Leaving North Carolina

 

June 17, 2013

There were storms in Charlotte. I watched her watching me in the mirror, smiling, knowing, not wanting to look at herself. I couldn't stop my tears, so I walked with Dad around the grounds. When I came back in I said goodbye. A hug and a kiss. A promise to be back in July with the dog. A big smile. Tears and numbness. Dirty jokes in the car, the familiar feeling of a headache and the smell of the highway, the rubber steering wheel, the sound of the engine and the cars passing by. Exhaust and greyness. 

At the airport I drank an expensive beer and tried to write. Detroit by way of Charlotte. Storms in Charlotte, all planes to Charlotte are being held. There is a woman in a sash and a tiara at the gate. Ms. North Carolina. 4 inch heels, smooth tan skin, and she won't stop talking. She demands to know what is going on. Will she miss her connection? She has to get to - Colorado I think? There is a pageant. She represents several charities. She is a decorated marine. She tells a story about bumping her head on a stealth aircraft, such a space cadet! It didn't even really hurt, she wouldn't have known it happened at all if it weren't for all the blood. 

We shiver together on the plane - the AC is cranked and little icicles are forming around the vents. The man on the aisle offers her his jacket. She whispers to me that the babyfaced boy in fatigues one row up is a moron for wearing his uniform on the plane. Sure way to tell its his first time out she says. 

Hours pass. Passengers scatter. Ms. North Carolina gets a direct flight to Denver and clicks off down the concourse. I read the July issues of Garden & Gun and Martha Stewart Living cover to cover.

Finally the storm breaks and we make the 20 minute flight to Charlotte. Steam rises off the city and light streams through the heavy clouds, glowing like the gates of Heaven. I think about my mother and her childhood, and my grandparents and how I imagined them in Heaven when they died. The deep aloneness I feel with my mother's voice hidden away somewhere inside of her expands and contracts. 

I drink more expensive beer in the Charlotte airport and wait. The flight to Detroit is dark and quiet. I feel the cool grainy plastic on my face pressed against the curve of the window. I listen to a stranger's voice dipped in honey singing songs of childhood in the south, and I clutch my gin and tonic and cry.