He Gave Our Helicopter Away, So I Stopped Waiting to Be Rescued novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Helicopter Flew Past
Lena stands on the helipad in the cyclone holding her baby and watches the promised helicopter fly straight past; Damon admits he sent it to Grand Brooks and she decides to stop waiting, then the field is closed and the contractor is a lie.
The helicopter flew over our island at twenty to three in the morning and did not slow down.
I stood in the helipad shelter with my daughter against my chest and watched its lights go by.
They were red and white, low and steady.
They were heading northeast, across the strait.
The shelter is a roof and four posts, and the rain came in sideways under it.
My baby had stopped crying a minute earlier.
Her fist was wound into my shirt.
Her grey rabbit stuck out of the bag at my feet by one ear.
I had turned her around to see it coming and said, "That's Daddy's helicopter."
My husband had promised me the first aircraft out.
He promised it on Sunday, and again at dinner, and again on the phone at two.
Six years ago his helicopter found me in open water after my survey boat lost its engine.
He jumped down before the skids touched and said, "When it matters, I come get you."
We tell that story at dinner parties, and everyone laughs when I say I would have filed a form.
The lights got small.
The sound thinned out in the rain, and then there was only the wind and the buzz of the pad lamps.
I got my phone out with one hand and called Damon.
He picked up before the first ring ended.
"Lena."
"That helicopter just flew past us."
He said nothing.
It wasn't the silence of a man who didn't understand. He had known it would happen.
"Where is ours, Damon?"
"There was an accident at the party," he said. "Seven people on Grand Brooks have to be flown out tonight. One of them is bleeding."
"Who is bleeding?"
"Seven people, Lena. I sent our aircraft to them."
The wind shoved me, and I set my feet apart.
Tilda made the small noise she makes right before she cries.
"You said this one was mine," I said.
"A contractor is fueling at the regional field. He'll be with you within the hour."
"Is he confirmed?"
"It's being arranged. This house is rated for the storm, you rated it yourself."
"It's rated for the old storm. The track moved west after midnight."
I kept my voice low and flat, the way I speak on a site when someone has done something that could get people killed.
"Fraser Reeve told me so an hour ago, and he reads that water for a living."
"Lena, I made a call with what I had."
"Then say it plainly. You sent away the helicopter you promised me."
"Yes," Damon said. "I sent it to Grand Brooks."
I pressed my mouth against my daughter's hair.
"She's heavy and she smells like milk, and she's in my arms," I said. "If you were standing here holding her, would you have sent it?"
He didn't answer.
The rain filled the gap.
I listened to my husband not answer, and I understood that this was the answer.
"Don't hang up," he said. "The window for the contractor is short, listen to me."
"You have an evacuation to run."
I ended the call.
His name lit the screen again, and I laid the phone face down on Tilda's back until it stopped.
It would have been easy to scream into the wind.
Instead I looked at the bag, and at the house I designed up on the rise behind me.
Tilda was watching my face to find out what the world was.
So I made my face calm.
I picked up the bag and tucked the rabbit's ear back inside.
"Okay," I told her. "We stop waiting."
The phone buzzed once against her back, and this time it was a text from Corinna.
Lena, I'm so sorry. The contractor is confirmed, wheels up 3:10, with you by 4:00. I'm with the injured guest now and I'll text every update. Hold tight, I've got you.
Corinna is Damon's chief of staff.
She remembers my coffee order and the name of my mother's dog, and tonight she ran the evacuation plan.
I looked down at the message.
Damon had said the contractor was only being arranged, and Corinna said he was confirmed.
One of them was wrong, and I did not know which.
I was dialing before I had decided to.
Fraser answered on the first ring, with the sea roaring behind his voice.
"Lena. Where are you?"
"On the pad. The helicopter went past us. Corinna says a contractor leaves at ten past three."
"Ten past three from where?"
"The regional field."
"The tower shut that field at twenty-five to three," Fraser said. "The gusts are over the limit, and nothing leaves it before morning."
I looked at the dark where the lights had gone.
"Then whoever told you wheels up at three ten gave you a time for a runway that's closed," he said.
"Why would anyone do that?"
"I don't know. Come north to the station, it's concrete and it sits above the surge line."
"How long do I have?"
"The causeway floods in about forty minutes."
"I'm coming," I said.
I hung the bag on my shoulder and pulled the rain cover over my daughter's head.
Then I walked out of the shelter into the weather.
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