Chapter 4
Four
hiraeth (n.): a nostalgic longing for a place that can never be revisited
Carly
“Carlotta. That’s a pretty name,” the young woman behind the United Airlines check-in counter says absently, viewing my driver’s license. But then her gaze meets mine, and there it is. The look. “Oh! Oh gosh. You’re—” Another glance at my ID.
I smile. “I go by Carly.”
“Right! Oh gosh. You’re her. You’re Carly Montgomery.
Well, duh, you know that! But oh gosh, my mom is such a huge fan!
I mean, I am, too, of course”—the dear girl’s cheeks now match the shade of her lipstick—“but my mom has led, like, I don’t know, four thousand of your Bible studies at her church, and—oh wow, I can’t wait to tell her you came through my station! ”
“That is so precious.” I scan her name tag fleetly, which is my one superpower.
“Can I just tell you, Nicole, you have absolutely made my day. Please do this. Please tell your mother I said thank you. Would you do that for me, sweetie? It’s only because of the faithfulness of women like your mother partnering with me that I get to do what I do. ”
And I mean every word, no matter how many times I’ve recited this.
“I will!” she says, bobbing her head as if she doesn’t know what to do next.
Despite the line of travelers stacked up behind me, Nicole’s earlier efficiency has ground to a halt.
I extend a hand to retrieve my ID. For a moment, she stares blankly at my empty palm.
And then, “Oh! Oh, right, here you go. Enjoy your flight, Mrs. Montgomery. Looks like it’s right on time. In fact, you better hurry!”
I’m still aware of her gaze boring into my backside as I wheel my carry-on away.
Fortunately, my PreCheck status means I get to go zippity-zip-zip-zip right on by the row of people waiting to go through the standard screening procedure.
Still, this is so unlike me. I never allow such thin margins for navigating an airport, even a puny one like central Oregon’s.
Then again, rarely have I been given the chance to immerse myself so deliciously in my daughter’s world. So, no regrets.
“Just lock up when you leave,” Lucy called this morning as she headed out the door for work.
And I meant to leave, I truly did. Except, somehow I instead found myself barefoot, hair piled high with a scrunchie, wiping down her kitchen from top to bottom.
Gloriously, stupidly content. Investigating where she kept all her cleaning things and what brands she likes to use.
Matter of fact, nothing in a blue moon has topped off my emotional tank like leaving a gleaming kitchen for my sweet baby girl to come home to.
For a moment there, I even permitted myself to imagine a different sort of life, one in which I’m able to do things like this for her more often.
To really be there for her and Chase. I’d have done more—windows, dusting, bathrooms—but couldn’t chance it.
Where is the line between helpful and intrusive?
How am I ever to learn? I can’t exactly gain gobs of practice navigating my relationship with Lucy while five gargantuan states separate us.
Maybe, too, I hadn’t wanted to leave because her apartment smelled so—oh, how to describe it?
Fresh? Compelling? Like grapefruit and rosemary .
. . and something else. Life. Yes, that’s it, it smelled alive and grounded and relevant.
A potted rosemary plant trailed from the kitchen windowsill.
But what was the source of that citrusy scent?
Eventually I spied a small frosted-pink bottle sitting pretty on a wall shelf.
Several skinny sticks poked out of it, and they smelled amazing.
Immediately, I texted Lucy.
Lu! Where can I get some of these scrumptious sticks that smell like grapefruit? What do you call them?
Her message came right away.
Reed diffuser. Little blue shop called All the Feels has them . . . on Birch next to the shoe shop, Haute Diggity Clog. You’ll love it, it’s totally twee. Say hi to Poppy if you go!
So I went. And let me just say, downtown Charity Falls is the definition of quaint.
Vintage lampposts. Western-fronted shops.
Mounds of flowers still blooming. And oh, did that bright-blue gift store ever deliver on the promise of its name!
Glass chandeliers dangling from a tangerine ceiling, floral-accented everything, softness and scent wherever I turned.
Must be what Lucy meant by tweety or whatever.
It was a silly thing, inexplicable, really, my overwhelming need to make that small purchase even at the risk of missing my flight. But at least now I carry the essence of my daughter’s life home with me.
