Lessons

The plane leveled out, suspended for a few long seconds in the air above the runway. I felt intolerable anticipation rise in my chest, disproportionate to the moment. We surrendered to gravity, the wheels thumping rhythmically against the tarmac.

My seatmate snorted herself awake as we lurched. She was an elderly woman in a purple church hat who had snored throughout the trip. A black notebook lay in her lap, clutched firmly in her wizened hands. Her grip hadn’t loosened once in the last two hours.

She chomped her lips loudly and shoved past me to look out the window, enthusiastically declaring her happiness at being home.

“You from here?” she turned to me, breathing sourly in my face. I tried not to be too obvious with my grimace.

“Yes.”

“I’m Veronica. Grew up here. Retired to Florida - love Florida! What were you doing in Florida?”

I was unreasonably frustrated with her question. She would expect a digestible answer, like “for work” or “to visit family.” Her casual snooping got the best of me. My usual scripts were inadequate, and I had run out of the adrenaline required for flattering improv.

“I was in Florida because I thought I was going crazy. I’m back because I’m scared my husband is.” My voice wobbled, sabotaging the flippant effect I was going for.

“Husband drives you crazy, then goes crazy when you’re gone. Sounds like marriage!”

She cackled. I returned to staring out the window, willing the wave of emotion to recede from my chest. There was a long row of planes already waiting to disboard.

“Oh. He’s one of those, is he?” When I didn’t respond, she smacked her notebook against my shoulder. Her unrepentant face cracked into a cheeky smile when I turned incredulously.

“...he’s easily overwhelmed.” I finally said, rubbing the sting from my shoulder. “It’s hard for him when I’m gone.”

“I see. You’re his mommy.”

“That’s rude,” I said, kind of shocked. She shrugged.

“Sounds like you keep his life running. What’s he doing for you?”

“He loves me,” I said. It sounded rehearsed.

“He’s a great dad,” I tried again.

“But?” Veronica said. She snapped the elastic on her notebook carelessly.

“But?” I shot back.

“He loves you, but…? He’s a great dad, but…? You didn’t go to Florida for the sunshine!”

She leaned back in her seat, pleased with herself. My whole body stung, a wave of prickly pain creeping up my throat and stinging my eyes. I was furious with her.

“Why-” I started to say. Why are you doing this, I was going to ask, or maybe why do you care. But what I really wanted to ask was how did you know. The shock of being perceived rendered me inarticulate.

I accidentally met her eyes. My face and compulsive privacy don’t coexist well, and she could see that I was near tears.

“He loves me, but he cheats on me. Not really. He sends money to these girls online. But he’s always wanted an open relationship, so I guess it’s my fault for thinking marriage would change that. He says he’ll stop, but then he gets unhappy with me and does it again.”

Now that I was talking, Veronica was silent. She raised her eyebrows and nodded for me to go on. The plane crawled forward a few hundred feet and I waited until we stopped swaying before speaking again.

“He did it again and I just felt...crazy. I felt condensed, more me occupying less of my body. I forgot to eat or sleep, I was too filled with bank transactions and dates and conversations. I kept turning them over and over looking for the error in the equation. What was it this time?”

I barely remembered that frantic, hazy week. Towards the end of it, my four-year-old daughter had found me in the middle of the night, crying into my spreadsheets. “You’re sad at your ‘puter all the time,” she told me. That’s when I’d booked the ticket.

Veronica tapped me with the notebook, lighter this time but clearly impatient.

“That’s only half the story, woman. Tell me about the crazy!”

“Oh, he just...hasn’t worked since I left. Even though my parents are watching my daughter. And he’s been calling a lot of my friends. Complaining about me. Making people uncomfortable.”

I trailed off, vaguely frustrated again. I was just too frazzled to accurately convey the frantic edge to my husband’s actions. I continued.

“I’m so sick of it. I ask him to just tell me when he’s upset, but he shuts down. I never know there’s a problem until later.”

“That’s because he doesn’t want to stop,” Veronica said. It hurt to hear her say it so bluntly.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. I looked out the window and wiped my eyes. The line of planes was shortening. We were nearing the airport.

“No, I don’t think you’re listening,” Veronica snapped. She reached over and grabbed my chin in her twiggy fingers, turning me towards her. Her eyes were brown and rheumy.

“He. doesn’t. want. to. stop.” She enunciated each word. “He’s thrilled with your marriage, because he is doing exactly what he wants.”

She held my chin for a long second, glaring into my eyes. I yanked my head away and wiped my cheek against my shoulder.

“But, at least he’s a good dad?” she asked glibly. She slid her eyes at me sideways, watched my reaction.

I must have cringed. Veronica raised her eyebrows, something triumphant in her expression.

“Well- 95% of the time he’s fine with her. Some of the time he’s great.”

“And the other 5%, he needs his mommy to keep him under control.” Veronica said it viciously.

