Chapter 30 Taking Flight
My upcoming IBWO study’s logistical details arrive in an email. I’m both thrilled at the prospect and achingly sad, as this will be the end. My bones are slowly healing and I’m hoping time and distance will do the same to my shattered heart.
I print off the long list of items provided in the email and hand it to Professor Montgomery, who skims it over and rubbing his hands together murmurs, “Oh, to be young.” He rummages through his desk drawers until he pulls out a compass.
Moving over to a chest of drawers, he extracts a small pack of matches in a sealed pouch, water disinfectant pills, some sort of pumping filtering device, and a beautiful pocketknife.
Staring at the growing pile, “Am I going into the jungle?”
Professor Montgomery laughs. “No, not really. But you spend days in the woods, and you always need your survival
pack just in case you can’t make it back to base camp by nightfall.”
He holds up a small pouch with a silver blanket inside.
“Voila! Emergency blanket. You probably won’t use half this stuff, but you need it just in case. Let me find my backpack and we can put everything in there. Oh, I’m getting excited just thinking about you down there searching for the most magnificent bird known to man.”
Professor Montgomery crosses off quite a few items from my list. For the rest, he tells me, I’ll need to head to Kaufman’s Army Navy. He calls ahead so they’ll be waiting for me when I arrive.
On the way home, my stomach keeps flipping and flopping and I feel dizzy. I was surprised I held it together at Kaufman’s, but I somehow managed by deep breathing as I retrieved the remaining items from the shelves. This is living and this is what I want. This is what I need.
When I get upstairs in the apartment, I call Vee to ask her to help me book my flight to Little Rock.
“So why do you need to go to Arkansas?” she asks for the fourth time. “As far as I know, there is absolutely nothing in Arkansas.”
“Please Vee,” I beg her. “Can you just do this for me and keep it a secret? I must do it. I’ll call you when I’m down there and give you all the details.”
“I don’t like this, not one bit,” she grumbles. But she books me my flight.
Before hanging up, she asks, “What about Jake?”
“I can’t do the fake fiancée thing anymore,” I say. “I’m trying to carve out a life for me on my terms—a real life. I’m absolutely scared to death, but I’ve learned that is what life is all about, so I need to just grit my teeth and do it.”
“I’m so happy to hear you aren’t crawling back into your little cocoon and shutting out the world,” she says. “But the two of you had something real. You must know that.”
“It was just a crazy dream.” I sigh. “When Jake’s mother called me a dirty, smelly Polack, that was when I finally understood there was no hope for anything real, and there never will be. I was deluding myself—maybe Jake was too, for a while—but now it’s clear.”
I can’t bring myself to tell her that Carol tried to get rid of me with a $10,000 payoff.
The pain and humiliation of that is too fresh.
And the thought that this is what Jake meant when he said he wanted to talk about our future when he returns, cuts deep into my psyche.
Maybe someday I will figure out how to put those words out into the world, but not now.
After hanging up, I reread the field study instructions. I email a girl named Kate my flight details as requested so they can have someone at the airport to pick me up. I’m set on my next step in my plan to live a life on my terms.
I try on my cargo pants that have zippers around the knee, so I can change them into shorts at a moment’s notice.
I check out the instructions for the water pumping device and the water tablets and hope that I won’t ever have to use the contraption.
I repack everything into the backpack Professor Montgomery gave me and the duffel bag I bought at Kaufman’s.
I fold up the vest with so many pockets I can’t count them all.
I add some socks and underwear and toiletries and my trusty winter parka.
I can’t believe it’s going to be that cold in Arkansas, but the list says warm gear, so I include my wool hat and mittens.
I flex my fingers, glad my wrist is now in a removable splint.
In two more weeks, I will have completely healed.
My ankle is a little weak and stiff, but it is out of the boot now and I’ve been walking daily to strengthen it.
Leaning back on my heels, I inspect the room. I will be leaving this lovely sunny place in two days. I check my list. My list, not Kate’s. The one remaining item on it is, Tell mama and papa.
I’m glad it’s too late to do it tonight—but tomorrow after work, I must.
The next day, I bid a fond farewell to Professor Montgomery, hugging awkwardly.
“People either love the deep forest or hate it. Remember Emma, when you are sick of being eaten alive by insects and the sweltering heat or getting rained on, I have a spot for you back here in my cozy office.”
I smile bravely. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
I practically run down the hallway to my parents’ door, petrified I’ll bump into Carol.
Remembering Jake’s advice to keep our story as close to the truth as possible, I sit with my mother and explain, “We’ve decided to call off the engagement.
Jake and I realized it just wouldn’t work—we come from two different worlds.
” I rush on, “I’m going to Arkansas for a bird project, and then I’m going to figure things out from there. ”
My mother reaches for my hand and tears slip down my cheeks, I rub them away with my hand. Even though it was a fake engagement, something about telling my mother starts my tears flowing and I can’t stop them. As they run silently down my cheeks, my mother just holds my hand.
“I’ll tell Babcia and Papa,” she finally says, gently. Then she gives me a squeeze and gets up to make tea.
“I hope you find happiness, Emma,” Mama says after we take our first sip of the tea. “You are a good girl and deserve that. Everyone has to break free to fully understand their destiny.”
I squint at her, I wonder if she is talking about my father or the church. “Really, did you ever do that?”
“Of course.” She says with a soft chuckle. “You don’t have to live by anyone else’s expectations—not your parents’,
not anyone’s. I remember what it was like to be young. Go—find yourself.”
I smile at her in wonder. No argument at the insanity of going to Arkansas to work on a bird project, no recrimination for failing to be a good fiancée, nothing about my family obligations.
Could my parents have been waiting all along for me to break out of my shell?
Waiting for me to grow up and start making my own decisions.
Back at Vee’s, I leave Arnie’s contract with a note that reads, “Please sign it and call Arnie.” On top of that, I place the envelope with the $10,000 check in it, and on top of that, I carefully place my Birds of Central Park guide.
My heart cracks wide open when I slip Jake’s diamond ring off my finger. I clutch my chest as if trying to hold my heart together. My finger feels strangely empty without the weight of the ring. How did I get so caught up in the lie?
Eyes stinging, I lay the delicate ring on top of my little pile.
My chest aches. I’ve read so many books that described heartbreak as actual pain, and I always thought it was hyperbole, but it’s not, it hurts.
The rest of my body feels normal, but the space in my chest is heavy and painfully so.
How can your heart, an organ that just pumps blood, feel?
This is a part of living I wish I never learned.
I look around Vee’s apartment. There is no trace I was ever there.
I took the rest of my stuff back to my parent’s apartment yesterday.
When I shut Vee’s apartment door, it feels like I’m shutting the door on this whole crazy couple of months.
I’m hoping one day it won’t seem so real but will feel like a dream and I will only remember the happy times.