Her afternoon had been spent moving mountains. Buying a ticket, picking kids up early from school, cancelling afternoon music lessons, arranging rides for the rest of the week—trying to explain to everyone why she was leaving. A whirlwind of purpose driving her forward, keeping her busy, and her mind off the fact that her only sister was not in this world anymore.
It didn’t seem possible.
“Aunt Clare?” Paige had asked, bursting into tears almost immediately. Cameron and Ryan had followed her lead. Holding it together while her children had an opportunity to fall apart…that was the toughest mountain of all.
Next was walking out the door with a suitcase before their father was able to get home. “I’m so sorry,” Eileen told her kids at the door.
Paige, who was only fourteen and had only that morning been fighting with her little brother, gave her a hug. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll be fine.” She stepped back and placed her hands on both Ryan and Cameron’s backs. “I’ll make some mac-n-cheese. We’ll do homework in the dining room.”
Eileen stared for a moment at her daughter, suddenly taller than she remembered, then gave them all a kiss. “Thank you. And I won’t be gone long,” she said, although she had no idea if that was even true. “Sara’s driving you for the rest of the week. You have her cell?”
“I’ve got it. You’re going to miss your flight,” Paige warned her.
“Okay, you’re right.” The tears she’d been fighting all afternoon welled up. “It’s just…” Her voice cracked, and all three of her kids rushed in and held her.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Cameron said.
She took a breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Okay, yes, I’m okay.”
“And we’re okay,” Ryan added.
Eileen nodded. “Okay.” She picked up her tote and lifted the handle on her rolling suitcase. “Your father should be home”—she checked her phone for the time—“in three hours.”
“We know… Go,” Paige said and kissed her cheek.
She didn’t want to leave them, but she gave them each a big hug, kissed their foreheads, then turned and walked out the door. “I’ll call you when I get to the airport,” she said over her shoulder as she dragged the case down the porch steps and out to Eric’s car.
He would be stuck with hers for several more days.
Since she’d made it out of her house about two hours before rush hour, the expressway out to the airport had been practically empty. Denver International Airport, with its peaked white canvas roof, was a beautiful mini range of snowcapped mountains sprouting up in the middle of the Colorado plains, still mostly surrounded by nothing but grass. Only a few hotels and restaurants had staked claims. Suburban homes and neighborhoods were beginning to creep closer every year; and once the enormous convention center was completed, Eileen imagined this once-remote architectural wonder would eventually get dwarfed and hemmed in.
She parked Eric’s car out in the economy lot, rode the shuttle bus with her suitcase and tote into the terminal, collected her boarding pass at the automated kiosks, and blew past security with no more trouble than an extra look at her camera and the one extra lens she’d packed safe into the center of her case. By the time she was on the concourse checking the departure board, she had an hour to wait before her flight boarded.
It occurred to her that she was both hungry and thirsty. She’d been in such a storm of activity all day that food had never even occurred to her. She turned away from the departure board, set on investigating the restaurants in the B concourse, and came face-to-face with her sister.
The Tattered Cover, one of Denver’s independent bookstores, had a small airport shop. She stood staring into it. Other passengers browsed the shelves. One man and his son were purchasing something at the counter, and two women stood at the center display table picking up copies of Clare’s newest book, A Perfect Life.
Eileen watched the two women as they noted their common interest. She couldn’t hear them, but the woman in yoga pants and a sweatshirt said something to the woman wearing the gray pantsuit. They both furrowed their brows, shook their heads, then took their copies of Clare’s book to the register.
The news about Clare’s death was out.
Eileen pulled her suitcase to the display table and stared down at the stacks and stacks of hardcovers with her sister’s name. In true sibling rivalry fashion, it had been years since she had either purchased or read one of her sister’s books. At the beginning of Clare’s career, it had been easy to support her. A struggling writer, no different from the millions of other struggling artists, Clare had lived in a run-down one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with three other starving artists, subsisting on canned soup and apples. Back then, confident in her choice to put her camera down and pursue accounting as a major, Eileen had enthusiastically read every story draft her sister sent her. Most of them had been mediocre at best, and not a single one of them was ever accepted for publication.
Until one day, one was.
Eileen picked up her sister’s latest book and got in line behind the two other women clearly eager to read Clare’s last words.
After she paid, with another credit card that made her hold her breath, the cashier asked her, “Would you like a bag?”
Eileen forced a smiled. “No thanks.” She picked up her book, along with the free bookmark, and opened her tote. “Shit,” she said.
“Excuse me?” the cashier asked.
“Um, nothing. Sorry. I just realized—thank you,” Eileen mumbled and headed with her suitcase out past the other passengers, who were now congregating around the table displaying Clare’s book. Back out in the concourse, she opened her tote again and saw the large envelope addressed to Eric still in her bag. “Damn it,” she whispered. She’d meant to leave it on his desk in his office before she left.
She pulled out her cell phone and checked the time; she still had forty-five minutes before they would start boarding her flight. She opened her recent calls list and tapped Eric’s contact. With her phone pressed to her ear, she stuffed Clare’s book in her tote next to the envelope and began walking toward the restaurants on the other side of the concourse.
“Hello?” Eric answered.
“Hey,” she said, adjusting her bag on her shoulder and taking the phone back into her hand. “I’m at the airport.”
“Everything okay? You made it on time?”
“Yes. I actually have a few minutes, so I was going to grab a bite.”
“Is that Mom?” Ryan’s voice echoed in the background.
“Yes,” Eric said, his mouth aimed away from the mouthpiece. “She’s at the airport.”