The ticket agent checked the computer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your names are not on the list. The seaplane is full.”

“What about the next flight?”

“It will be dark soon. Seaplanes don’t fly after sunset.” Noticing my stricken expression, he gave me a sympathetic look, tapped his keyboard, and picked up the phone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

T.J. and I walked to a small gift shop, and I bought two bottles of water. “Do you want one?”

“No thanks.”

“Why don’t you put it in your backpack,” I said, handing it to him. “You might want it later.”

I dug a bottle of Tylenol out of my purse, shook two into my hand, and swallowed them with some water. We sat down on a bench, and I called T.J.’s mom, Jane, and told her not to expect us until morning.

“There’s a chance they’ll find us a flight, but I don’t think we’ll get out tonight. The seaplanes don’t fly after dark so we may have to spend the night at the airport.”

“I’m sorry, Anna. You must be exhausted,” she said.

“It’s okay, really. We’ll be there tomorrow for sure.” I covered the phone with my hand. “Do you want to talk to your mom?” T.J. made a face and shook his head.

I noticed the ticket agent waving at me. He was smiling. “Jane, listen I think we might –” and then my cell phone dropped the call. I put the phone back in my purse and approached the counter, holding my breath.

“One of the charter pilots can fly you to the island,” the ticket agent said. “The passengers he was supposed to take are delayed in Sri Lanka and won’t get here until tomorrow morning.”

I exhaled and smiled. “That’s wonderful. Thank you for finding us a flight. I really appreciate it.” I tried to call T.J.’s parents again, but my cell phone roamed without connecting. Hopefully I’d get a signal when we arrived on the island. “Ready, T.J.?”

“Yeah,” he said, grabbing his backpack.

A mini-bus dropped us off at the air taxi terminal. The agent checked us in at the counter, and we walked outside.

The Maldives’ climate reminded me of the steam room at my gym. Immediately, beads of sweat broke out on my forehead and the back of my neck. My jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt trapped the hot, humid air against my skin, and I wished I had changed back into something cooler.

Is it this sweltering all the time?

An airport employee stood on the dock next to a seaplane that bobbed gently on the water’s surface. He beckoned us. When T.J. and I reached him, he opened the door and we ducked our heads and boarded the plane. The pilot was sitting in his seat, and he smiled at us around a mouthful of cheeseburger.

“Hi, I’m Mick.” He finished chewing and swallowed. “Hope you don’t mind if I finish my dinner.” He appeared to be in his late fifties and was so overweight he barely fit in the pilot’s seat. He wore cargo shorts and the largest tie-dye T-shirt I had ever seen. His feet were bare. Sweat dotted his upper lip and forehead. He ate the last bite of his cheeseburger and wiped his face with a napkin.

“I’m Anna and this is T.J.,” I said, smiling and reaching out to shake his hand. “Of course we don’t mind.”

The Twin Otter DHC-6 seated ten and smelled like airplane fuel and mildew. T.J. buckled himself in and stared out the window. I sat down across the aisle from him, shoved my purse and carry-on under the seat, and rubbed my eyes. Mick started the engines. The noise drowned out his voice, but when he turned his head to the side his lips moved as he communicated with someone on his radio headset. He motored away from the dock, picked up speed, and we were airborne.

I cursed my inability to sleep on airplanes. I’d always envied those who passed out the minute the plane took off and didn’t wake until the wheels touched down on the runway. I tried to doze, but the sunlight streaming through the seaplane’s windows, and my confused body clock, made drifting off impossible. When I gave up and opened my eyes, I caught T.J. staring at me. If the look on his face and the heat on mine was any indication, it embarrassed us both. He turned away, shoved his backpack under his head and fell asleep a few minutes later.

Restless, I unbuckled my seat belt and went to ask Mick how long it would be until we landed.

“Maybe another hour or so.” He motioned toward the co-pilot’s seat. “Sit down if you want.”

I sat down and buckled my seat belt. Shielding my eyes against the sun, I took in the breathtaking view. The sky, cloudless and cobalt above. The Indian Ocean, a swirl of mint green and turquoise blue below.

Mick rubbed the center of his chest with his fist and reached for a roll of antacids. He put one in his mouth. “Heartburn. That’s what I get for eating cheeseburgers. But they taste so much better than a damn salad, you know?” He laughed, and I nodded my head in agreement.

“So, where are you two from?”

“Chicago.”

“What do you do there in Chicago?” He popped another antacid into his mouth.

“I teach tenth-grade English.”

“Ah, summers off.”

“Well, not for me. I usually tutor students in the summer.” I motioned toward T.J. “His parents hired me to help him catch up with his class. He had Hodgkin’s lymphoma and he missed a lot of school.”

“I thought you looked way too young to be his mom.”

I smiled. “His parents and sisters flew down a few days ago.”

I wasn’t able to leave as early as the Callahan’s because the public high school where I taught let out for summer break a few days later than the private high school T.J. attended. When T.J. found out, he convinced his parents to let him stay behind in Chicago for the weekend and fly down with me instead. Jane Callahan had called to see if it was all right.

“His friend Ben is having a party. He really wants to go. Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I said. “It will give us a chance to get to know each other.”

I’d only met T.J. once, when I interviewed with his parents. It would take a while for him to warm up to me; it always did when I worked with a new student, especially a teenage boy.

Mick’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “How long are you staying?”

“For the summer. They rented a house on the island.”

“So he’s okay now?”

“Yes. His parents said he was pretty sick for a while, but he’s been in remission for a few months.”

“Nice location for a summer job.”

I grinned. “It beats the library.”

We flew in silence for a while. “Are there really twelve hundred islands down there?” I asked. I’d only counted three or four, scattered across the water like giant puzzle pieces. I waited for his answer. “Mick?”

“What? Oh, yes, give or take a few. Only about two hundred are inhabited, but I expect that to change with all the development going on. There’s a new hotel or resort opening every month.” He chuckled. “Everybody wants a piece of paradise.”

Mick rubbed his chest again and took his left arm off the control yoke, stretching it out in front of him. I noticed his pained expression and the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve just never had heartburn this bad before.” He put two more antacids in his mouth and crumpled the empty wrapper.

An uneasy feeling washed over me. “Do you want to call someone? If you show me how to use the radio I can call for you.”

“No, I’ll be fine once these antacids start working.” He took a deep breath and smiled at me. “Thank you, though.”

He seemed okay for a while, but ten minutes later he took his right hand off the yoke and rubbed his left shoulder. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. His breathing sounded shallow, and he shifted in his seat as if he couldn’t find a comfortable position. My uneasy feeling blossomed into sheer panic.

T.J. woke up. “Anna,” he said, loud enough for me to hear him over the engines. I turned around. “Are we almost there?”