The light of falling stars

by J. Robert Lennon

A plane falls from the sky as a couple argue in their yard, the whine of its engines drowning out their voices, parts of the craft shearing off the roof of their house. A few miles away, a young man waits in the airport for the return of his girlfriend from her summer in Seattle, while in a long-empty house, an old woman anxiously anticipates the reappearance of a husband who left her many years ago. The crash of an airplane on the outskirts of Marshall, Montana, takes more than just the lives of those on board. Two days later, a stranger appears at the home of the couple who watched the plane go down, saying only that he has come from Italy to begin his new life. He is the lone survivor of the disaster, although he mysteriously guards the secret. The stranger witnesses the disintegration of the couple's marriage - the recent tragedy hastening its end - and befriends the husband, who is ever more adrift in the wake of his wife's decision to leave.