Chapter 5 - The Geography of Discard
The sky over the municipal airport in Columbus was the color of a wet slate shingle by three in the afternoon. A low front had moved in from Lake Erie, dragging with it a thin, misting rain that turned the tarmac into a sheet of dark oil reflecting the orange sodium lights along the perimeter fence.
I stood at the ticket counter of the regional commuter terminal, holding Maddie by the strap of her overalls while Ellie stood with both feet planted on the scale where the luggage was weighed.
The ticket agent was a young man with a thin mustache and an identification badge that read D. GIBSON - CUSTOMER SERVICE. He took the three blue passports, checked the expiration dates, and then looked at the pink court decree I had laid on top of the counter like a shield.
"Traveling alone with two minors, ma'am?" he asked. His tone was not suspicious, merely routine, the voice of someone who had watched six hundred mothers with overstuffed diaper bags try to navigate the security gates before the afternoon rush.
"Yes," I said. "The decree grants sole legal and physical custody. The certified seal is on page three."
Mr. Gibson didn't turn to page three. He looked at Ellie, who was wearing her yellow rain slicker and holding Barnaby by his one remaining ear, her brown eyes tracking the baggage conveyor belt as it carried a black duffel bag through the rubber flaps into the dark interior of the building.
"Where are you headed, young lady?" he asked Ellie with a professional smile.
"To the sheep," Ellie said clearly. "They have black faces and they don't care about trucks."
Mr. Gibson looked at me, his eyebrows lifting slightly. "Sounds like an adventure."
"It is," I said.
He tagged the two green Samsonite bags with long white adhesive strips that read DUB via YYZ / KEF. The bags were heavy—forty-four pounds each, filled with wool sweaters, three pairs of sturdy boots, every photograph of my mother and my grandmother that I could pry out of the albums in the hall closet, and the small tin box containing my grandmother’s fifty-dollar bills.
"Gate four," Mr. Gibson said, handing me three boarding passes that were crisp and thin as dried onion skin. "Boarding starts in twenty minutes. You have a two-hour layover in Toronto, then five hours in Reykjavik before the morning hop to Dublin. Safe travels, Mrs. Bennett."
"Ms. Clark," I said automatically. "The name on the decree is Nora Clark."
He glanced down at the computer terminal, tapped the backspace key three times, and handed me three new boarding passes with the name corrected in black pixelated ink. "My apologies, Ms. Clark. Have a good flight."
As we walked toward the security checkpoint, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket.
It wasn't a call. It was a voicemail notification.
I had blocked April’s number, but the county carrier service still routed blocked voicemails into a separate folder at the bottom of the log, like dead leaves settling into a storm drain after the grate had been cleared.
I stopped beside a plastic bank of vending machines near the entrance to the metal detectors. Maddie was trying to stick her fingers into the coin return slot of a soda machine, her small yellow boots squeaking against the polished floor.
"Ellie, hold your sister’s hand," I said.
I pulled out the phone, pressed the key to access the carrier mailbox, and held the receiver to my ear.
The recording was twelve minutes old.
The background noise was loud—car horns, the wet hiss of tires on asphalt, and the sharp, rhythmic click of a windshield wiper that needed a new blade.
"Nora?"
It was April. Her voice was not the light, sarcastic voice she used at family dinners to mock her mother’s flower arrangements. It was high, ragged, choked with the kind of breath that comes after running three miles in wet clothes.
"Nora, if you’re listening to this... don't answer Grant. Don't answer my mother. Richard... Dad had an episode in the parking lot. The paramedics are there now. They think it’s his heart, Nora. He was screaming at Grant so loud that two nurses came out with a wheelchair, and then he just... he went down against the bumper of the Lexus."
A long pause on the tape. A horn blared in the distance.
"Nora, the baby isn't Grant's," April said. Her voice dropped into a whisper that was almost lost beneath the sound of the rain against her windshield. "The doctor did the measurements. Tessa was already pregnant in February. Grant was in Arizona. And Nora... Grant had a vasectomy three years ago. Right after Maddie was born. He never told you, did he? He never told anyone. He did it so he wouldn't have to have any more kids with you, and now... now he’s sitting on the curb outside the pavilion with the rain coming down on his linen suit and he looks like... he looks like he’s ninety years old."
Another hitch in her breath.
"Mom is trying to find your lawyer. She called Sterling’s office from the ambulance. She wants them to file an emergency injunction to stop you from taking the girls. She said... she said the girls are the only Bennetts left now. She said Grant has to have them back so the family doesn't disappear."
A wet sniffle.
"Nora, please don't hate me. I didn't know. I swear on Grandma’s Bible I didn't know about the surgery. If you’re still in town... just... just be careful. My mother is out of her mind. She’s coming to your house on Elmwood right now."
The recording clicked off with a mechanical beep.
MESSAGE SAVED. TO DELETE THIS MESSAGE, PRESS SEVEN.
I looked at the phone. My fingers were warm, steady, resting against the plastic casing.
I pressed seven.
MESSAGE DELETED.
"Mommy?" Maddie asked, tugging on the hem of my coat with her free hand. "Is that Daddy on the telephone?"
I looked down at her. Her small face was smudged with chocolate from the muffin my mother had given her at the kitchen door, and her hair was sticking out in two wild tufts behind her ears like the wings of a baby owl.
"No, Maddie," I said, crouching down so that I was level with both of them. "That was just a wrong number."
"Can we get the ginger ale on the plane?" Ellie asked. "The kind with the little green can and the plastic cup with the ice?"
"You can have two cans," I said. "One for the takeoff, and one when we’re up in the clouds where the stars live."
I took the phone, walked three paces to the metal trash receptacle beside the gate entrance, and dropped it into the opening. It hit the plastic liner with a soft, hollow thump, disappearing beneath an empty coffee cup and a crumpled sports section from the morning paper.
"Come on, girls," I said, taking Maddie by the right hand and Ellie by the left. "We have to show our tickets to the lady in the blue jacket."
May you like
We walked through the metal detector. The machine gave a low, polite chirp of approval.
Beyond the glass doors of Gate Four, the small twin-engine commuter plane was sitting on the apron, its propellers turning slowly in the mist like two giant silver coins spinning on an oily table.
