, though his was limited initially by Aunt Josie’s insistence that he be kept from the details he himself did not remember.