“Parenting is hard." I recite my script without passion. "I get overwhelmed sometimes.”

She just looked at me. There was a tuft of gray hair at her chin, but she was unselfconscious.

“Baby, you and I both know this is over. Turn off your brain and listen to your body. Does it feel right?”

The tears spilled over. Veronica made a sympathetic noise and rhythmically thumped my back with her hard palm.

“I hate him,” I said. My whole body drooped like a tissue dampened with tears, crumbled and worn out and sad. I cried all the time, but usually in private, with my torturer, hoping my misery might entice him to change.

“If it feels wrong, it is wrong.” Veronica said firmly.

In a surprisingly agile move, she snapped off her seat belt and stood abruptly. Veronica shoved the black notebook into my hands. The cover felt lush- thick and smooth and buttery.

“Take this. Open it before you see him. I’ve had enough of this recycled air,” Veronica announced. Her whole body swayed as the plane rocked into place for the final time. Before the fasten seat belt sign had been turned off, she was marching up the aisle.

“Ma’am!” A flight attendant called, but then the bell dinged and everyone stood. I strained to see, crouching on my seat to peer over the heads of the other passengers. I spotted Veronica’s little purple hat as she slipped past the first-class curtain.

“What the hell,” I muttered, hopping down from the seat. My movement caused the notebook she had given me to fall to the floor. I stooped to pick it up.

It really was beautiful. I stroked my fingers over the cover, slipped them beneath the elastic bind. Finally I flipped it open, admiring the thick, creamy pages with their tidy, narrow lines. I rifled through them and a small envelope slipped from the pages onto my lap.

The line was shortening as the other passengers deplaned, but all thoughts of leaving had fled my mind. The envelope looked like it held a check. The very thought felt ridiculously presumptuous. Still, I slid my finger under the flap, ripping the envelope unevenly. My stomach flipped.

It was a check. I glanced around instinctively, but of course no one was looking at me. The most patient of passengers were exiting their rows, pulling their luggage from the overheads, and treading up the aisle.

I slipped the check out and drew in a sharp, quick breath. Two thousand dollars. I looked at the written amount and gasped aloud, eyes darting back up to check the numbers again. Twenty thousand dollars.

My eyes found the “pay to” line and by that time, it was all too much. I flung the check and envelope onto Veronica’s vacated seat, then snatched it up again. It was impossible, but there it was.

My name.

In a bound notebook, in a sealed envelope, in blue ink. My name. Written on a check for twenty thousand dollars. Twenty. Thousand. Dollars.

My heart pounded. I leapt up, thinking to catch Veronica, but of course the plane cabin was empty. I disembarked hazily, collected my luggage, and stumbled outside into the weak evening light. My mother pulled up in her silver car, rolling down the back window as she approached.

My daughter smiled at me through the open window. Grandma had curled her hair and fastened it with a polka dotted bow. When I opened the car door and leaned down, she grabbed my face in her little hands and kissed me. My mother laughed and said “aww!”

The tears started again, but they felt different. On the plane, they had prickled and stung with the bitterness of truth. In my mother’s car, they brimmed over in soothing waves, trickling down my cheeks, catching in the dimples of my smile.

“Are those happy tears, mama?” My daughter asked.

“They are, ‘cause I’m so happy to see you. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, mama. I made a card for you cause Daddy said you worked so hard, you had to take a break in Florida. Then I went to stay at grandma’s because I was too much work. Do you feel better now?”

“I feel a lot better now,” I told her. “And you’re not too much work.”

“I ‘unno,” she said with a shrug, an eye roll, a brilliantly luminescent smile. I reached for her hand and she took it, squeezing three times as soft as butterfly wings.

I sighed and let my head roll back against the seat. I was floating in a daze, my senses whiting out, leaving behind a thrilling buoyancy. Everything was going to be fine. I stared peacefully past the curtains of my eyelashes. My fingers, without consulting my mind, reached into my carry on and slipped out the notebook.

“Mama, what’s that?” My daughter reached for it with a dimpled hand, patting her fingers softly against the black cover. “Oo! It’s soft! Like cake!”

I laughed.

“I guess it’s kind of powdery, like frosting,” I agreed. We stroked the notebook together, making silly tracks and running our fingers into each other like bumper cars.

“No, Mama. It’s like cake because cake makes me happy and so does this notebook!”

I laughed and cracked the notebook open again. Pulled a pencil from the ever-present detritus in the bottom of my purse, I began to write.

LESSONS

1. If it feels wrong, it is wrong

2.

The second line awaited my future insight, full of confident promise.

“Mama,” my daughter asked. “Are we going to see Daddy?”

I met my mother’s eyes in the rear view mirror.

“Not tonight,” I told them both. “We’ll sleep at Grandma’s.”

And tomorrow, we would go to the bank.