Off The Record
My Wife Died In A Plane Crash 23 Years Ago — I Never Imagined I’d See Her Again
I discovered how to live with remorse after my wife, Emily, died in an airplane accident. After 23 years of grieving for my lost love, I learned that fate had given me one more chance to see her and a shocking realization I had never imagined.
I traced the cold marble headstone with my fingers as I stood at Emily’s grave. Even after 23 years, the discomfort was still present. Like drips of blood on snow, the roses I had brought shone brightly against the bleak stone.
I muttered, “I’m sorry, Em,” the words choking in my throat. “I should have listened.”
I was distracted from my thoughts as my phone buzzed. I nearly ignored it, but I had to check the screen out of habit.
Through the speaker, my business colleague James’s voice cracked, “Abraham?” “Sorry to bother you on your cemetery visit day.”
“It’s fine.” I tried to sound normal as I cleared my throat. “What’s up?”
“In a few hours, our new German hire will arrive. Are you able to come get her? I have to spend the entire afternoon in meetings.”
I took one final look at Emily’s headstone. “Sure, I can do that.”
“Thank you, friend. Elsa is her name. The plane touches down at 2:30.”
“Text the flight information to me. I’ll be present.”
There was a lot of commotion in the arrivals hall when I displayed my hurriedly created sign that stated “ELSA.”
I noticed a young lady with honey-blonde hair approaching and dragging her suitcase. My heart skipped a beat because of the way she moved and carried herself.
“Sir?” She had a faint yet distinct accent. “I’m Elsa.”
“Elsa, welcome to Chicago. Call me Abraham, please.”
“Abraham.” I felt lightheaded for a second as she smiled. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about that smile.
“Shall we get your luggage?” I asked hastily, ignoring the idea.
She talked about her move from Munich and her excitement for the new job on the way to the office. The way her eyes crinkled at the corners and the way she laughed were both familiar.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I responded, adding that Thursdays are when the team typically gets together for lunch. Do you want to come along?
“That would be fantastic!” The saying “Lunch makes half the work” is used in Germany.
I chuckled. “We say something similar here… ‘Time flies when you’re having lunch!'”
“That’s terrible!” She laughed. “I love it.”
Elsa’s stories at lunch had everyone in stitches. She had a dry, slightly dark sense of humor that was exactly right for me. It was strange.
“You two might be related,” accounting’s Mark remarked. The same strange jokes.
I dismissed it with a giggle. She’s age-appropriate to be my daughter. In addition, neither my wife nor I ever had kids.
My lips tasted harsh from the words. Emily and I had a strong desire to have children.
Elsa demonstrated her value at work throughout the course of the following few months. She was determined and had my attention to detail. My chest would constrict at times as I watched her work because it made me think of my late wife.
“Abraham?” One afternoon, Elsa knocked on the door of my office. “Next week, my mother will be coming from Germany. Do you want to eat dinner with us? She can’t wait to meet my new family in America. My boss, that is.”
Her word choice made me smile. “I’d be honored.”
The next weekend, the restaurant was exquisite and quiet. I was uneasy since Elke, Elsa’s mother, was observing me closely. Elke’s hand suddenly reached out and gripped my shoulder with unexpected intensity as Elsa excused herself to use the washroom.
“Don’t you dare look at my daughter that way,” she screamed.
I recoiled. “Excuse me?”
“I heard you. Abraham, I know everything about you. Everything.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
She cut in, her voice fading to a whisper, “Let me tell you a story,” I couldn’t take my eyes off her once she locked them with mine. “A story about love, betrayal, and second chances.”
With her fingers encircling her wine glass, Elke leaned forward. “A woman once loved her spouse more than life itself. They were enthusiastic, youthful, and full of aspirations.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with—”
“Listen,” she said quietly. “This woman desired to provide her spouse with a unique gift.” An old friend of mine had a falling out with her husband years prior, you see. “What better gift than to heal old wounds?” she asked herself.
As Elke went on, my heart started to race.
“She made contact with Patrick, a friend. Abraham, do you recall that name? They planned a surprise reconciliation for her husband’s birthday after meeting behind closed doors.”
It felt like the room was spinning. “How do you know about Patrick?”
As like I hadn’t said anything, she went on. Then she found something amazing right before the birthday party. She was expecting a child. Everything was perfect for a moment. A child, a friendship restored, a whole family… Simply ideal.
Her voice broke. “But then the pictures appeared. They were brought to her husband by his sister, who was jealous and protective all the time. Images of his wife and Patrick strolling together, chatting, laughing, and having private meetings in the park. Everything. And rather of enquiring, rather than having faith in the lady he professed to love, he simply—”
“Stop!” I said in a whisper.
