Chapter 2 - Crossing the Atlantic & Radio Silence
At Newark Liberty International Airport, Terminal B smelled of salted pretzels, diesel exhaust, and wet umbrellas. Joyce was waiting by Gate 44, wearing an emerald-green travel vest with seven pockets and holding two oversized paper cups of iced tea.
“You’re late,” Joyce declared, shoving a cup into my hand before I could even take off my scarf. “Boarding starts in twenty-two minutes. I was five minutes away from having the gate agent page ‘Myrna Higgins, the woman who was supposed to be in Lisbon.’ Did you get stuck in the tunnel?”
“You could say that,” I said, sinking into the hard plastic terminal chair beside her.
Joyce gave me a sharp, sideways look. We had worked together in the township library for eighteen years before we both retired; she could read a human face the way other people read large-print thrillers.
“What happened?” she asked. “You have that look Charles used to call your ‘church board face.’ The one you get right before you vote down the budget.”
I looked out the panoramic windows at the Boeing 787 being fueled on the tarmac below. The sky was an overcast slate gray, but somewhere beyond the cloud cover, the sun was high over the Atlantic.
“Tori brought the kids over at six-thirty,” I said.
Joyce stopped chewing her straw. “She what?”
“She arrived with their bags, told me they were flying to Tokyo for two weeks, put the schedule on the counter, and walked out.”
Joyce’s jaw dropped. For three full seconds, one of the most vocal women in Bergen County was completely struck dumb. Then her face turned the color of a ripe beet.
“And Caleb let her?”
“Caleb stood in my hall and hugged me,” I replied. “He looked like he was attending a funeral he didn't want to explain.”
Joyce gripped the armrest of her seat so hard her knuckles clicked. “And where are the children right now, Myrna? Don't tell me you brought four minors to Gate 44.”
“I took them to Patrice’s.”
Joyce stared at me. Her mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “Patrice? Tori’s mother? Patrice who doesn't even let people wear outdoor shoes on her patio?”
“She took them in,” I said, feeling a strange, hollow lightness in my chest. “She took the red folder. She told me to get on the plane. She said she’d handle Tori.”
Joyce leaned back slowly, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face. “My God. The two queens of the family actually allied against the common enemy. I never thought I’d see the day. Do you think Tori knows?”
“Tori is currently somewhere over the Pacific Ocean,” I said, looking at my wristwatch. It was 12:48 PM. “Their flight to Haneda left JFK at nine. That’s a fourteen-hour direct flight. No cell service. No Wi-Fi unless Caleb shelled out thirty dollars per device, and Caleb hasn't bought in-flight Wi-Fi since the airline started charging for pretzels.”
“So they have no idea.”
“None.”
A chime sounded overhead, followed by the crisp, recorded voice announcing Group 1 boarding for Flight 148 to Lisbon. Around us, travelers began rustling their carry-ons and adjusting their neck pillows.
My pocket buzzed.
I pulled out my phone. It wasn't a call; it was a text from Patrice.
*Finn ate three scrambled eggs. Eli is reading his history textbook without being asked. I have confiscated Maggie’s slime until further notice. Do not turn your roaming data on until you reach the hotel. Drink a glass of port for me.*
I looked at the message for a long moment, then tapped out a reply: *Thank you, Patrice. Truly.*
*Save your thanks until I tell you what I’m going to say to my daughter when she turns her phone on,* Patrice texted back. *Have a smooth flight.*
“Well?” Joyce asked, rising and swinging her tote bag onto her shoulder. “Are you coming, Myrna, or are you going to stay in New Jersey and think about laundry?”
I stood up, smoothed down the front of my jacket, and slid my phone into my pocket. “I’m coming.”
Stepping down the jet bridge felt like crossing an invisible boundary between two lives. For five years, my life had been bounded by doctors' appointments, Caleb’s shifting work schedules, Sunday dinners where I spent four hours cooking and twenty minutes eating, and the perpetual, quiet terror that if I didn't make myself available, I would disappear from my family’s lives entirely.
When Charles died, the house had been so silent that every creak of the floorboards sounded like an accusation. I had filled that silence with other people’s emergencies. If Chloe had a fever and Tori had a marketing presentation, I was in the car by seven. If Caleb needed someone to wait for the plumber, I sat on his basement steps with a paperback book. I had told myself it was love.
Sitting in seat 18C, listening to the muffled roar of the engines powering up, I realized it hadn't been love. It had been currency. I was paying a tax to ensure I was still needed.
As the plane pushed back from the gate, the captain’s voice came over the speaker, calm and steady: *“Cabin crew, prepare for departure. Flying time to Lisbon will be six hours and forty minutes. Weather in Portugal is seventy-two degrees and clear.”*
I reached into my bag, pulled out my phone, and turned it completely off.
Beside me, Joyce unbuckled her travel slippers and offered me a butterscotch drop. “To freedom, Myrna.”
“To Lisbon,” I said, taking the candy.
May you like
Behind us, three thousand miles to the west, Caleb and Tori were cruising at thirty-six thousand feet over the snowy wastes of Alaska, sipping lukewarm ginger ale, perfectly convinced that everything at home was proceeding precisely as they had commanded.
***
