Chapter Twenty #2
“Too late, I’m already putting in your information. I obviously know your birthday.”
I dug through my purse for my debit card, but Alex pushed it away.
“It’ll take too long to type out your card info when mine’s already in here. Consider it an early birthday present. You’re checked in and everything. You’ve got a middle seat, though.”
“You keep your credit card info in there with that shitty passcode?” Nina said.
“How do you know my passcode?” Alex replied. “What are you all standing around for?” He set off toward the terminal, and Greyson raced ahead, taking long strides across the concrete.
“Fine, I give in,” Nina said as she jogged beside me. “He can be Hot Guy from the Bar slash Hot Single Dad again.”
“I really prefer Hot Yacht Chef,” he called over his shoulder.
—
Palm Beach International Airport was not large by any means, but today it was packed with people.
As Alex, Greyson, Nina, and I passed through the automatic doors and into the air-conditioning, my hopes of finding Mia and Kitty faded at the sight of the crowded check-in counters.
Lines from almost every airline snaked across a gleaming white floor.
Tired moms bounced babies on their hips, dads wrangled toddlers, and groups of college students with gigantic backpacks looked around impatiently as they waited to check their bags.
I scanned the room for Mia and Kitty, hoping to find their faces in the crowd.
They were most likely at their gate already, waiting for the boarding process to begin, but maybe they’d gotten caught in the chaos out here.
After circling the check-in counters and finding no sign of either of them, I made my way to the back of the security line.
Alex, Nina, and Greyson stood beside me.
The line stretched far ahead, the roped-off area signaling the start of security seeming an impossible distance away.
“Are you going to make it?” Greyson asked as the line shuffled forward. “We’ve only got twenty-five minutes.”
Alex’s eyes met mine. “You have to try, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to try.” This wasn’t only about Mia and Kitty.
It was about me too. I needed them to be with me on my first birthday without Samson.
I needed to tell Mia how I felt about him so she would know I hadn’t forgotten.
I needed to tell her about what I’d gone through after my dad died so she’d know she wasn’t alone.
“Oh, she is absolutely doing this,” Nina said. “I was told there’d be an airport run, and I demand nothing less.”
The line kept moving, but it took forever to get to the first check-in point.
Nina, Alex, and Greyson stepped out of the line and wished me luck, and then I was on my own.
The TSA agent glanced at the ticket Alex had sent to my phone, and then waved me through.
The line to the body scanners zigzagged ahead of me, inching forward.
I only had fifteen minutes until Mia and Kitty’s flight boarded.
I searched the crowd, hoping to find anyone who could help.
Not the agent at the first checkpoint. She’d seen my ticket, so I couldn’t claim I was running late.
Then I saw her, another TSA agent heading in my direction, just beyond the roped-off edges of the line.
I leaned over the barrier to catch her attention as she walked past. “Excuse me!”
The agent turned to me with a blank expression.
“Please, I’m going to miss my flight,” I lied. “Can I skip ahead?”
The woman squinted at me, no doubt taking in my wet hair and baggy clothes. “Sorry, but if we do it for you, we have to do it for everyone who’s running late.”
Why hadn’t I asked Nina to come with me? Maybe she had blackmail on this random TSA agent. If this woman didn’t help me, I’d never get to Mia and Kitty in time. I’d done everything I could, and it still wasn’t enough.
But maybe I hadn’t done everything I could.
If lying didn’t work, there was always another option: the truth.
“Fine. I’m not running late,” I said. The woman shook her head and turned to go, and I started speaking as quickly as I could, the story spilling out of me.
I told her about Samson and how Mia and Kitty had shown up at my condo without warning.
I told her how they thought they’d ruined my summer, and how Mia thought it was her fault her brother had died, and how I had to get to her before she left.
“Please, I can’t let them go. Not like this.”
At the TSA agent’s unchanged expression, I figured I was about to get a one-way ticket to extra security. But then she rolled her eyes and lifted the barrier. “Oh, come on.”
“This is as far as I can take you,” she said, leading me to the end of a much shorter priority line. I thanked her and watched her walk away, wondering if she had nieces she loved too.
I slipped off my shoes at the body scanners.
Anxious, I waited as the people in front of me took out laptops and tablets, unclasped watches, and dumped loose change into bins, all of it slower than the Serendipity leaving port.
A man set off the scanner when he forgot to take off his belt, wasting precious time. Each second was agony.
Finally, it was my turn, and I breezed through the body scanner without incident. I snatched up my purse and shoved my feet into my shoes, finally in the terminal. I looked at my phone, and my pulse quickened. I only had three minutes.
Gate C11 was one of the farthest from security, of course. I broke into a run, earning scornful looks from travelers as I ran down the terminal, narrowly avoiding crashing into a few of them. Before long a stitch nagged at my side, making me wish I’d kept up the marathon training.
Just when I thought I could run no more, I arrived at the gate, frantically searching the crowd for Mia and Kitty.
The boarding process had already begun, and I hoped they weren’t among the passengers already on the plane.
Even though I’d know Mia and Kitty in an instant, I gave any teenage girl a double take.
But it was no use. I was too late. They’d already boarded the plane.
I sank into an empty seat at the gate. All this trouble, the money Alex had spent on my ticket, and nothing.
The girls would leave without even knowing I’d tried to get to them.