But as I near TSA PreCheck, my reverie breaks.
The area’s roped off—currently unavailable, according to the sign.
Well, isn’t this a nice how-d’ya-do? I have to wait through that line over there?
Good gravy, can I even make my plane? Why this suddenly brings on a childlike desire to cry or call my mother, I have no clue. Get a grip, woman.
Never again will I be able to call my mother.
Here I am on the far, far edge of middle age—and by that, I mean that if middle age were a pirate ship, I’m hanging ten off the end of the gangplank, staring at the murky waters below.
Yet somehow, in moments like this, I feel I’m a sixty-year-old orphan. And I hate it.
I’d known my emotions were tender again today, but good heavens.
Rolling to a stop behind a young father wearing one of those front baby carriers, I crane my neck, hoping for a peek at the little darling.
But it’s only an itty-bitty lump, curled and tucked away out of sight as if still in the womb.
The woman with him, presumably the mother, wears athletic clothing and grips the hand of a toddler girl with flyaway honey-blond curls.
Man alive, are those curls out of control.
How precious! But golly, what a chore. Nothing I’d ever been tasked with when Lucy and Vanessa were small and cherubic.
Both my girls were blessed with thick, dark hair and only a hint of wave.
And Mikey . . . Well.
I draw a ragged breath. How strange that I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the mother and child’s tightly locked hands.
How fleeting is the stage when our children desire to fold their gorgeous, tiny fingers within the perfect fit of ours.
When we can keep them safe. Or at least believe we can.
I’ve never, ever pretended to have it all figured out, this mothering thing.
In spite of everything, though, I sense Lucy’s love. What grace. What a thing. Then again, she doesn’t exactly appear burdened by our physical distance to the extent her father and I are.
My heart pinches.
The young dad rests a hand tenderly at the small of his wife’s back, and just like that the four of them are connected.
A daisy chain. Is it wrong to want this for Lucy?
Good Lord, this unrequited yearning slices deep.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine a day when one of my daughters would have to parent her child alone.
Or that I’d have no choice but to stand by watching.
I dig out a fresh tissue. Honesty is brutal.
Had a part of me hoped I’d arrive to find Lucy still looking for a hand to hold?
Not that I wish unhappiness on her—goodness, never, never that.
But I suppose I’ve been expecting my daughter to become, I don’t know, disillusioned, I guess, with her quirky little town.
But there’d been no sign of that. Not one single speck of a sign. Shoot.
At last, the security officer motions me to his booth. I snag two empty plastic tubs and place them on the conveyor belt. Man, oh man, have I chosen the wrong day to wear knee-high lace-up boots.
***
Hallelujah and amen, I may have worked up a little extra dewiness all over, but never have I been so stinkin’ grateful to be tucked into my little me-sized space on a plane. So grateful, in fact, that I will not complain about a thing for the rest of the day. You can hold me to that promise, Lord.
Starting with my seatmate.
I smile a quick hello to the older woman while she gets assistance from the flight attendant in hoisting her carry-on into the overhead.
So what if she’s large-boned and drenched in Shalimar, which means I’ll have a full-on headache by the time I change planes in Dallas?
It’s alright. There’d been a time I wore perfume without a second thought.
Of course, that was back in the era of stockings and shoulder pads.
The latter in which I’d perhaps been the nation’s most enthusiastic participant.
I shudder to think of all my earliest video curricula still circulating out there on YouTube, testifying to every one of my fashion hits and misses.
Thank you, Jesus, for your sovereign wisdom in putting this lovely woman and me together in 12E and 12F. I’m sure you have your reasons, and you better believe I’ll make it my business to find out why before we land.
But first I’d better respond to at least one of my assistant’s texts while I still have Wi-Fi so she doesn’t think I died.
Whatever it’s about, my poor Yvonne—and I always refer to her quite affectionately as my Yvonne, she’s so, so precious to me—will be pacing her home office like a mama quail.
Good thing while I was at All the Feels it occurred to me to get the dear girl some bath salts.
On closer inspection, none of her messages appear as time sensitive as she made them out to be. Except one. A decision I can’t keep putting off.