“He threw her out,” adding Elke. “I wouldn’t answer her phone. refused to allow her to explain that she had been preparing a surprise for his birthday and that Patrick had consented to go in order to mend fences after all these years.”
Her face was suddenly streaming with tears. “She attempted to terminate everything. She only wanted to flee to a place where no one knew her. However, her employer located her and obtained assistance. made plans for her to flee the nation and start again. However, the aircraft—”
“The plane crashed,” I said in a hollow voice.
“Yes. The aircraft went down. She was discovered in possession of the ID of another traveler, Elke, who had not survived. Her face had changed. Reconstruction involved several operations. She also carried a child during this time. Abraham, your child.”
“EMILY?” The name was a shattered whisper. “You’re ali—”
“ALIVE!” I noticed her gradual nod at that moment. Those eyes… under the altered features, the altered face. I had fallen in love with those identical eyes twenty-five years prior.
“And Elsa?”
“Is your daughter.” She inhaled nervously. “I knew I had to come when she showed me your photo and told me about her amazing new boss in Chicago. I was terrified.”
“Afraid of what?”
“History might happen again. that without knowing who she was, you can fall in love with her. There are moments when the cosmos laughs cruelly.”
Stunned, I reclined. “The same sense of humor, the same gestures—all these months. Christ Jesus! I have my own daughter working with me.”
“She has so much of you in her,” Emily remarked quietly. “Your perseverance and inventiveness. including your awful tendency of making puns.”
When Elsa came back, we were both silent, and I was crying. Emily grasped her hand.
“We need to chat outside, sweetie. Something is important for you to know. Join me.”
For what seemed like hours, they were gone. As I sat there, I was reminded of Emily’s smile on our first day together, our first dance, and our most recent awful argument. My head began to hurt as memories fell upon me like a boulder.
Elsa’s face was pale and her eyes had a crimson tint when they got back. Like she was witnessing a ghost, she stood there and stared at me.
“DAD?”
Unable to say, I nodded. After three steps, she flung her arms around my neck and crossed the distance between us. I hugged her, inhaling the aroma of her hair, and felt love and loss that had swept over me for 23 years all at once.
She mumbled, “I always wondered,” against my shoulder. “Mom never talked about you, but I always felt like something was missing.”
The weeks that followed were a haze of drawn-out discussions, recollections, and cautious moves forward. In an attempt to close the gap of years between us, Emily and I met together for coffee.
“I don’t expect things to go back to how they were,” she stated one afternoon while parking her car and observing Elsa through the café window. “Too long has gone by. However, perhaps we could create something fresh for her benefit.”
My smile lit up the room as I watched my daughter, God, my daughter, approach us. “Emily, I was so mistaken. I turned to my wife and asked her about everything.”
When she said, “We both made mistakes,” she was quiet. “But look what we made first.” Elsa was now jokingly disputing with the barista about how to properly make a cappuccino, and she nodded toward her.
Emily eventually informed me about the collision one evening while we were sitting in my backyard, taking in the sunset. As she described those horrifying times, her voice faltered.
“The plane went down over the lake,” she recounted, gripping her tea cup tightly. Twelve people survived, including myself. I was barely aware when they hauled me out of the water, holding the passport of a woman named Elke. We had been discussing our pregnancies while seated together. And she was pregnant. She didn’t make it, though.
Emily’s gaze widened. The baby’s and my survival, according to the physicians, was a miracle. The majority of my face and upper body were burned in the third degree. I thought about you and how fate had given me a new face and a fresh chance throughout the months I spent undergoing reconstructive surgery. But Abraham, I was afraid. I’m afraid you won’t accept me. I’m afraid you’ll turn us down again.
Whispering, “I would have known you,” “Somehow, I would have known.”
She gave a sorrowful smile. “Will you? For months, you worked with our daughter without acknowledging her.”
I was stabbed by the truth of what she said. I reflected on all the small instances over the years, like the nightmares in which Emily was attempting to communicate with me, the odd feeling of familiarity I had when I first met Elsa, and the way my heart seemed to understand things my intellect was unable to.
“Elke’s family in Munich took me in when I was strong enough,” Emily went on. I had lost everything, and they had lost their daughter. We supported one another’s recovery. They also became part of Elsa’s family. “They protected my secret and were aware of my story. It was no longer solely up to me to decide.”
After that chat, I had a fresh perspective on the woman I had assumed to be familiar.
I also understood that sometimes the truth about individuals isn’t as obvious as we believe, even though our connection would never be flawless. Sometimes we can only realize what was always there after 23 years, a turn of events, and a daughter’s laughter.
At last, I realized that love isn’t about happy endings. Second chances and having the guts to start over from the ashes of what was lost are key. And if you’re really fortunate, those ashes can occasionally give rise to something even more exquisite than the original.
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