They’d think I didn’t want them to stay.
I’d have to take off work and book a flight to Raleigh.
And how long would that take? How many more hours would Mia walk around thinking Samson’s death was her fault?
How many days would Mia and Kitty spend thinking they’d ruined my summer?
And then I heard Mia’s voice.
I looked up, and sure enough there they were, racing to the gate with iced coffee in their hands. They didn’t see me at first. Out of breath, they stepped into the crowd beside the gate.
“I told you we didn’t have time to get coffee, Kitty.”
“Obviously we did have time, because—” Kitty caught sight of me as I approached. “Aunt Jo,” she said, her eyes immediately welling up with tears.
Mia’s face went through the same ripple of surprise as Kitty’s. “Jo? What are you—”
“I texted you,” I said. “I called a million times.”
“I didn’t want to talk,” Mia said. She glanced at the line of passengers boarding the plane, many of them staring at us, and tugged Kitty’s sleeve. “We have to go.”
“Don’t go,” I said. “Please. This is all my fault.” I thought of all the times Mia and Kitty had tried to talk to me about Samson, and every time I’d deflected them. “I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“No,” Mia said. “I ruined everything. Your summer, your—”
“Are you kidding? You didn’t ruin my summer. This summer would’ve been the worst of my life if you hadn’t shown up.”
Mia looked down at her shoes. Kitty, who’d started crying as soon as she saw me, cried even harder.
“But your list,” Kitty said. “We ruined it. You had to cancel your trip.”
“The list, the blog, it doesn’t matter. Look at all we did!
There are only two items left, and I promise, if you’ll forget about getting on this plane and come with me, I’ll walk into the first tattoo shop we pass on the way home.
I’ll get one right now. Twenty-nine items out of thirty is an A-plus.
And are you really going to make me celebrate my birthday alone? ”
“You won’t be alone,” Mia said.
“But if you leave, I won’t have you. I won’t have any family with me on Samson’s birthday.”
Only a few passengers waited to board the plane now, and Mia glanced at the line again.
“Kitty, you should stay,” she said. “But I can’t.
” Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she gave me a watery smile.
“Thanks for everything, Jo, really. But I . . .” Her voice trailed off as the tears came faster, and she shook her head, unable to speak.
She turned to go, but I caught her by the arm.
“Mia, it’s not your fault Samson died.”
Mia turned to me, her face pale. Kitty’s eyes widened as she looked between the two of us.
“I know it feels that way, but—”
Mia’s expression clouded over. “How can you know? You can’t possibly know.”
“Has your mom ever told you about the day our dad died?”
“Of course,” Mia said, swiping at her tears. “But I don’t see how—”
“Did she tell you I was the one who found him?”
Mia stilled. “No.”
“I was twelve,” I said. “Your mom and grandma weren’t home.
He asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him—some opera he’d shown me a million times.
I said no and went to my room. I don’t even remember what I was doing.
I found him when I went downstairs. Do you know how many times I asked myself what would’ve happened if I’d just watched that opera one more time?
I’d give anything to watch it again. I didn’t kill him, but I always felt it was my fault. ”
Mia pressed her lips together and looked away. “That’s different. When Sam asked me for a ride, I told him to take his bike. He said it would rain, and I told him . . . I told him to fuck off.” She whimpered, blinking back tears. “That’s the last thing I said to him.”
Kitty leaned her head onto Mia’s shoulder, and neither girl resisted me when I pulled them into a hug.
I stroked Mia’s hair as she dissolved into sobs.
The two of them were nearly as tall as I was.
And though Mia was right on the cusp of adulthood, as she cried on my shoulder, she was that little girl who used to lay her head in my lap again.
“We all say things we don’t mean,” I said.
“You can’t blame yourself, Mia. I blamed myself for a long time, and it was a mistake.
I stopped talking to people. I didn’t sleep or eat .
. . I had no one, except your mom. And she told me the same thing I’m going to tell you.
It didn’t fix anything, but it helped me start to forgive myself. ”
“What did she say?” Mia asked.
“You couldn’t have known, Mia,” I whispered.
“It’s not your fault, and Samson would tell you that himself if he could.
It was an accident, a horrible accident.
” I was crying now, too, as I held Mia and her guilt and Kitty and her sadness in my arms. “Samson knew you loved him. I know I don’t talk about it, but I miss him too.
And if you stay, we can talk about it. I want to talk about it. Please, stay.”
The three of us stood there, crying in each other’s arms for a long time, but if people were staring, I didn’t notice.
I didn’t care. When the girls finally pulled away, Mia looked around at the terminal in a daze.
Her eyes landed on the gate for their flight, and she let out a hiccupping laugh.
The flight was closed. The plane had already pushed back.
“Guess we don’t really have a . . .” Mia paused, a look of horror crossing her face. “Our suitcases! They’re on the plane! No offense, Jo, but there’s no way I’m wearing your clothes for three weeks.”
“Come on,” I said, pulling them to my sides. “We’ll pick a few things up from Target and go home. I’ll call the airline when we get there.”
Mia hesitated. For a moment I thought she’d changed her mind, but then I caught the hint of a smile.
“I believe you promised us a trip to the tattoo shop first,” she said.
“I was hoping you’d forget about that.”
“Not in a million years.”