Cover Him with Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he really was pretty handsome.
    Vera gave a sigh of pure resentment and gave up her claim to annexing his seat. As our new neighbor settled in I looked out of the window. Well, I could hardly start a conversation with him across Vera’s generous bust…I just wished she’d stop her stream of niggling complaints, which were no longer just irritating but now embarrassing. And she kept up the sniping through preflight announcements and all the way to altitude, with only a brief break, eyes screwed shut, for the actual takeoff.
    It was the second most acute feeling of relief I’d experienced all day, when the flight attendant approached, turned her lipstick grin on Vera and said, “Compliments of the captain, madam. Would you care to be upgraded to business class?”
    I don’t know whether everyone around us shared my relief, or just resented her luck. But the squeaky wheel gets the oil, I guess. Vera patted my hand and went off forward in the stewardess’s wake, promising she’d swap over and let me take a turn in the comfortable seat after she’d had a drink and a nap.
    I took a deep breath and turned to my neighbor. “I am really sorry,” I said in a low voice. “I was very rude before. I should have thanked you. I wasn’t mad with you: I was mad with me.”
    â€œAh, that’s okay,” he said, showing his teeth in a little grin. “I figured you were feeling stressed. You looked…really upset.”
    His gentleness, and the personal comment, slipped past my defenses. I felt my eyes fill up and I blinked hard, looking away. Not fast enough though: a tear escaped and splashed on the back of my hand. Suddenly I found myself scrabbling through my pockets.
    â€œHere.” He held out a packet of travel tissues. I took them gratefully, mopped my eyes, sniffed shamefully and apologized several times over.
    â€œI’m not having a good week,” I admitted, my voice wobbling a little still. “I shouldn’t…it’s my father…I’m worried…”
    â€œYour father? Is he on the flight?”
    â€œHe’s back home in Montenegro—we’re flying out to see him—he’s really ill—” My Kleenex knight got the whole tale and listened seriously all the while, leaning in over the empty seat between us so that I wouldn’t have to share my story with the whole cabin. Father’s collapse during the Divine Liturgy—
    â€œSorry: your father is a priest ?”
    â€œSerbian Orthodox. They’re allowed to marry.”
    â€œOh—I see.”
    â€”and his confinement to bed in the village. No, he hadn’t been takento hospital, which was miles away over rough roads; it sounded like he was still talking and capable of sitting up, with help; it was hard to tell how much danger he was in or what had happened, but Cousin Vera was always great in a crisis, like when I got glandular fever, and she’d be able to help. Please God it wasn’t a stroke or a heart attack. I was his only daughter and he didn’t have any close family left in the country and I felt terrible not being there when he needed me. I hadn’t seen him in five years. It felt like a lifetime.
    I felt drained by the time I stopped talking. He nodded at me sympathetically, drawing his teeth over his top lip. “Ah now, you’ve told me all that, before I even told you my name.” He put out his hand. “I’m Egan, by the way.”
    â€œHi, Egan. Sorry for bending your ear.” I took his hand, but it was more like a gentle squeeze than a shake that passed between us. It was nice though, a warm and empathic mini-hug, even if it came from a stranger.
    It was just nice.
    â€œOkay, you can stop apologizing now. You’ve caught up.”
    I nodded, abashed but somehow not minding.
    â€œYou’re transferring on to Podgorica from Zurich, then, I’m guessing?”
    â€œUh-huh,” I