Chapter Thirty-Eight
Brick left us with one last kindness, a golf cart with a uniformed Jerry Garcia–looking driver behind with wheel. “He called
ahead,” Jerry says as he puts our luggage in the back and then waits while we check our bags before dropping us at security.
“There’s a wheelchair for you after you get through.”
Lily seems delighted to see me rolled through the airport like Miss Havisham. Or maybe she’s just delighted in general. She
hasn’t stopped smiling since the emergency room. My sister piles our carry-on bags and pocketbooks and the crutches onto my
lap and, despite her wrist injury and her bruised ribs and the cut on her forehead, practically skips to the gate, first convincing
our wheelchair attendant, Susie, to stop for an ice cream and then at a gift shop where she grabs an armful of stuffed animals—a
moose, two bears, a husky, and an otter.
“For You-Know-Who,” she whispers.
“Give the rest of us a chance.” I laugh. You-Know-Who is going to be showered with gifts if I have anything to say about it.
At the gate, Susie waits with us until they call, “All passengers needing help boarding.” That is most certainly me.
“Silver lining,” I say weakly, starting to miss Susie and this chair already, knowing that getting to my seat with crutches is going to be a spectacle.
As they scan our boarding passes, the woman at the counter holds up one hand, a universal stop-where-you-are signal, made even more concerning in an airport with its constant heightened security.
Can we just have one day on this trip without incident?
“Ms. Ackerman,” she says to Lily. “We called your name earlier.”
“Lily?” I say, more as an accusation than a question.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” says the woman. “To offer you an upgrade. First class is available for your flight to Newark
today. We were just about to call the next passenger, but you’re here just in time.”
Of course Lily is getting upgraded. I almost forgot who I was with. Fine, whatever. As long as I get the bag with the neck
pillow and the acupressure eye mask and the hydrating face mist. My sister flips her hair and flaps her good wrist at the
woman. “Isn’t that sweet. Boy, I’ve had a long day, they’d have to delay the flight for me to tell you the whole story, but
I could sure use some pampering right about now.”
“Okay, ma’am. Let me just change your boarding pass here.”
“But,” Lily continues, “unless you have an open seat for Bridget, I think I’ll pass. You see, my sister needs me.” Then she
turns to me with a wide smile. “Besides, I can’t drink the champagne anyway.”
“And there she is, ladies and gentlemen.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Here, give me those bags and grab your crutches, Hopalong Cassidy.”
Grateful and relieved that I won’t have to manage on my own for six hours, I follow Lily down the aisle, stumbling along,
nearly taking a header into a well-coifed, cruise-tanned, older woman’s lap after getting my crutch caught up under her seat.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I mumble, feeling the sweat on my lip. This is harder than climbing a mountain. Ahead of me, my sister
is popping into every empty row, grabbing sick bags. She’s got a stack of them by the time we find our seats.
“Wow, okay. Ye of little faith. I don’t think I’ll need all those. I’ve gotten pretty good with the motion sickness this week. And I still have Mimi’s pills in a pinch. But thanks for thinking of me, hon.”
“These are for me,” Lily says, plopping herself down hard in the middle seat, saving the aisle for me and my bad leg, another
first.
“For you? For what?”
“Duh, morning sickness,” she says loudly enough for the passenger in the window seat next to her to look concerned and a little
queasy, as even thinking about vomiting can do to some people. Lily might need to share her bags.
After I maneuver myself into my own seat, a feat that includes hopping, grunting, and grabbing the seat back in front of me,
which is mercifully still empty, I dig out a few of my ginger candies and pass them over to Lily. “I’m sorry you don’t feel
well. These will help.”
“Oh, I feel fine. But I am pregnant, you know,” she says, pleased as punch. Morning sickness is a delight to her right now, a badge of honor. I hope she feels
the same way after the swollen feet, the heartburn, and the back pain. After what she’s been through, I’m sure she’ll love
every minute of it. “Just want to be prepared,” she adds.
Being prepared was never my sister’s strong suit—look at this trip—but if she’s going to start, now is the perfect time. I
lay my hand over hers. “Good thinking, Lil.”
I’m about to launch into a story about my own first pregnancy, how I avoided spicy foods because of an old wives’ tale about
it causing early labor—a story, by the way, that Lily lived through with me, but that feels funny and finally appropriate
to bring up again now—when the next person down the aisle hits my ankle with his carry-on. A hot pain shoots up my leg, bringing
me right back to the bottom of the ravine. I wince and catch my breath.
“Hey,” snarls my sister, springing to my defense. “Watch where you’re going. Broken lady here,” she adds, pointing at me. The oblivious traveler doesn’t even look back. “Shithead,” Lily grumbles.
“Thanks for having my back, or my leg, actually.”
Lily unwraps a ginger candy and pops it in her mouth. “I got you.”
The full emotion of that statement catches in my chest. It’s both incredibly gratifying—after all, isn’t that what I learned
this week, that I need to let someone do for me, that I can’t keep carrying everyone’s load, not if I’m going to find out
what Bridget wants to be when she grows up?—but also somewhat unsettling, a shift in this long-held balance. I don’t know
quite what to make of it right now. We both knew our roles, stayed in our lanes, Lily and me. And change, even good change,
can gum up the works. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, maybe even relish it someday. Wouldn’t that be something?